Is that even possible? Seems like the pilot applying full left yoke just to keep the wing down!

Is that even possible? Seems like the pilot applying full left yoke just to keep the wing down!

Well, as shown, it is possible.Visibility? Good enough; you can see the terminal. Crosswinds? Sure, they were correcting for the crosswind as evidenced by the roll (not ground) spoilers and the heavy movement of both roll spoilers and inboard and outboard spoilers. Gusts? Most likely. Wet runway? You betcha.Apart from the heavy rain pour there's nothing unusual about that. Perfectly normal, albeit critical operation.

It's quite normal when there is severe gusting and when the a/c is at its cross wind limit to use this technique. Done it many many times. It is imperative to keep the wing stable during the take-off run and it helps the pilot maintain control during rotation as he/she/it turns the nose into wind. That's why upon rotation you see a lot of washing "blowing in the breeze!"vololiberista

The pilot is just correcting for the crosswind by moving the ailerons into the wind (looks like it would cause tons of drag on one side though). The wind does look really strong and gusty though. I would kinda understand why someone would be scared from an inexperienced passenger point of view. That's an amazing vid I have to say though!! Seemed like it took a week to get to Vr

The 767 has a 29 knot crosswind limitation for normal operations, but it can probably handle more than that, for example, the Triple Seven has a demonstrated 38 knot crosswind capability, and that's got a much larger tailfin area, so would probably weathercock more.As far as that take-off on the video is concerned, the visibility looks good enough to be able to see the centreline from the cockpit, so long as the wipers and rain repellent is all in order, and all the P1 needs is to be able to see the centreline, since the co-pilot is calling the speeds for him/her. Although there quite clearly is a storm overhead, it's worth remembering that rain always seems a lot more fierce when you are in a moving vehicle (even a car doing 30 mph), so at 120 knots going down a runway it will really appear to be a lot wilder than it actually is.It's no carefree take off for sure, but if it had been at all dangerous, they'd have probably never even have got the go ahead to enter the runway, much less the clearance to start rolling, because if rain could prevent take-offs, there probably wouldn't even be an airport at Manchester in the UK LOL.It's a cool video though, thanks for posting the link to it.Al

It's no carefree take off for sure, but if it had been at all dangerous, they'd have probably never even have got the go ahead to enter the runway, much less the clearance to start rolling, because if rain could prevent take-offs, there probably wouldn't even be an airport at Manchester in the UK LOL.Al

Many years ago in the early 70's I witnessed a KLM a/c take off from London Heathrow in a mega hailstorm. He arrived at the hold, and was told to wait but entered the runway anyway and took-off without clearance. (does the story sound a little familiar?)KLM were later fined by the UK CAA. The pilot of that a/c continued his carrer eventually becoming chief training pilot and ending his life and 100's of others at Teneriffe. Yes the very same!!vololiberista

Thanks for the reply guys. It's just that I have never seen such a take-off like in the video.

Many years ago in the early 70's I witnessed a KLM a/c take off from London Heathrow in a mega hailstorm. He arrived at the hold, and was told to wait but entered the runway anyway and took-off without clearance. (does the story sound a little familiar?)KLM were later fined by the UK CAA. The pilot of that a/c continued his carrer eventually becoming chief training pilot and ending his life and 100's of others at Teneriffe. Yes the very same!!vololiberista

Aah, good old Captain Jacob Van Zanten. As you probably know, in addition to being one of KLM's chief pilots, he was also their 'poster boy' for many 1970s KLM adverts of the kind that typically appeared in the Sunday Times Magazine, which may possibly have accounted for him leading something of a charmed life at KLM.Legend has it that when the Tenerife crash happened, KLM staff initially tried to contact him in order that he might head up the investigation into what happened, but of course he could not be contacted because he had died in the crash after having mostly been to blame for it occurring in the first place, in commencing his take off without clearance to do so. To be entirely fair, some of the blame must be laid at the airport controller's door too of course, but it was undoubtedly largely Van Zanten's fault. That was a very sad day for civil aviation.One of the adverts with Van Zanten in it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KLM_Magazine_that_contains_Captain_Jacob_Veldhuyzen_Van_Zanten.jpgThe headline on the ad is particularly ironic, since it was Van Zanten's desire not to be late and run out of hours which led him to take off without clearance at Tenerife.Al

