Problems in a commercial flight

On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:50:34 -0700, C J Campbell
wrote:

On 2007-03-13 16:08:34 -0700, megaMAX
said:

Hello everybody,
I want to tell you what's happened during a Finnair flight from
Helsinki to Milan, I'm not an expert of flight.

During the entire flight, I noticed that the aircraft was continuosly
rolling to right, and the pilot was correcting every 10-20 seconds the
attitude. I noticed this, because I was looking to the right wing and
the wing was continuosly going down of few centimeters, and after few
seconds there was a slight correction.

Not unusual at all. It could just be normal cycling of the autopilot.

Or even normal flexing in turbulence. In the larger planes it's not
unusual to see a foot or so of movement.

I've been on a 737 where it was a pretty rough ride. You could watch
those wing tips going up and down and even the engine nacels shaking.
Of course there were only about 10 of us who weren't talking to RALPH
in a lunch bag.

Of course we didn't hit the rough air until they were picking up
*after* breakfast. I think a lot of Wheaties and milk curdled.
Riding in a plane with over a 100 puking passengers in definitely not
my idea of fun!
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Roger wrote:
Of course we didn't hit the rough air until they were picking up
*after* breakfast. I think a lot of Wheaties and milk curdled.
Riding in a plane with over a 100 puking passengers in definitely not
my idea of fun!



Pansy. I laugh at puke.... as long as you don't get any on me. It goes back to
my days running a dive shop. We'd go out on the water and somebody would
invariably get seasick: "Hey, you gonna eat that sandwich?"




--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

A movement of a few centimetres at the wingtip is nothing to worry about.
Aircraft in flight may show various oscillating motions. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_dynamic_modes.

During landing, crosswind gusts may sometimes require significant corrective
input from the pilot. In some rare cases even a go-around is necessary if
the wind blows hard.

If there would be some technical problem, the pilots have a large set of
checklists, diagnostic procedures and automatic diagnostic systems available
which can pinpoint the problem and give instructions how to continue the
flight.


"megaMAX" wrote
Hello everybody,
I want to tell you what's happened during a Finnair flight from
Helsinki to Milan, I'm not an expert of flight.

During the entire flight, I noticed that the aircraft was continuosly
rolling to right, and the pilot was correcting every 10-20 seconds the
attitude. I noticed this, because I was looking to the right wing and
the wing was continuosly going down of few centimeters, and after few
seconds there was a slight correction.

During landing, the aircraft was definitively rolling clockwise, in
fact when we touched the ground, it was really yawing and sliding, and
the pilot had to take a decise correction in order to align the
aircraft to the track.

I'm really not an expert, but I was wondering:

- what could have been the problem? The right engine?
- the pilot behaved correctly, completing the flight until destination
and trying this landing? An intermediate step could have been better?
- we have been in some danger, during the flight or at the moment of
landing?
- this episodes are made pubblic in some register, or the companies
try to hide them as much as possible?

Thanks!
Max