I actually think that was a very good landing under the circumstances. Of course I don't know what the actual crosswind component was, but some things I do know is that there was a lot of gusting and there very obviously is a fairly severe wind gradient, as evidenced by the varying wind nose on the microphone and the intermittent movement of the distant treetops, which are probably a good two and a half miles away at least, yet you can still see them being blown about significantly in all kinds of different ways.

The foreshortening effect of the zoomed video from that angle probably contributes to it looking like there is a lot of violent movement, although clearly it was a bit of a fight to get the thing tracking straight. However, as every pilot knows, it is the proper procedure to get a bit more speed on when you know you are coming down through a wind gradient so you don't run out of airspeed when you get low down in the lee of some trees on the peri track or whatever. And the fact that he or she (unlikely with Emirates I know), has not used full flaps in order to keep the throttle response a bit better, which is another clue as to the dodgy wind on approach. The touchdown is right on the money in where the mains hit the runway, but unfortunately the pilot has left it a bit on the late side to kick the yaw out, although that could have easily been because the wind dropped in the last 20 feet of the descent, which would be more a case of bad luck than bad piloting, and even then, there is no pod strike or anything which looks like it would really have caused any damage, those things are built to occasionally come down hard. It happens.

As they say, any landing you can walk away from... And any pilot who says he or she has never made a less than brilliant landing is either a liar or just hasn't had enough hours yet.  

On 10/7/2017 at 8:30 AM, HighBypass said:

The title of my post in Hangar Chat with the same video.

I have merged the videos and moved your topic to the FlightSim and Aviation video forum.  Please post your videos in the proper forum in the future and duplications like this will not happen.

Thanks for the clarification Jim. I mistakenly thought it was more suited to Hangar Chat, but indeed it is a video about aviation. 

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/video-of-harrowing-airbus-a380-landing-goes-viral/ar-AAteF3b?li=BBoPWjQ

Wow, the pilot was sure dancing on the rudder pedals!

"Walked away from another one, Simon..." :)

PIC was so busy wiping the seat he completely forgot to clean up the aircraft wing as he taxied home!

Co-incidentally the Emirates A380 driver that landed us at NZAA on Monday morning got the career-best award for the Hard Landing.

There was no wind shear to speak of, I was watching the approach from the onboard tail camera and thought: Jeez feller, there go the piano keys, when are you going to decide to put it down??  He did eventually, and it made my teeth click.

Try making your teeth click by bobbing on the chair as you read this and you get the idea. Them Airbusses must be quite strong.

 

The winds were tossing around that A380 like a feather.  Landings like that are very uncomfortable for the passengers, hard on the hips.  Looks like the pilot was just on the edge there, just at the aircraft's crosswind limits.

John

7 hours ago, rjfry said:

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/video-of-harrowing-airbus-a380-landing-goes-viral/ar-AAteF3b?li=BBoPWjQ

This was posted here more than a couple of days ago, IIRC. Nevertheless, admiration for the aircrew's skills.

Looks like quite a stable approach in a strong crosswind from the right, with the pilot kicking in some left rudder just before touchdown to straighten out the crab and then a larger amount of left rudder again immediately after touchdown as he probably felt the nose was swinging to the right in the crosswind. Unfortunately it seems he overdone the rudder a bit the second time which resulted in the series of swings to the left and right. As this was a named storm the winds were almost certainly very strong and, when you consider the huge surface area that the big A380 tail presents, the weathercock effect of any strong crosswind must be considerable. Although I might not have very much liked being a passenger near the tail during that landing, I think the video probably shows commendable skills by the pilot flying in conditions which I suspect must have been very close to the aircraft's crosswind limit. Kudos to the strength of the A380 airframe too - just look at those tailplanes shaking!

Bill

Notice how the clip is speeded up from touch down to exaggerate the left and right movement.

15 minutes ago, paulnd said:

Notice how the clip is speeded up from touch down to exaggerate the left and right movement.

Didn't notice that, but a powerful telephoto lens is being used which also exaggerates the movement effect by making it appear that it is taking place over a short distance whereas in reality the aircraft has almost certainly traveled a couple of thousand feet at least in those first few swings. Still wouldn't have been too pleasant for the passengers though!

Bill

This is the third posting of this landing.  I will merge with the others.