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WR269

Weather at YBBN

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edit: just realised that picture might be a takeoff?

 

He said that it was a landing. It does kind of look like a crosswind takeoff, eh?


Thanks,

Kevin L

 

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Well, in this picture, the flaps look less than in the other picture and the nose is a lot higher than in this picture, which is why I thought it might be the same plane taking off later. I guess we'll have to wait and see what Ro says.

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Wow, and the prop folks looking even more dramatic. Not taking into account what the perspective does though. http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/ :O

 

I thought that the Ryanair B737-8AS that landed right after us was far more dramatic as seen here http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/, we both let out a "Whoa c#!p" on the flight deck when we saw him landing, quite a mighty wobble very close to the ground. But yeh, one of the advantages of the ATR is that you can perform wing into wind crosswind approaches. Quite the sight no?

Is that the retro paint on your Airbus?

Indeed St. Colman is our 'Retro-Jet'... B) ^_^

 

Ronan, that link under the picture of you landing, do you always flare that much?

 

edit: just realised that picture might be a takeoff?

Well, in this picture, the flaps look less than in the other picture and the nose is a lot higher than in this picture, which is why I thought it might be the same plane taking off later. I guess we'll have to wait and see what Ró says.

Okay, so I've probably a bit of explanation to do here. Indeed that was the landing, the high pitch attitude and odd looking flaps needs a bit of explaining, so here goes:

 

To put the approach in context as I mentioned, the winds were 90 degrees off at 33knots, gusting 38 which is the maximum legally allowed x-wind for an A320, but also in addition to that, we were in the hold for about 12 minutes before that, waiting and seeing if conditions would improve,(No one had landed for about 45 mins at the time we commenced our approach, and we were number two). While in the hold we were informed that the winds from 2,000' down to 700AGL were 90 degrees off, at 55 gusting 60 knots. So obviously, between airfield level and 700' there was going to be a pretty significant sheer of 30 knots. We weren't aware of how fast this sheer would occur, previous aircraft hadn't passed on this message. As such we selected to carry out a Flaps 3 approach and landing. This has a number of advantages.

 

Typical procedure for going around is to select maximum engine output by selecting TOGA thrust and raising the flaps one notch to help with climb performance, however if going around due to windshear, you don't touch the configuration, only raise the gear. This meant that that if we got ourselves into a situation where we needed to get out of there fast, if we were in flaps full config we would have had much more drag and this would have limited our ability to quickly escape the danger. We would have been in quite the critical situation if say an engine had failed and we had just lost 15-20 kts airspeed due to windshear, so it can be safer to perform a landing with a lower than typical configuration.

 

Being honest, we weren't actually expecting to land, we we pretty sure that we were just going to fly it down to near the runway, realise that the approach was beyond my capability to land or exceed our legal limits, and that we'd just really be going around and diverting to Shannon straight away. We were not going to be attempting a second approach, if this one failed, we were out of there.

 

Furthermore, as the range of speeds between max and stall is greater with Flap 3 when compared to Conf Full, and the approach speed not all that much faster, this allowed us to carry more speed on the approach safely. This helped us with the wind shift that we experienced, but also had the added effect of reducing our crab angle, making the approach slightly safer/easier and giving me better view of the runway. As you can imagine, with a 60 knot crosswind with 700' to go, my view of the runway was going to be obscured with the window frames and the FO.

 

In addition to this, there is less drag in Conf 3 over Conf Full. We had reached a point where we had been holding for 12 minutes, we had experienced a stronger headwind en-route than expected and fuel was becoming something that we needed to given a bit more consideration to. Despite having elected to load a fair bit extra fuel at our departure aerodrome, fuel levels were becoming a concern, if things didn't go our way. Based on some rough calculations, if we had diverted after the approach, we would have arrived at SNN with 50-55 mins fuel in the tank. This is typically more than enough, plenty really, however, if we had had to hold there, which was also a distinct possibility as not only had all the traffic from Dublin for the past 45 mins been diverting to SNN, but also Cork airport had been out of limits for well over an hour, so all it's traffic would be headed SNNs way, and SNN has it's own scheduled traffic waiting to land, traffic trying to get into SNN was going to be a factor. Add to that the fact that weather conditions weren't much better at SNN, we could have easily been looking at some holding there, or perhaps even a go around. Had that happened and there been a long hold near SNN followed by a go-around, we could have been looking at declaring a Mayday Fuel Emergency. For that reason, Conf 3 landing made better economic use of our fuel we had on board.

