The 747 landing from hell.

[chris]

http://www.avweb.com/newspics/747x50.jpg

That is what you call the 747 landing from hell. A nightmare of a landing, and one where it is absolutely crucial to get it dead on the centre line.

This is a South African Airways 747-100 which was being retired from service. But rather than being scrapped, ZS-SAN also known as "Lebombo" was donated to an aviation museum at Rand airport in South Africa.

To verify that the landing was feasible, touch and goes were performed at the small airfield. After it was verified to be safe, the plane made its final departure with about 20 tonnes of fuel.

It soon arrived in Rand, landing at the short and narrow runway with a vRef of 115kts with full flaps and spoilers. These big birds can land extremely slowly when light - a benefit of their huge wings.

The landing went fine, but getting it to the final location along taxi-ways was more tricky according to the reports. A tug was tried, but it proved useless. So the 747 was cranked up and she moved under her own power, crossing carefully over some grassy areas to the final parking location.

Lebombo wasn't stripped out for the landing though, she was in full flight configuration, and even had toilet-paper in the bathrooms onboard the plane.

The pilot, Dennis Spence by the way is an aerobatic pilot in his spare time. He is also seen in this following photo piloting a 747-300, along with another B743, and the biggest of the A340 series, the Airbus A346 (aka A340-600):

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/564346/L/

[Justin Martin]

The pilot, Dennis Spence by the way is an aerobatic pilot in his spare time.
Of course, only a aerobatic pilot would be crazy enough to try a stunt like that. :D

That's a nasty looking hill in the middle of the runway. :eek:

[chris]

Also note that no reverse thrust was used - for obvious reasons with the engines overhanging the runway so far. Thrust reverse would probably succeed in throwing up lots of dust and debris, just in the right place to be sucked into the engines - causing lots of damage. :eek:

[[RS]Alt]

Could you imagine seeing that huge bird coming at you - while sitting in your Cessna 172 awaiting clearance for departure?

[chris]

I'd be nowhere near it to be honest in a Cessna 172.. Think of the turbulence, and the jet blast. :eek: It'd be all too easy for a Cessna to be flipped right over. :yikes:

I remember seeing one great video of a Air France 747-200 taking off from St. Maarten (the famous airport with the beach at the end of the runway). Well, people are standing on the beach, and then we hear this big whine as the 747-200 pilot powers up its engines. The pilot winds them up slowly, and then after a brief period, the pilot really cranks up the power. :eek:

The poor people on the beach scramble into the water as quickly as possible as they are jet-blasted by the big 747. It would have been hot and smelly for those people.

Jet blasts are powerful, and dangerous. On the RSC forums, there is a guy who flies 747's for a living (an Australian as well) and his website has some great info, and in particular, one United Airlines training video showing the dangers of engine tests on the ground, and jet-blasts.

A large airport tractor/tug drives behind a 747, towing a Chevy truck behind it on a light cable. Just as the tug clears the 747, the 747 powers up. The Chevy, big itself is blown over multiple times into the water beside the runway. :eek:

[Frank N. O.]

Alt']Could you imagine seeing that huge bird coming at you - while sitting in your Cessna 172 awaiting clearance for departure?ROFL good one!

Incredible manouvre indeed! Very impressive, both plane and pilot-wise :cool:

Funny you mentioned the engines over the grass, that's the same reason the A380 can't land in Copenhagen Airport despite it's world-class passenger-numbers and the fact it's the main airport for all of Scandinavia. The price they said was required to make new runways, taxi-ways etc. was simply insane!! You could buy a whole fleet of airliners for that amount, and I seriously doubt they can even gather amount anytime soon, if ever.

Regarding the jet-blast video then if the Chevy is a firetruck and it was noted on-screen it was a demo-video, and the truck got blasted into water then I have it. It's kind-of interesting since the Myth Busters on the Discovery Channel busted the myth of a taxi being thrown over but they didn't get to use a airliner after all due to fears from the company so they used Hollywood wind machines, but I seriously doubt they have the same thrust of even a 737.

Frank

[chris]

None of those wind machines would create the same sort of blast as a big-jet. As good as those quirky Myth-busters are, they really needed a proper large jet.

I can't imagine it being too costly to build new taxi-ways and wider runways. It wouldn't even add up to the cost of 1 airliner, let alone a fleet IMO.

I think A380 landing at an airport with engines overhanging the runway by a large distance would be okay, provided the surrounding area isn't very dusty. If there is well looked after grass, it should be okay.

[Frank N. O.]

I'm not sure, but I think the amount mentioned was 2-3 digits, in millions of DKK that is, divide by 6 to get USD, roughly. I'll try to look thrue the DR TV archives to see if I can find it.

DK has money problems atm, especially since the brilliant PM still holds on to a tax-stop (no new taxes) but the news says a new thing every day so it's hard to figure out who to believe in. In any case, the amount of money the guy from the airport said was needed was, at least imho, astronomical!

Frank

[VQ]

I was expecting a crash, but this is better...