Blue Angels C-130 "Fat Albert" A Wild Crosswind Landing

The Aviation Site: www.kbvp.com The Blue Angels "Fat Albert" Demo at the California Capital Airshow 2008 was pretty wild on Sunday. The crosswinds were wreaking havoc on all airshow performers, including the "Fat Albert" Demo. You can see the steep approach angle that is normal, but watch the nose of the C-130 point about thirty degrees off centerline as the crew corrects for the crosswind drift. You can see the main gear touch down mostly on the port(left) side, then the nose gear taking the brunt of the landing. The port front main mount(tire) blows out due to the stress. What a wild landing!

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Navy
• Fat
• Albert
• C-130
• Blue
• Angels
• airplane

[QeXeQ]

WTF? I want to hear the engine's sound, sorry, thumbs down for the music...

[TheVidPro]

@QeXeQ That's what the Blues were playing- comes with the territory.

[TheVidPro]

Go watch other videos of the C-130 approach. Side-slipping is not in the Blue Angels demo. He is actually flying a different course on approach to compensate for the crosswind. Yes it looks like side slip, but that's not the manuever. He doesn't have excess speed on the approach. Matter of fact, he probably is adding power at that point.

[mrshanes1]

This is a forward slip. A maneuver to lose altitude quickly before landing. Nothing to do with a crosswind.

[TheVidPro]

@mrshanes1 He was in a side slip to stay lined up with center line. Normally the aircraft nose is lined up with the center line. Cross winds require course adjustments- like when you are trying to walk straight to a specific point but the 60 mph winds are blowing you in another direction.

[jeff0068]

You say you saw nothing impressive here? Its called a combat landing and when you take a 41 ton aircraft and pitch the nose down at about a 45 plus degree angle and can pull out before it hits the ground and land, that is IMPRESSIVE!

[TheVidPro]

Look at the nose when he starts the approach- you'll see it go from inline with the runway to a 45 degree angle to stay on centerline- that's not a side slip to burn off speed in this case. Staying down on the runway was a challenge until he was below about 80 knots.

[Turk353535]

Actually I was flying in the jump seat (behind Flight Engineer) on this flight for an incentive ride. I was invited on this ride by the crew because I was one of the statics on display (C5 Galaxy). The AC was actually fighting the crosswind AND nose diving NOT to over shoot the approach and landing. The blown tire (left forward main) was a fluke.

[zhiheng2005]

The plane bounced 4 times then it came down.

[kbent88]

blew a tire =]

[RDPCSVP]

os pilotos são bons, esse avião é exelente...... sempre que está no ar é um verdadeiro especulo. parabéns pelo vídeo!!!

(pilots are good, this aircraft is excellent ...... whenever it is in the air is a real speculate. congratulations on video!!!)

[stefanholtland]

1:05.. flat tire?????

[MrSunrise1961]

The gliding community here calls the maneuver we saw on approach a "crab". As TheVidPro pointed out, it was followed at the flare by a transition to sideslip. He then proceeded to fly it on before the drift got large enough to be a problem. I'm used to seeing this kind of approach in gliders (practice for outlanding) , but a Herc? And from the angle of the crab, the crosswind must have been horrendous. Color me impressed!

[KingKrabb999]

That is a very confident pilot, it was scary just watching it.

[tory445828196]

on youtube everyones a fuckin expert...