 

The use of Conf 3 does have the effect of increasing attitude on final approach, so that's the first reason for high attitude on touchdown.

 

The deployment of the spoilers on the A320 creates quite a significant nose up moment, so that was the second reason.

 

The third reason was that at that moment we were hit with an extreemly strong gust of wind, easily over 45 knots, knocking our nose back, and giving us quite the scare on the flight deck. 99% boredom and 1% sheer terror and all that... :rolleyes: B)

 

So hopefully that's enough of an explaination to put your minds to rest over whether it was a takeoff or landing and why the Flaps looked a bit different and give a bit of an insight into the thought process that goes into operating a flight safely.

 

Regards,

Ró.


Rónán O Cadhain.

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And now the Ryanair considerations. Same as Rónán's, but, after looking at the fuel gauges, reverted to 'we NEED to land!'. Couldn't resist. :P :blush:

 

If you had had the A321, would the flaps3 landing still have been an option in regard to the danger of scratching the tail? Just out of interest.

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If you had had the A321, would the flaps3 landing still have been an option in regard to the danger of scratching the tail? Just out of interest.

No, I wouldn't consider the use of Conf 3 in an A321. If the same gust had happened in a A321, she'd likely be parked up in Hangar 6 right now getting fixed up by our engineers, and I'd be sitting in an office getting the grilling of my life... :mellow:

 

Regards,

Ró.


Rónán O Cadhain.

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If I could wish, keep up those detailed reports. They are very interesting to read. We only see you folks like on this video and, while assuming some of the management steps, don't always catch the details.

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If I could wish, keep up those detailed reports. They are very interesting to read. We only see you folks like on this video and, while assuming some of the management steps, don't always catch the details.

My pleasure, glad I could give some insight.

 

Pretty impressive video, really shows the disruption CB clouds can cause to operations.

 

Regards,

Ró.


Rónán O Cadhain.

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So hopefully that's enough of an explaination to put your minds to rest over whether it was a takeoff or landing and why the Flaps looked a bit different and give a bit of an insight into the thought process that goes into operating a flight safely.

 

That was a very good explanation, a lot longer than I thought you would write! It's always good to get explanations and info from real world pilots about the things they do.

 

Regarding the A321 in this situation, would you have diverted immediately to SNN or tried an approach first, knowing that you would likely have to go to SNN anyway? It seems a bit pointless to try the approach and use up fuel, when you're 99% sure you'll have to divert anyway.

 

Thanks again,

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I appreciate the explanation Ronan, it's always interesting to hear unusual reports like these.

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Thanks, Ronan. It is always fascinating reading your detailed explanations of such things!


Always remember to Find Your FUN!

-Bob

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Regarding the A321 in this situation, would you have diverted immediately to SNN or tried an approach first, knowing that you would likely have to go to SNN anyway? It seems a bit pointless to try the approach and use up fuel, when you're 99% sure you'll have to divert anyway.

That depends, I probably would have held a few minutes more to see if it calmed down a bit more, but ultimately, if the wind came with in my own personal limits for the A321, then I'd have no issues carrying out an approach. It should of course be noted that I'd hold lower personal limits for the A321 than I would with the A320, so it may not have come within my limits within the time frame we held for holding/diverting, and we would have diverted, but if I was capable of getting into DUB without having diverted, then I would have at least tried. There's no harm in trying, just don't get tunnel vision, keep your options open and have a sound backup plan. In general, most pilots impose lower limits on themselves with the A321, simply due to the fact that it can be a very tricky aircraft, even sky-gods can find it a handful at times, but that's no reason not to attempt a landing, and then go around if it get's above you.

 

Regards,

Ró.


Rónán O Cadhain.

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Well, in this picture, the flaps look less than in the other picture and the nose is a lot higher than in this picture, which is why I thought it might be the same plane taking off later. I guess we'll have to wait and see what Ro says.

 

The Retro coloured A320 in the first link was landing during the very stormy weather on the date mentioned

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The Retro coloured A320 in the first link was landing during the very stormy weather on the date mentioned

 

Yes, I know, Rónan cleared that up on the previous page.

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Yes, I know, Rónan cleared that up on the previous page.

 

Forgot to include, that all the photos are mine

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