10 replies to this topic

[Phil Hackett]

If you're scared of flying don't watch this! You have been warned!

 

There was a 6 hour streaming on YouTube this last Sunday at London's Heathrow airport. This video is a very condensed version of that stream. There were heavy crosswinds, 38 knot gusts and and average 20 knot tailwind.

 

Some of these landings were definitely "E" ticket quality. In particular, in my opinion, the Iberian Airlines landing at 7:43 is right up there with any amusement park ride. There is another landing where the plane is on the ground (all wheels touching) and the pilot elects to abort and takes-off again! (36:50)

 

[Dave Crevie]

Saw a clip of that on the International news. Way back when, there was a hot dog stand on York Road on the west side of O'Hare field in Bensenville, IL.

Besides being a great place to park and play slap-and-tickle after dark, it was a great place to watch planes coming in to land. On windy days, you couldn't

get into the parking lot, it was too full of rubberneckers watching the planes. If I remember, the place was originally called "The Spot". Later it was "Yorkies",

which has since moved farther south to Grand Avenue. Now you can't park anywhere on the roads around the airport. You will be rousted by men in black

Explorers. 

[Phil Hackett]

Rarely are weather conditions so bad at LAX that the planes are performing "challenging" landings. At Hawthorne Airport (Jack Northrup Field- HHR) you see the small planes doing all sorts of dipsy-doodles and crabbing but nothing like the big planes being tossed around.

 

There are a number of viewing spots around LAX: the most famous is the In-N-Out about 200 yards from the north runway; the parking lot on top of the CVS store about 1/4 mile north of the In-N-Out; the El Segundo Park above Imperial Highway, south side of the airport. No one from the "black SUV" crew seems to care but would guess there's active surveilance in place.

[Dave Crevie]

The TSA surveils every square foot of every international airport, from the ground and space. They are there, you just don't see them. You're not

supposed to. 

[Pappy]

Those look like normal everyday landings for me in my Pitts. Everyone of them was an adventure.

 

The worst landing I ever saw was when I was flying air taxi and charter back in the 70's. There was a travel club called Travel A Go Go based at the Cincinnati Airport. They had a Convair 880 which looks like a Boeing 707. One day I was sitting at the end of the runway ready to take off waiting for them to land. The pilot dropped it in from about 20 feet high, when it hit the runway it bounced back up. Then the pilot pushed the nose down and it hit the runway and bounced back up. It looked like a bucking bronco going down the runway, each end hitting the runway and bouncing back up. It did that about four times and each time one end hit, rubber and smoke would fly all over the place. When the pilot finally got it stopped and taxiing he radioed the tower and said "tower tell that little plane taking off to watch for rubber on the runway, I think we might have blown a tire". Blown a tire hell, I think he blew all of them. 

[Bill from NH]

Butch, do they ever retread plane tires or do they always have to be new?

[Pappy]

I really don't know but I can't imagine the FAA letting an airline use retreads. I never saw one for a small plane either.

[Mike K]

Butch, do they ever retread plane tires or do they always have to be new?

 

Bill-

Commercial aircraft tires are almost always retreads. My understanding (from working at airports for the last 40 years) is that the carcass can be retreaded several times before they are discarded or recycled.

[Pappy]

As picky as the FAA is on commercial aircraft I would never have thought they would allow that. Didn't the Concord have a tire disintegrate and cause a fatal crash when pieces of the tire went into the engine? I'm sure as soon as they have one come partially apart in the wheel well and cause it to jam up they'll stop allowing them to use rethreads.

[Bill from NH]

Mike, thanks for the response.

[Dave Crevie]

Mike is correct, they do use retreads. Not sure if all tires on a commercial jet can be, or if some must be new. But having known several commercial

jet mechanics in my life ( usually drinking buddies ), I have seen a lot of accident reports where damage to the undercarriage was caused by an

exploding tire. The official accident report (French version) on the Concord was that it ran over a metal strip dropped from the plane that had left

just before it. The tire shredded, but also picked up the metal piece which was most likely the piece that punctured the fuel cell. The fire was blamed

mostly on the tank wall being too thin, as well as the rubber lining too thin to seal the puncture. Our NTSB report said the real damage was from the

tire and steel bead. 

 

I have a cousin, my Dad's nephew, who was in the Navy at the end of Viet Nam. He was stationed on the Nimitz, and has lots of stories of fighters coming

in to land. One I found especially funny was a jet jockey slammed in blowing both tires on the main gear. He missed the wires and bolted. Someone made

the decision that the jet would do less damage to the flight deck if it bellied in instead of coming in gear down. Of course, the arresting gear won't work that

way, but they were hoping it might snag a wire, or at least grind to a halt on it's own. It didn't. It spun 180 degrees and slid off the deck *** first. They saved

the pilot, but didn't bother salvaging the jet.