Can anyone tell me what's happening in this clip? Why was the landing
aborted?

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~rajwar/base/PICS/planes.whoops.mov

It appears the pilot is coming in rather fast and at too much of an
angle, but that could just be my amateur's eye. I'm not a pilot... yet.

Also, what kind of delay is there from the time the pilot goes full
throttle until the plane actually reacts? Near-immediate, or to have
such a close call would the pilot likely have goosed it a few seconds
before we actually see the plane start to go back up?

Thanks :)

S.

Boy that was one hell of a gust, good thing he had a few feet of altitude!!!



"Speed Demon" > wrote in message
.. .
>
> Can anyone tell me what's happening in this clip? Why was the landing
> aborted?
>
> http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~rajwar/base/PICS/planes.whoops.mov
>
> It appears the pilot is coming in rather fast and at too much of an angle,
> but that could just be my amateur's eye. I'm not a pilot... yet.
>
> Also, what kind of delay is there from the time the pilot goes full
> throttle until the plane actually reacts? Near-immediate, or to have such
> a close call would the pilot likely have goosed it a few seconds before we
> actually see the plane start to go back up?
>
> Thanks :)
>
> S.
>

*grin* The question isn't "why did you abort?" isn't valid. The only valid
question is "why didn't you abort?"

The resoloution of the video isn't good enough to see the individual flight
controls (hey... neither is TV), but if you notice how the airplane "pivots"
to the left about midway down the runway, it looks like it's weathervaning
into one hell of a crosswind and probably quite a bit of windshear. Simply
put, the flight crew was probably fighting a very heavy crosswind, decided
to abort, weathervaned out of the slip (for more efficient climb) and
climbed out. I'd say they did a fine job.

Some airliners (especially older ones with older engines) have significant
delays between throttle movement, and the application of power. But, between
the doppler shift heard on the video and the unknown distance between the
camera (presumably with a microphone on it) and the airplane, I couldn't
really tell when the power came up. I would, however, speculate that the
decision to abort was made about the time the nose dipped :-).

-Rob

"Speed Demon" > wrote in message
.. .
> Can anyone tell me what's happening in this clip? Why was the landing
> aborted?
>
> http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~rajwar/base/PICS/planes.whoops.mov
>
> It appears the pilot is coming in rather fast and at too much of an angle,
> but that could just be my amateur's eye. I'm not a pilot... yet.
>
> Also, what kind of delay is there from the time the pilot goes full
> throttle until the plane actually reacts? Near-immediate, or to have such
> a close call would the pilot likely have goosed it a few seconds before we
> actually see the plane start to go back up?
>
> Thanks :)
>
> S.
>

"Speed Demon" > wrote in message .. .
> Can anyone tell me what's happening in this clip? Why was the landing aborted?
>
> http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~rajwar/base/PICS/planes.whoops.mov
>
> It appears the pilot is coming in rather fast and at too much of an angle, but that could just be my amateur's eye.
> I'm not a pilot... yet.
>
> Also, what kind of delay is there from the time the pilot goes full throttle until the plane actually reacts?
> Near-immediate, or to have such a close call would the pilot likely have goosed it a few seconds before we actually
> see the plane start to go back up?
>
> Thanks :)
>
> S.
>


This is the UPS DC-8 (super 80?) approach into Ontario, CA I think. The Santa Ana winds were really blowing that day
(2001 or so?) and the pilot decided to take the plane elsewhere...wise choice.

On 1/8/05 9:08 AM, in article
, "Blueskies"
> wrote:

>
> "Speed Demon" > wrote in message
> .. .
>> Can anyone tell me what's happening in this clip? Why was the landing
>> aborted?
>>
>> http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~rajwar/base/PICS/planes.whoops.mov
>>
>> It appears the pilot is coming in rather fast and at too much of an angle,
>> but that could just be my amateur's eye.
>> I'm not a pilot... yet.
>>
>> Also, what kind of delay is there from the time the pilot goes full throttle
>> until the plane actually reacts?
>> Near-immediate, or to have such a close call would the pilot likely have
>> goosed it a few seconds before we actually
>> see the plane start to go back up?
>>
>> Thanks :)
>>
>> S.
>>
>
>
> This is the UPS DC-8 (super 80?) approach into Ontario, CA I think. The Santa
> Ana winds were really blowing that day
> (2001 or so?) and the pilot decided to take the plane elsewhere...wise choice.
>
>
Holy crap.
--
Jeff 'The Wizard of Draws' Bucchino

Cartoons with a Touch of Magic�
http://www.wizardofdraws.com

More Cartoons with a Touch of Magic�
http://www.cartoonclipart.com

With some jets you start spooling up the engines just before landing just in
case you have to abort. There can be a delay of a few seconds.

The airplane does not weathervane into the wind in the sense that a
weathervane does. The pilot turned the plane into the wind in order to
maintain a straight ground track. I personally thought he was a little late
to flare, but he probably had already made the decision to go around.

There was no close call.

