What happens when a 747 tries to land on the numbers?
Viral Debrief.
Coming up!
Hey, 74 crew! Welcome back!
If you don't know me, my name's Kelsey.
I'm a 747 pilot.
My channel 74 gear is all about aviation.
I can't tell you all enough how much
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If you have a clip that you wanna see in the series,
the two easiest places to send to me, my Instagram or the free forum:
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I appreciate you all so much.
Let's get into it!
You did it.
You may not have caught what actually happened.
And you thought maybe we're gonna talk about this
guy's kind of sloppy landing with one tire but
If you didn't catch it, look at this right here.
You see this right here? This is the prop.
And as you watch, it actually flies off the plane and that is never a good sign.
Most of you know that what we use to make
the plane go forward on a propeller plane is
the propeller itself.
Without the propeller, the plane can't go forward.
And in aviation, it's all a game of exchanging altitude and airspeed.
And in the sense that you have a propeller, you're able to get airspeed.
And with that airspeed, you're able to get altitude.
If you don't have the altitude, you don't have anything to trade.
Which means what you can do is trade your altitude for airspeed.
And that's what this pilot does very quickly.
That right there is the prop.
It just came off the plane.
Now watch what the pilot does here.
He noses over and heads for the ground,
but it's not only because he wants to land.
He wants to gain airspeed so he can make it to the runway.
If that pilot were to be at, let's say, 300 feet and going very slow
and then loses his propeller,
he's in a lot of trouble because he doesn't have a lot of altitude.
He's got 300 feet that he can play with.
So he can nose over a little bit and get a little bit of airspeed,
but he also doesn't have any way to gain normal airspeed
because his propeller it's gone, right?
So you have to trade your altitude for airspeed.
And that's exactly what this pilot does.
And he does it very quickly.
As soon as that prop comes up,
you saw him really push the nose towards the ground and get airspeed.
And that's what he was looking for. It's the most important thing,
because without enough airspeed, you're not gonna make it to the runway.
You see him as he lands right here at the start of the runway?
Since he has nothing giving him speed, he has nothing to do except trade altitude.
Because he noses his plane over for a couple of seconds,
he was able to gain that speed to get himself to the runway and line up and land.
Now he may have been coming in a little bit fast
and that's why the plane didn't wanna touch down,
but he, 100%, did the right thing here.
Got the plane on the runway and safely landed.
And I would've done the exact same thing too.
Come in and be over the runway a little bit fast is a lot better
than landing a little bit short and possibly damaging your aircraft.
Now, if I'd been in that situation, my landing wouldn't
not have looked nearly as good as what this guy did here.
He, obviously, is a professional pilot and he did it perfectly.
He traded his altitude, gained some airspeed.
With the airspeed, he identified where he was gonna land.
He turned in early,
he landed towards the beginning part of the runway and he came in a little bit fast.
But at the end of the day, that's better to
get in and float a little bit down the runway
than tried to land right off the numbers, right on
the thousand-foot markers or anything like that.
And possibly not make it to your destination of what you're trying to do.
So this pilot did an amazing job.
If I were to do that, it would've been a code-brown situation for sure.
But he did a great job getting that done.
You may have heard me mention before that you can
land a lot of these commercial aircraft in a crab.
This right here is a crab.
You see how the plane is kind of angled and not going straight
down the runway like you're used to see?
He's a little bit crooked.
That's something we call crabbing.
That's an acceptable way to land a lot of different commercial aircraft.
What's funny is that when you go through flight school, it's not acceptable.
And at that time, you don't have a lot of
good coordination to get all the things done.
But once you get the big jets, then you can do this.
It's just, I don't know. I find it kind of humorous.
You can also do that on the 747.
You can land in the crab.
What happens is the momentum of the aircraft coming down the runway,
as long as you're lined up correctly,
will bring the plane straight as soon as it touches down.
Which is exactly what happened here. Watch this.
You notice as soon as they touch down, the momentum of
the plane actually straightens them out on the runway.
But then it starts to go back to the right,
because there's not enough rudder input.
And the nose goes back the same direction towards the wind.
The reason that's happening is because the tail of the aircraft is catching the wind.
And there's no rudder input because this pilot chose to land in the crab there.
Now on a 747, it's the same exact thing.
And when I was going through flight school, something that a flight instructor told me,
which was not true, which sounded like it made sense, but
I was landing in a wind indeed day.
And the flight instructor said:
"Oh! When you start flying big jets, you won't have this problem anymore
because the wind doesn't really impact them as much".
Make sense.
The plane weighs of 400,000 pounds.
The little 20 knot wind wouldn't matter,
but that's not true.
Because the tail of a 747 is gigantic.
So that wind surface that the wind is hitting on
is just hitting on a bigger area, right?
Doesn't really matter about the weight of the plane.
So I remember landing at 747, the wind actually was pushing us.
And I thought: "Man, this isn't that windy, but it is pushing our tail around".