As is usually the case, some of the folks making comments on the video simply should be not be allowed near a computer, or at the very least learn to engage their brains before setting fingers to keyboard... :(

It's no carefree take off for sure, but if it had been at all dangerous, they'd have probably never even have got the go ahead to enter the runway, much less the clearance to start rolling, because if rain could prevent take-offs, there probably wouldn't even be an airport at Manchester in the UK LOL.Al

I think you are putting too much faith in humans there. That was dangerous. They could have waited. Thunderstorms pass within a couple of minutes. They could have sat on the ground for ten minutes for the cell to pass and made a takeoff that would not have gotten 57000 hits on youtube. Was not waiting ten minutes on the ground worth the risk they took? With that much aileron into the wind, the spoilers looked significantly deflected for most of the takeoff roll. Spoilers are used to dump lift after landing. You don't want to be dumping lift and adding drag all along your takeoff roll, especially with a severely cluttered runway. They nearly ran out of runway. At 0:56, notice the big white marking on the pavement that goes by. That, to me, looks like the 1,000' marker of the far end of the runway. As they started the rotation, unless there was a displaced threshold, they only had 1,000' feet left. I'm pretty sure they used up a lot more runway than they calculated they were supposed to. So these guys decided to stack all the cards against themselves by taking off in wet runway conditions that compromise their ability to stop the plane in an abort, by taking off with raised spoilers so that they ended up severely extending the takeoff roll and further limit the distance available to stop the plane, and by taking off in conditions that increase the likelihood of a power loss, which may have required them to abort the takeoff. They decided to put all three of those factors together. Smart. No, not dangerous at all, right?This is probably what it would have looked like from the outside on a clear day.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z3ZducPWFQ

Thunderstorms don't always pass in a couple of minutes, they can and do sometimes stay overhead for a long time, since storm cells of any considerable magnitude are rarely lone occurrences. What is more, since the crew have to report having received their current weather info before they can copy a clearance, it is likely that they would know if the storm activity was going to be gone in a couple of minutes or not, and they will have based a decision to go on that information. Airlines want to go in their allocated slots if the weather is deemed safe by the airport and the crew, and if they have been cleared to go, then they will certainly go if it is safe to do so, even if it might not be a simple calm weather take off.That may indeed be the 1,000 foot end marker we see on the video, but without a clearer look it is not possible to confirm that it actually is, it could just as easily have been a 500 foot division marker in the middle of a long runway, the disappearing buildings of the airport are no proof that it is nearing the end of the runway either, there are plenty of airports where the runway extends a long way from any buildings on the field. But, if we imagine that it is the 1,000 feet to go marker, then it is not necessarily dangerous to be on the ground when passing it if you already know you have flying speed, since it is effectively already a given that you will get airborne, and so long as there are no terrain or obstructions ahead to worry about, then it is no big deal.In actual fact, it is prudent to keep rolling and build some more speed margin before rotating in such gusting storm conditions, since hauling it off the deck right on a low rotation speed when there can potentially be microbursts in the area (likely in a storm) is not a good idea. So quite opposed to being dangerous, it looks to me like the crew were actually being wisely cautious in getting some extra speed in their pockets before lifting off. Of course, any video entitled 'crazy dangerous take-off' is going to get some hits, and that explains why it has got a lot of views, but youtube perhaps more than anywhere else, may certainly be regarded as the home of uninformed comments about aircraft from people with little or no knowledge of aerodynamics and flight procedures; all the comments about 'having the spoilers deployed' from people who clearly have no idea what they are talking about are an obvious indication of that.Naturally, one cannot roll along the runway for too long passing the take off speed, as the tires and hubs will overheat and risk a blowout or plug melt, but in rainy conditions with probably some aquaplaning going on, there is considerably less friction generated, and so less heat applied to the tires, in addition to which, the water itself will dissipate a lot of heat. In such circumstances, you can keep the tires on the deck a bit longer and build some more speed. Taking off into conditions like that, I would have certainly wanted some airspeed to spare as a safety precaution, and that is all the crew are doing on that video.What you are seeing on the wing, is the spoilerons being held to keep the wings level in a crosswind component, not the spoilers dumping lift on both sides. Which means there will be a fairly extended take off roll, but if there is room to do that and it has been decided that it is prudent to gain some airspeed safety margin over and above the norm, then it is in no way dangerous, since the moment you center the yoke and rotate with the spoilerons level, both your wings are developing full lift and what is more, you've got some speed to spare. Of course we can't see the elevators, but if I was to take a guess, I would say the thing was being deliberately held down to assist in tracking straight and to delay the lift off as it belted along the runway. You can see how well it is tracking the centreline if you watch the flap canoes against the edge of the runway.To compare it to the video of the Russian cargo aircraft is questionable at best. For one thing, we simply do not know how much runway that airliner had left to spare, moreover, that Russian transport aircraft is actually capable of taking off from an unprepared strip (like many Russian aircraft, it was designed that way for tactical military purposes based on the notion that it might have to do that if runways got knocked out), so it could theoretically have rolled off the tarmac onto the grass and still been okay thanks to its well-spread pressure footprint and low pressure tires, although in truth it was probably just stupidly overloaded with either cargo or fuel and it is a rather dodgy take off.Al

