Joe is here and combs through 78ta regularly. <grin>
There's so many sharp folks on here, I'm often too late to
help on non 301 issues.
Thanks for the comments on the folks that also make their
livings like myself.
What you wouldn't know about larger airplanes is their stability,
a few of the wilder "looking" vids were the more middle sized
aircraft - which believe it or not - is more preferable in a lot of
ways.
There's no direct counterpart to automobiles that is a crosswind
landing... maybe..., drifting has some similarities.
From my perspective, I prepare my plan of attack well away from
the runway. If you notice in a few cases the aircraft had no trouble
lifting right back off... which is what we do in these cases.
In a crosswind, or gusty conditions we keep the machine in a much
higher energy state and forgo the crowd pleasing squeaker...
We have guidance for each aircraft design as to practical and maximum
demonstrated limits to what the machine can do.
Not apparent in the videos, but strongly felt in the controls is the
very smoothing effect of getting close to the runway, this is called
ground effect. While I'm sure just about no one would find the whys
on that interesting, every pilot knows it's coming.
Not that we don't love the attention, but here's the pilot perspective
related in "Trans Am" terms.
Many of us drive fairly ordinary cars to the grocery, work and transporting
the kids and friends to and fro. But in our special time we all love the thrill
and handling of our TA's. TA's give us feedback from the road and what's
happening through the suspension. The throttle, steering and design give
us such an ease of driving , we feel like we have mastered the road and what
comes next. This is a much different experience than a lot of daily driven autos,
that while decent - just aren't the same experience.
Airplanes, large jet airplanes, are much like Trans Am's in that they give
tremendous feedback and are exceptionally responsive to even slight
pressures. That kind of machine gives you a confident feeling in approaching
a more needy situation. I know my machine, collect a plan, verify the design
abilities, and almost always can keep from getting folks excited.
So I guess I could say this... looks a lot worse than it really is...
Captain Joe Richter of 21 years of airline flying, 35 years of flying total.
(I was 14 when I started)