You may have seen something like this on a ranch.
I call them weather vans.
I don't know if there's another better word for it,
but the concept is the same.
As soon as the wind hits right here,
the nose of this weather van points to where the wind is coming from.
So when the pilot makes his landing,
what happens is as soon as the wheels touch down,
the momentum pushes the plane going forward.
However, the wind is still blowing.
So with the wind blowing, it hits the tail of the plane
and it makes the nose point back towards the wind.
And because this pilot decided to land in the crab,
he wasn't using the rudders to keep the plane going straight down the runway.
So now they're having to make the corrections while on the ground
with not a lot of space on that runway.
I have a different strategy when I'm doing this for two reasons.
One, I don't like the people that are in the back of the plane
to get their face slapped against the plane.
And if you do that on a regular basis, when I'm flying cargo,
when I'm flying a freighter,
it doesn't really matter because it's just a freighter.
It's a couple pilots. It doesn't really matter.
However, when I'm flying passengers
and I do this exact same thing, that's my muscle memory.
The people that are on the far, far back of the plane,
when they're looking at their window are gonna get
their face slapped against the side of the plane.
I don't like to do that.
The other reason I don't like to do that is that
I, at about 10 feet up in the air,
put the rudder in.
That gives me a second or two to really get the plane lined up
because you don't really know exactly how much rudder you're gonna need
once you get on the ground.
When you're in the air, you have a second or two
to get that plane lined up visually.
And so you put in just enough rudder or take out a little bit,
but you're kind of making a guess and then you're making small corrections
to get it going straight on the runway.
So it gives me a second or two, like I always say,
I'm not that smart.
So I just take every possible advantage that I can.
And for me, it's an advantage to do that than to land in the crab
and then have the people in the back get their face slapped,
and then also have to quickly get on the rudder
because if you don't put in the rudder application once you land,
your plane will just follow the direction that it's going.
It's weather van.
That right-hand side is just gonna shoot up into the grass.
So now you've gotta stomp on the rudder again to get it straightened out.
So they got their face slapped when they landed
and then they get their face slapped again,
to get you going straight down the runway.
So that's just not the way I like to do it.
Now I wanna be clear here.
That's my strategy.
You can absolutely land a lot of Boeing and Airbus like this.
You can land in the crab.
It's totally safe. You have to go with what you know.
I don't wanna see you in your very first try and a 45-knot crosswind,
try my style.
Then slap a wing on the ground and go:
"Oh! Kelsey from 74 gear. He told me to do this".
Don't be going your chief pilot and making me get bad emails.
You gotta go with what you feel comfortable with.
So I would try it.
And if that's not your style and you like to land in the crab,
great! Do that!
If you would rather do it the way that I'm saying to do it,
start with something small like
five or ten knots where it's just a little bit of correction.
Then build up and work out until you're more and more comfortable to do something
where there's a very strong crosswind.
Don't on your first try, go something really aggressive
because you might mess it up and I don't wanna be responsible for that.
One serious accident occurred during the Flight Test Program
as this 747 approached the runway,
one landing gear was seriously damaged when
it struck a concrete embankment just short of the runway.
The aircraft settled on the two right engines.
But the strength of the remaining landing gears was such that they did not fail.
And the pilot was able to maintain directional control
and keep the aircraft from veering off the runway.
The flashes you see are only engine surges as no fire was experienced.
Amazingly, little damage occurred to the airplane.
The struck landing gear had to be replaced
and the engines needed some sheet metal work,
but had this occurred in an airline, no injuries would've resulted.
Except at the captain's pride.
I'm gonna guess that this is probably a very experienced pilot
and probably a much better test pilot
or pilot than I will ever be.
And they were trying to figure out the landing distance or something like that
because there's typically no reason an airline
pilot is ever gonna land at the numbers.
When I say "Land on the numbers", it's at the very beginning of a runway.
If you ever look at a runway, you'll notice there's numbers
at the very beginning of the runway
and the pilots don't typically land there when they're doing airline flying.
Sometimes you'll see small general aviation,
small planes trying to land on the numbers.
I've advised why I personally don't think that's a great strategy,
but airline pilots, we aim to land a thousand feet down the runway.
I don't know if you saw this thing flying.
I'm guessing that is the door from the inside of the landing gear.
It would've been a lot cooler to see a cement block
actually fly up in the air like that but
I think it was actually the door.
This is the picture off my Instagram.
You can see the door in the bank run back there.
I think that was actually the thing that went
flying off because it went up pretty high.
I don't think the concrete block was shooting up that high in the air.
I think that's actually what it was that you saw flying.
But I have no idea.
Remember earlier I was talking about trading altitude for airspeed.
So here's the situation the way I look at it.
You're coming into land and if you're aiming the land on the numbers
and you were to have an engine failure of any sort or some type of problem,
now, granted on a 7 47, it's not as applicable
as you would have on a smaller plane.
