Here’s another great video from Cargospotter, showing aircraft landing (or trying to) during a storm at Dusseldorf. The crosswinds were pretty darn hairy, as the number of last-moment go-arounds shows. It’s worth watching in full-screen mode.
I think it’s a good thing most passengers inside airliners aren’t aware of how tricky some of the approaches are. If they were, they probably wouldn’t fly any more!
Peter
I once took a flight from London to Jakarta which made three attempts to take off, but aborted each time. The flight was finally postponed to the following day. On boarding next evening I was struck that the majority of the passengers hadn't shown up. It transpired that they were all members of a special course to overcome their fear of flying; and that flight was intended to be their graduation…
In Ye Olden Dayes when I flew B-52s for a living. . .we did crosswind landings up to 20-22 degrees off center. The Wheel Trucks turned to align with the runway, and the pilots would crab it in.
Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCUHQ_-l6Qg
As a one-time member of the New Mexico Civil Air Patrol and having learned to fly in a Piper J3 while still a CAP cadet, a few of those landings made my hair stand on end.
Brings back a lot of memories.
I noticed that during one of the first landings, while the aircraft is fighting wind from their starboard side, debris closer to the camera blows across the runway from their PORT side. Something more to complicate the pilots life…
I think someone has pirated your link to the airplane landings. The video is a documantary about white extremists in South Africa
@Anonymous at 3:18 PM: Clear your cache, then close and restart your browser. That should fix the problem.