A380 Hard Landing at Oshkosh

The Airbus A380, the world's largest airliner, made quite a dramatic arrival at Oshkosh on Tuesday. Dan Gryder, a Boeing 777 pilot, analyzes what went wrong.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• AVweb
• Dan Gryder
• Airbus
• A380
• Oshkosh
• AirVenture

[armanys2003]

It's disgusting to a see a 'qualified' 777 pilot make a statement like this. It doesn't take a pilot to see that this was a hard landing. But it will take a pilot (not like this 777 expert though) who will understand that NO PILOT is ever insured from making a landing like this. With or without preasure. It appeares it was a windshear! Also the nasty comment about the plane still being usable.. I am sure it can withstand much more with zero damage!

[duknilch]

You don't need to be a "qualified b777 pilot" to see it's a hard landing. There's obviously strong crosswind plus windshear shortly before touchdown... every other heavy airliner would do it hard on the runway if it would have been right in that place at the same time. Makes no sense to compare here Boeing and Airbus ... that's just some patriotic bla bla there from this very expert, qualified 777-chief ;-)

[fsxnoob]

Man thats hard.. there should be a home in the runway after this..

[captainjman1976]

@Hydropump75 - Conclusion (for now at least) - the pilot did a horrible job that day. Period. It was bad enough for the commentators to rip on him, it wasn't me who said it all on the video, it was them. But I agreed with them. Normally people sugar coat things and it was nice to see people just being HONEST for once. I feel like you are an aviation fan (which is cool) and were happy to see the new biggest passenger plane, also fine, but the landing was huge, and the plane is garbage, sorry

[captainjman1976]

@Hydropump75 - Airbus's computer brain is in control, not the pilots. Not saying that pilots are always right, but the approach of Airbus is the worst of all the aircraft manufacturers. Airbus system has way too much limitations on the pilots ability to fly the plane.Sometimes you need to depart from "normal safe operating envelopes" to save the day. Having a plane not responding to input because it doesn't meet what the programmers inputs say is permissible-is a BAD IDEA - its like HAL in 2001

[captainjman1976]

@Hydropump75 - Boeing designs aircraft with the understanding ahead of time that every part will need easy access (whenever possible). Airbus doesn't even try. And then there is the fact that stuff keeps falling off airbus's. You don't see a recurring theme like this from ANY OTHER manufacturer (since the comet). Two tails have FALLEN OFF airbuses, AND an engine. Same was true about a DC10 at ORD, and the DC10's reputation was HORRIBLE. Airbus is definitely following the DC10 example.

[captainjman1976]

@Hydropump75 - then there is the airbus A300 vs 767. While working as a fright-dog in Phoenix for UPS, and watched for over an hour as mx needed to replace the APU in the A300. They needed to remove all sorts of lines, equipment, hydraulics, etc.. just to get to the APU.I talked to the mechanics and they said its a common problem with the Airbus aircraft. They don't build planes that are easy to work on. On boeing aircraft, its simple to replace the APU or anything else for that matter - TBC

[captainjman1976]

@Hydropump75 - The biggest problem with airbus is their stance on pilot control. Normal law vs. abnormal law, the plane will not allow the pilots to pitch or roll more than a set number of degrees. The plane company treats the pilots like an inconvenience. They see the pilots as the biggest problem. In their effort to make a safer airplane, they have a side-stick rather than a yoke. So one pilot cant see what the control inputs are - as we saw in the Air France crash in the Atlantic

[captainjman1976]

@Hydropump75 - continued - Stuck on the way down. The design is flawed. Even with the teflon coating it got stuck, but released itself after several tense seconds. What it really shows is bad engineering. After that video was made (I'm sure you saw it) - the gear collapsed while turning off the runway.They had to re-engineer the entire gear truck. And that wasn't discovered in the design phase, this happened during proving flights.Terrible. But Airbus has a long history of bad design issues

[captainjman1976]

@Hydropump75 - Oh, I missed your comment, hahahaha, not ATC pilot, an ATP pilot. ATC is "air traffic control", an ATP is an "airline transport pilot". The video is honest, and straight to the point. Im not sure why you get all bent out of shape about this - I get that you are a plane enthusiast. But why would you be proud of airbus when in the documentary about them, that they agreed to, showed them cutting corners with the gear system adding teflon to a gear door because gear gets stuck -TBC

[captainjman1976]

@Hydropump75 - first of all, if it were up to me I would never fly a scare-bus. If I do end up flying one, feel free to videotape me. We all have good landings and not so good landings, and no matter what you say, or how you try your best to insult, this was a HORRIBLE landing. I would be devastated to botch a landing like that, especially in front of so many spectators. Its humiliating - and it was for this pilot on this day. Sorry you get offended by the truth - but it doesn't change it

[Hydropump75]

@captainjman1976 You would of crashed that a380. I bet you can't even fly one if you tried. Im not saying i could but you mr atc pilot who flies for the airlines is mr perfect.