But if you were to have any type of an engine
failure or you were to lose all your engine,
which has happened before
and you are planning to land a thousand feet down the runway,
well, you still have a little bit of gift.
You still have the opportunity to land a thousand
feet earlier and still make it to the runway.
You're gonna trade a little bit of your altitude and your airspeed.
You're gonna gain a little bit of speed by going down a little bit faster,
which means you're gonna touch the runway earlier, right?
Because you don't have anything propelling you forward.
Well, you saw in this situation, this guy landed at the very start of the runway
and you saw the damage that was created.
The thing is a 747, she's a beast.
And there was nobody would've been hurt,
which lets you know just how tough these planes are built.
A lot of people are worried about something minor resulting in a big catastrophe.
And you saw this plane with smashing landing gear,
pieces are going flying everywhere.
You saw the flashes and the surges from the engine
and you would've been scared, for sure,
but everybody would've been fine.
Which to me is amazing.
So if you're aiming for the thousand feet down the runway,
you would never have a situation like this.
So that's always been my strategy and most airlines have the same thing.
They want you to land a thousand feet down the runway.
If you start to aim and fly at an airline and aim for the numbers,
everyone is gonna be nervous, including me.
Even if you said:
"Hey, I'm planning to land on the numbers".
I'd be like: "Let's not plan on land on the numbers.
Let's go for the thousand-foot markers."
That way there's some buffer room for air.
That's just the way I see it. Always play it safe.
[inaudible]
How many of you caught what was going wrong with that video?
You see these bars right here?
Those are something that you will only see on a runway.
So this is the plane getting on the runway.
And the flaps, these things right here,
they aren't extended yet.
And they're always extended before you get on the runway ready for a takeoff.
Now the flaps are something that we use to fly slower.
And why would you wanna fly slower?
Well, you want to get enough lift to get off the ground.
So these flaps allow us to takeoff and land a lot slower.
The easiest way to explain it is
imagine if you had a small of cardboard
and you stuck your hand out the window of a car,
you're driving down the road.
And now if you just have a small little piece of
cardboard and you put your hand out the window,
there's gonna be a little bit of force to push your arm up in the air, right?
But now if you reach back in and grab a huge piece of strong cardboard
and you stick that out the window,
it's gonna be shoving your arm up in the air
and it's gonna make you really fight to keep your hand down.
It works the same thing for a wing.
Those flaps are making the wing bigger.
It's changing the shape of the wing,
which allow the plane to fly.
It's giving enough force to push that plane up in the air
and pushing them up a lot higher at a lot slower speed, right?
So those flaps are what we use to take off and land.
So we can take off at a normal speed, not going a million miles per hour
and the same thing for landing.
So we don't have like a 50 mile runway when we're landing.
Like the Fast and Furious, like The Show.
So when he pushes the throttle up here,
you'll notice that the flaps aren't out at all,
I'm guessing that he got an alert that said:
"Your flaps aren't out for the takeoff".
And then he has two options.
The first option would be to abort the takeoff.
If you abort your takeoff, the Air Traffic Control is going to know,
they're gonna ask you what the reason is.
They're gonna report it to your airline.
And all these things are gonna take place.
You're probably gonna end up doing extra training and
blah, blah, blah.
Now, what they decided to do was push the throttle up
and then they got the warning.
On our plane, on 747, It says: "Config flaps".
So it'll say that saying: "You're not configured for takeoff".
Then, what I'm guessing they did, is that they decided to put the flaps
at whatever the takeoff setting was.
They configured the flaps for takeoff.
While they're rolling down the runway,
those flaps were getting into the takeoff position.
So that avoids that people know,
that's assuming that somebody is in back there filming.
And then some guy does have a YouTube channel where he's calling you out.
Sorry, bro.
Now I wanna be really clear here,
what they did while, a little bit reckless,
wasn't really putting those passengers in danger from the sense that
they didn't take off until the flaps were fully extended.
So it'd be the same as taking off down the runway with the flaps fully extended.
They didn't put them in danger from that standpoint.
Nobody was really in danger. And I always say,
at the end of the day, the pilots wanna go home.
So we're not gonna do anything stupid.
However, that's not the way that it's supposed to be done.
The flaps are supposed to be out before you even get onto the runway.
So that's not what was happening.
So from that aspect, they obviously weren't doing everything in the exact procedures
and the checklists and all the things the way they're supposed to do them.
And the airlines had them there for a reason.
A guy explained it to me. He said: "These aren't your planes.
These are your airlines' planes".
So when they tell you, this is how they want you to fly their plane,
then you need to fly it that way.
When you own your own plane, well, you can fly out however you want.
Speaking about unsafe flying.
If you haven't seen the Hollywood versus
Reality where they do some crazy unsafe flying,
check out this video here.
And if you wanna see some pilots getting to fights with Air Traffic Control,
check out this video up here.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Until then,
keep the blue side up.