The International Cessna^® 170 Association

(Split from another thread)

Here is a another scary thing reported on CNN - wonder if the pilot gets reprimanded?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/03 ... index.html

Well, why? ...after all.... the pilot said it's ATC's fault for assigning that runway!

The "fly by wire" technology of the bus can make crosswind landings more of an adventure than usually desired. The thread here about "airplane rates pilot" has a very good demonstation of the normal law envelope.

The side stick has no real feel,( except a spring load to neutral) much like using a joystick with microsoft flight simulator on your pc. In normal law the roll command is always a rate of roll. Full deflection gives you 67 degrees of bank or 1.4 g's. Just crack the stick out of nuetral and you will get a very slow roll to the same limits.

Pitch begins as proportional deflection of the elevator, just as in the 170. At about 50' a blending to flight mode occurs and now you are commanding a load factor. For example in a ground prox warning you can yank the sick full aft on only pull 2.5 g's clean.

At 50' on landing you enter the flare mode and pitch down is introduced to give you artifical feel for the flare.

The crosswind technique that seems to work well is to crab to about 25', align the nose, flare to a good landing attitude. The rub comes in that you can't hold the stick at this attitude. Because you are commanding a load factor, holding the stick causes the nose to continue to pitch up. So you must play the stick to neutral to maintain the desired attitude. In order to stay on the centerline you must also introduce upwind aileron. But remember that is a roll rate so you must play that back to neutral as well.

It requires a bit of time to aquire the touch. It helps to be current in a 170.

As George indicated, runway selection is paramount. We seem to be forgetting that we need to teach pilots to think. I think that might just be another thread.

Probably way more than you want to know about a bus but I have never been shy when talking about airplanes::))

George, I don't know how you type all your long answers. I'm worn-out:)

Forrest

Landing an airbus sounds more like a video game.
Here's a little PIO in one -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN-Zt9n1 ... 28Crazy%29