This pilot does have certain parts of his anatomy made of steel. Is this even legal?

 

Speaking of metal, flying over the city might be even more dangerous. We are talking lead not steel.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn this is a standard procedure.  

Edited March 23, 20206 yr by domkle

7 minutes ago, domkle said:

I wouldn't be surprised to learn this is a standard procedure.

I thought about that too, but wouldn't it still be safer to head out back over the water and climb and reposition, basically the direction where you came from on the approach? Just look at how clearly you can see the waves through the cockpit windows and also the sink rate warning. There's little to no room for error and they seemed to be at bank angle limit. Bank a tad too much that close to the water and you're done...

2 minutes ago, threegreen said:

I thought about that too, but wouldn't it still be safer to head out back over the water and climb and reposition, 

Then open yourself to things that travel quickly through the air and go 🎆

Thankfully he was only doing it in the sim.

Oh... wait... 😎

Technically it’s probably not illegal, 500ft from any person , vessel  , vehicle or structure except during takeoff and landing.

However it’s far from safe or sensible, a go around is the obvious requirement here. I have flown into one way strips in Asia where a go around isn’t always possible due to terrain, however no such problems in this case.

The problem with doing this sort of manoeuvre low over the sea is you lose the perception of height due to the lack of features  , 200ft looks very similar to 50ft so very easy to lose height without realising. Another top tip is if your turning right at 200ft over the sea don’t look out of the left window !

The other side of this , just for the sake of conversation, is not many of today’s  modern MPL and straight onto a 320 type of  cadet pilots would be able to do this sort of thing anymore even if they wanted to.

I think this occurred in Mogadishu (MGQ/HCMM) - there was traffic on the runway and the crew elected to do a 360º - IIRC the land area around the airfield was apparently a danger area due to MANPADS hence the orbit over the sea- there was a thread about it in PpRune a while ago.

That would make sense 

2 hours ago, jon b said:

The other side of this , just for the sake of conversation, is not many of today’s  modern MPL and straight onto a 320 type of  cadet pilots would be able to do this sort of thing anymore even if they wanted to.

Agreed! I was about to say that the pilot handled the a/c by actually flying it not twisting knobs. I suspect that for many airline pilots, this would be a dangerous maneuver. He basically did a 360 level turn around a point and came back where he started nicely.

Vic

So.. this is what is meant by going AROUND  (and around..)

Given that he was over open water then the risk of cocking it up doesn't wipe out a few city blocks of people. Plus the presence of ne'er-do-wells with stinger missiles likely to take a shot at a juicy big fat airliner (Mogadishu remember) means it was worth the risk to the crew.

Excellent bit of airmanship - The 727? like most airliners wants to fly, be that at 200 feet or 20000.

Nice find, threegreen!

Given the circumstances, notably the threat of portable SAMs, the manuever seems fairly sensible to me; it’s essentially taking a military flying concept to heart, one which calculates the risk against the benefit...

Although under normal circumstances flying low is potentially dangerous, you can control and offset that danger to a large degree with skill, whereas flying higher in a missile threat zone presents a risk over which you can have virtually no control. As noted, there is still an element of risk in taking this choice of course; you’ll have very little time to deal with an engine failure for example, but it is a calculated risk.

It’s perhaps also worth noting too, that whilst we typically do not see airliners making such manoeuvres, they are perfectly capable of doing so. At low level in dense air, you’ve got quite a considerable amount of thrust available, and of course the 727 is actually notable in having quite a high lift wing when the flaps and slats are out, so as long as one is aware of the bank angle increasing the stall speed, if one knows those limits, it is actually a fairly safe manuever for a competent pilot.

 

When the 727 was first introduced quite a few airlines experienced high sink rates during approach due to the excess drag from the newly designed flap system. TWA even blocked the F40 gate, it was deemed too risky to use. 

This pilot probably did not fly for TWA 🤣

 

It is cargo ops -- that's Astral Aviation out of Kenya.  I didn't realize they still had a 727 in service.

Anyone see an FMC?

I don't see an INS either, but it's kind of hard to tell, the vid is blurry and choppy on the edge.

When you see the chart for that runway, you can see that what the pilot did is not only the sensible choice, it's about the only option. Taking a Strela up the tailpipe at 150 feet with terrain in front of you is not going to end well for sure. And if you think that's not a risk, note the advisory at the bottom of the plate; I don't think it's referring to whether the coffee shop is open in the arrivals lounge.

Edited March 24, 20206 yr by Chock

He  must  have  done  a  few  carrier  landings   did  a perfect  carrier  break 🙂