Thunderstorms don't always pass in a couple of minutes, they can and do sometimes stay overhead for a long time, since storm cells of any considerable magnitude are rarely lone occurrences. What is more, since the crew have to report having received their current weather info before they can copy a clearance, it is likely that they would know if the storm activity was going to be gone in a couple of minutes or not, and they will have based a decision to go on that information. Airlines want to go in their allocated slots if the weather is deemed safe by the airport and the crew, and if they have been cleared to go, then they will certainly go if it is safe to do so, even if it might not be a simple calm weather take off.

Then you can wait as long as the storm persists. There is nothing worse than regretting you started a takeoff roll. Slot time, wheels up time, EDCT time, beer time, whatever, if it is not safe, it is not safe. And if it is not safe to takeoff, a slot time is no excuse to execute the takeoff. ATC will work with you. If it is unsafe to takeoff, then all you have to do is tell the controller that you'd like to wait for the weather to pass. The controllers will get you a new time. I've done that plenty of times. It is not the end of the world to miss your release time. I taxied out to takeoff last sunday morning going to of all places, Chicago O'Hare. Guess what started as the rampers disconnected the towbar? A cell moved on top of the field. We taxied out, ground advised us the 737 ahead was waiting for the weather, and asked what would we like to do? I said we'd sit right behind them. To heck with the release time, safety and not looking like an idiot transcends that. So we sat, probably for 10 minutes or so. And so did everybody else that taxied out behind us. We all waited. When it started to let up, we took off. Simple as that. And I assure you that takeoff was not youtube worthy.

That may indeed be the 1,000 foot end marker we see on the video, but without a clearer look it is not possible to confirm that it actually is, it could just as easily have been a 500 foot division marker in the middle of a long runway, the disappearing buildings of the airport are no proof that it is nearing the end of the runway either, there are plenty of airports where the runway extends a long way from any buildings on the field. But, if we imagine that it is the 1,000 feet to go marker, then it is not necessarily dangerous to be on the ground when passing it if you already know you have flying speed, since it is effectively already a given that you will get airborne, and so long as there are no terrain or obstructions ahead to worry about, then it is no big deal.

There's no such thing as a 500 foot division in the middle of a long runway. The markings only exist at the first 3000' of each end of the runway. You have fixed distance markers each 500' with the 1000' marker being the big solid block. What you saw first was big and solid enough to most likely have been the big solid 1000' marker, with the first 500' marker flashing by shortly afterwards. The first four 500' markers at the 3000'-1500' distances would have been narrower and placed closer to the centerline and out of view of the passenger windows. The only thing that would have been acceptable was for there to have been more pavement beyond the threshold of that runway. And there could very well have been if there was a displaced threshold there. However, if there was not, there is no way to say it is not necessarily dangerous to be on the ground at that point. Because each of our takeoffs is planned to have an engine fail at V1 and then either stop the plane on the remaining runway or continue the takeoff with the remaining runway. There is no way that we could have met that criteria in a jet if the 1000' marker is going by and we are still just starting to rotate with both engines still working no less.

