From highflyer@alt.net Tue Mar 12 13:35:57 2002 Path: cygnus.com!enews.sgi.com!telocity-west!TELOCITY!hub1.nntpserver.com!peer1-sjc1.usenetserver.com!usenetserver.com!news.alt.net!usenet From: highflyer Newsgroups: rec.aviation.student Subject: Re: Close call today.. Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2002 10:39:22 -0600 Organization: Highflight Aviation Services Lines: 34 Message-ID: <3C8E2F3A.179B9A9A@alt.net> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.7 sun4m) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: cygnus.com rec.aviation.student:205957 Ed Sharp wrote: > > I think this whole thing was complicated by the fact that the x-wind > gust and the touchdown seemed to happen simultaneously -- I didn't > have time to register that the gust had happened before the wheels > hit... > > Hope my little brush with disaster helps someone! Ed, I am not saying that you did this. It is merely something that I have observed in flying with a number of different pilots, all certificated and many with hours measured in four or five digits. I have noticed many nosewheel pilots who make a beautiful crosswind approach. They get down to the point where they round out and flare and seem to forget they were doing a crosswind landing! When the nose starts to come up the crosswind correction goes away. This action APPEARS exactly like a "gust" at the last second before touchdown and leads to EXACTLY the result you described. When the crosswind correction comes out the airplane immediately begins to drift downwind. Since the CG is ahead of the main gear ( if it wasn't the airplane would sit with the tail on the ground ) the sideways motion caused the nose to swing downwind when the mains first touch the runway. Of course, the rudder to correct this is "uncoordinated" and feels funny! I don't know why pilots do this. It is like they change modes when the start to flare. "Ok, the crosswind is over, lets land now!" I have seen many pilots seriously endanger runway lights this way! :-) -- Highflyer Highflight Aviation Services