The approach itself didn't appear to be stable. The plane seems to dive
to the runway at the last minute.

"Robert M. Gary" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> The approach itself didn't appear to be stable. The plane seems to dive
> to the runway at the last minute.

He may have made the decision to abort the landing at that point, lowering
the nose to gain airspeed.

This video is of the UPS aircraft going missed at Ontario, CA a few
years ago. The Santa Ana winds were positively howling that day; I
seem to recall seeing this on the news, and the winds were up to 40
knots or more. You can see the San Bernadino Mountains in the
background, and the snowcapped one near the end of the clip appears to
be Mt. Baldy.

The runways at Ontario run east-west, and this appears to be an
approach to the east, which puts the mountains (to the north) on the
left side. This is also where the Santa Anas come from (north to
northeast).

It appears that the aircraft got hit with a good gust just before
touchdown--possibly a loss of airspeed windshear. That would be
consistent with the nose drop you see just before the go around.

It is also probable that the pilot found that he had insufficient
rudder to combat the crosswind and was losing ground towards the
downwind side of the runway. This is suggested by the substantial yaw
to the left as the go around was initiated. Either the aircraft
weathervaned into a gust, or the pilot did that to get back over the
runway.

Large turbofans such as those on this aircraft usually require anywhere
from thee to six seconds to spool up to full thrust, which is one
reason that in this class of aircraft you do not want to do power off
approaches. They put out a whole lot of drag (gear and flaps) and then
approach with a significant amount of power on. This substantially
shortens the time it takes to get up to full thrust if something goes
wrong... like seen here.

The early jet engines were much higher rpm and had longer spool up
times. Not a few early jet pilots were killed transitioning to jets
because they would approach with little or no power as they used to do
in their piston fighters, only to find in a go around sitation they had
waited too long to get the power coming up. They crashed, while
waiting for the engine to catch up with what they had asked it to do.
Gene

*IF* the sound is in sync with the video, the power is coming up when the
nose goes down. I know nothing of this type of plane, but it appears that
with the plane configured for landing, the full power really freaks things
out. He's actually climbing for a second there with his nose pointed down.
It looks similar to Jim Franklin's Waco with the Lear Jet engine on it.
When he makes a high speed pass with the jet going, the AOA is.....negative?
The wings are actually facing "down" relative to the travel of the plane.
It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen.

Must be nice to have that kind of power.

jf

"Robert M. Gary" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> The approach itself didn't appear to be stable. The plane seems to dive
> to the runway at the last minute.
>

For whatever reason when I look at this, I get no sound. So just going
on visuals this is what I think is happening:

It looks like the flying pilot held the plane in ground effect until
the engines started to spool at which time he dropped the nose and
turned into the wind. You will notice that as the plane turned and the
right side dropped slightly, there was a massive amount of soot coming
out of the outboard engines.

So as soon as the wings come level (with the plane now angled into the
wind) that plane started climbing without the nose being pulled up
(ground effect with full flaps?).

Backing up, notice that as the camera zooms in, there is a bit of
blurring at the business end of the engines. I believe that is when
they were being spooled into full power. It is right after this that
the pilot drops the nose, and if you look, kicks the rudder, gets the
wings level, and then starts climbing in ground effect. Then you see
the nose rise and the full climb begins.

It appears that the decision to go around happened just as the camera
is swiveling to follow the plane. Actually it is just as the camera has
turned and is looking at about 45 degrees into the right rear side
("loose wingman position"). It is at that point that think I can see a
wobble in the jet. It looks like imperfections in the lens of the
camera and change in focus. However look a bit closer and you will see
that the whole plane wobbles, not just parts so that things look a bit
out of perspective for a frame or two (that would be imperfections in
that case).

And he just might have touched those right mains, it is really
difficult for me to tell at that angle.

Any way, that's my story and I'm stuck with it.
Later,
Steve.T
PP ASEL/Instrument

"Speed Demon" > wrote in message
.. .
> Can anyone tell me what's happening in this clip? Why was the landing
> aborted?
===Looks to me like he's trying to land with strong gusty cross winds (side
on) and he's aborted and overshooting so he's crabbing into the wind as much
as possible for maximum air speed to climb out. You can see the exhaust
smoke being carried from left to right rather quickly indicating cross
winds. They also have equipment on board to detect windshear and/or sudden
loss of headwind. I imagine it was a spinkster puckering moment.

Thanks for the responses!

S.

Speed Demon wrote:
> Can anyone tell me what's happening in this clip? Why was the landing
> aborted?
>
> http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~rajwar/base/PICS/planes.whoops.mov
>
> It appears the pilot is coming in rather fast and at too much of an
> angle, but that could just be my amateur's eye. I'm not a pilot... yet.
>
> Also, what kind of delay is there from the time the pilot goes full
> throttle until the plane actually reacts? Near-immediate, or to have
> such a close call would the pilot likely have goosed it a few seconds
> before we actually see the plane start to go back up?
>
> Thanks :)
>
> S.
>