In actual fact, it is prudent to keep rolling and build some more speed margin before rotating in such gusting storm conditions, since hauling it off the deck right on a low rotation speed when there can potentially be microbursts in the area (likely in a storm) is not a good idea. So quite opposed to being dangerous, it looks to me like the crew were actually being wisely cautious in getting some extra speed in their pockets before lifting off. Of course, any video entitled 'crazy dangerous take-off' is going to get some hits, and that explains why it has got a lot of views, but youtube perhaps more than anywhere else, may certainly be regarded as the home of uninformed comments about aircraft from people with little or no knowledge of aerodynamics and flight procedures; all the comments about 'having the spoilers deployed' from people who clearly have no idea what they are talking about are an obvious indication of that.

If there are microbursts in the area, why are you taking off? Wisely cautious would have have meant that he was waiting in the pad.

Naturally, one cannot roll along the runway for too long passing the take off speed, as the tires and hubs will overheat and risk a blowout or plug melt, but in rainy conditions with probably some aquaplaning going on, there is considerably less friction generated, and so less heat applied to the tires, in addition to which, the water itself will dissipate a lot of heat. In such circumstances, you can keep the tires on the deck a bit longer and build some more speed. Taking off into conditions like that, I would have certainly wanted some airspeed to spare as a safety precaution, and that is all the crew are doing on that video.

Those adjustments are made in the takeoff computations. If the conditions are wet, snowy, etc., penalties are taken in the allowable takeoff weight, and V speeds may also be adjusted. There is no reason for a pilot to build in his own bit longer speeds. If a pilot goes off the reservation like that, than he just makes invalid all the published data he and dispatch used to calculate the margins of safety for that takeoff.

What you are seeing on the wing, is the spoilerons being held to keep the wings level in a crosswind component, not the spoilers dumping lift on both sides. Which means there will be a fairly extended take off roll, but if there is room to do that and it has been decided that it is prudent to gain some airspeed safety margin over and above the norm, then it is in no way dangerous, since the moment you center the yoke and rotate with the spoilerons level, both your wings are developing full lift and what is more, you've got some speed to spare. Of course we can't see the elevators, but if I was to take a guess, I would say the thing was being deliberately held down to assist in tracking straight and to delay the lift off as it belted along the runway. You can see how well it is tracking the centreline if you watch the flap canoes against the edge of the runway.

Whether the spoilers are raised as a result of the spoiler lever being pulled or the yoke being turned, the end result is that there are spoilers raised. And that is one of the cautions of a takeoff in crosswinds in an aircraft which uses spoilers for roll assist. Placing enough aileron input to raise the spoilers will cause a degradation in takeoff performance in these aircraft, even if it is only one side that is up.

To compare it to the video of the Russian cargo aircraft is questionable at best. For one thing, we simply do not know how much runway that airliner had left to spare, moreover, that Russian transport aircraft is actually capable of taking off from an unprepared strip (like many Russian aircraft, it was designed that way for tactical military purposes based on the notion that it might have to do that if runways got knocked out), so it could theoretically have rolled off the tarmac onto the grass and still been okay thanks to its well-spread pressure footprint and low pressure tires, although in truth it was probably just stupidly overloaded with either cargo or fuel and it is a rather dodgy take off.Al

I understand that the Russians design all their military aircraft to used unpaved, and battle damaged surfaces, but was the dirt off the end of that runway at that airport meant to be used? Could they have knocked down lights or signage, or gotten a wheel caught on something?

The use of roll spoilers is already accounted for in the pre-takeoff calculations. After line up the WX radar tilt is adjusted upwards to check for CB cells. Predictive windshear, if equipped, can also sound before takeoff giving an additional layer of safety. The new HK Chek Lap Kok airport is well known for katabatic windshears from Lantau island if there's a southerly wind. (I know this is HKG because I saw the original video from a Russian site)Avient DC-10 out of Lagos, great light show.

People say "Happiness is V1 outta Lagos" :(