Watching A Plane Coming To Land...

[sandyRoe]

Imagine a clockface and the plane flying along the line from 6 to 12. Its nose seemed nearer the 1 and the tail towards the 7. An added breaking manoeuvre, crosswinds, or what?

[Hopkirk]

A normal day at Leeds Bradford Airport

[237SJ]

I was lucky enough to sit in the flight deck on a 747 for a landing into Kai Tak. The approach wasn`t always that scary but on the day I did it, we took the last minute right hand turn approach. You could see the washing on peoples` washing lines.

[Teddio]

Telephoto lenses, with extreme foreshortening, make the crosswind landing look more dramatic than it actually is.
Almost all large jet aircraft have non-steerable landing gear bogies and require the aeroplane to land on the runway with the wheels in line with the direction of travel.
In a crosswind landing it is important to have the wings level just before the flare. To achieve this, a lot of rudder is used which produces considerable yaw.
The effect of viewing such a landing with long telephoto lenses is one of an aeroplane apparently descending vertically, with little forward speed, and with exaggerated yaw.

[grasscarp]

I too was on flight deck into Kai tak on the chequerboard approach 237SJ. I had done this for fun many times in the simulator. In reality the main difference was the smell which pervaded the flight deck on landing. Not pleasant. Apparently hong kong means fragrant harbour!

[wildwood]

I've noticed that on a plane crash it is usually the tail section that stays in one piece, hence I always try to get a seat as far back as possible.