Postby flyboy2548m » Sat Oct 07, 2017 12:34 am
Ah yes, the good old crosswind...
Sometimes crews don't give it enough respect, and sometimes it's almost like they're too afraid of it. The fear then translates into excessive zealousness, both with respect to directional control and with respect to getting the airplane onto the runway in a manner more decisive than necessary. The video (such as it is) appears to depict an example of the latter. It looks as though the crew forced the airplane on before it was ready, hence the bounce, hence the subsequent directional destabilization.
Now, let's talk about the whole crab/de-crab question. Some pilots are taught (erroneously, in my opinion) that ANY amount of crab at touchdown will cause excessive side load on the gear, and everyone will did died. I tend to disagree (as does Airbus). Sometimes it's better to accept a slight crab, but with an otherwise stable touchdown than try to make zero crab some kind of a hill to die on that has to be achieved at all costs.
The video seems to also show quite a bit of rudder movement long before touchdown. It's possible that movement is the result of yaw damper inputs, but I find that doubtful. Why they were playing with the rudder that high up, I can't say.
In my opinion, the key to dealing with gusty winds like that is to do...as little as possible. Excessive control inputs generally only make things worse. If we're rocking and rolling, but the flightpath is more or less stable, I'll live with it. I'm not going to try to counteract every gust and every bump of turbulence. I'll ride through it making the smallest corrections possible. Somewhere between 20' and 10', I'll start dipping the wing and applying the rudder, being careful to apply both of those inputs SMOOTHLY. No yanking the wing down and no stabbing the rudder. This allows using the airplane's own stability as an ally. The airplane is already fighting the gusts, you don't want it to fight your hamfisted inputs, too. If I end up touching down still a tad crabbed, that's life. I will continue straightening the nose out in the rollout.
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