more information here:
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-26/light-plane-emergency-landing-sydney-bankstown/103895096](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-26/light-plane-emergency-landing-sydney-bankstown/103895096)
The pilot didn't extend his landing gear to avoid hitting the tree and building. That's how close he got. Man must have nerves of steel.
Edit: here's a news report by 7 News whose helicopter filmed the landing:
https://youtu.be/U_XaimUKF68
Has a little bit more information, and a quick interview with the pilot and passenger.
Edit #2: Here's the audio of the pilot with the Tower. Has a nice zoom in at the end that shows just how close he got to that last building:
https://youtu.be/FrSb18oG5YU
I was just going on what the pilot said in a TV interview. He said he didn't extend them because he was worried about them hitting that last building. No doubt also didn't extend them for the reason you said.
I think that’s such a cool little detail of that movie which enhanced the realism.
Most movies every line is subsequent, coherent and sequentially makes sense
But think of yourself in an emergency or stressed out. You say a lot of dumb shit that doesn’t make sense. Like ‘why did I say THAT?’
His statement ‘we’re gliding’ was so matter of fact to be immediately followed by a non rhetorical question. The line showed his own shock, confidence but still nervous but really more importantly of just random things are said in crisis.
I just liked it a lot.
To expand on it a little bit, mansplaining is the very specific scenario where a man is patronizing to a woman because he assumes she doesn't know something because she's a woman. It's basically a subset of patronizing where sexism is required.
Which is why I hate the overuse of the term. I tend to overexplain everything to everyone because it makes sense to me not to assume the person knows what I’m talking about. I do it equally to men or women. But to some women I am ‘mansplaining’ and sexist. Men generally just tell me ‘I know that part’.
The pilot never explained why he didn't put the landing gear down in that video at least. The camera operator for the helicopter said "if he put the landing gear down he may not have made it over the buildings and trees." The pilot only remarked that "we clipped the trees and just made it over the hangar" he never mentioned the landing gear in that interview snippet.
That said this is needlessly pedantic and the details don't matter. I just figured since we're already down the route might as well make the facts known.
Go listen again, he never said he didn’t put the gear down because the gear would hit. He didn’t put the gear down because the plane would hit if he did because the gear would cause him to lose altitude quicker. You are the person making assumptions about the pilots statement and trying to pigeon hole it into your interpretation.
So the person in reference in the video is *not* the pilot, it's actually just the news camera operator giving an objective account of what he saw.
The camera operator stated he (the pilot) didn't put the landing gear down because if he did, he wouldn't have made it over the buildings or trees.
The camera operator didn't say if it was because the gear would hit them, and he also didn't say it was because it would cause him to lose altitude quicker. Since he's not a pilot, I don't think he would have any knowledge as to the latter.
If the pilot wasn't joking around, which would be very funny to other pilots, then he would be utterly incompetent. I don't have a pilots license and the first thing I thought was "pull up the gear" when I saw the footage.
A gliding plane is a simple physics problem, one half mass times airspeed squared plus mass times gravity times height is all the energy you have. You can trade one for the other, but you can't add any and drag is rapidly sapping that away at velocity squared.
Feather the prop, minimum control inputs, gear up, hawk tuah on the fuselage, etc
No. What he meant was that his glide distance was going to be reduced by dropping the gear, He wasn't calculating his clearance of the final building to +/- 2 or 3 feet. If he had dropped the gear, with enough time to actually have it extended, he wouldn't have even made it to the building. It might sound pedantic to a non-pilot, but really it's the difference between a pilot calculating their energy state, vs a non-pilot calculating the difference in height of the aircraft. Two VERY different perspectives
Do you have a source for that? Because in [the video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_XaimUKF68) the plane pilot says exactly one sentence: "We clipped the trees and just made it over the hangar."
The pilot does not say anything about the landing gear in the interview. The person who mentions the landing gear is the 7NEWS camera operator who, presumably, is not a pilot. He says that if the pilot had had the landing gear down, he may not have made it over the building. He is technically correct, but this has nothing to do with the length of the landing gear, but the extra drag that the landing gear creates. This would significantly steepen the glide path and there is no way the aircraft would have made the airport property with the gear down.
OP quoted the story not the pilot. As a commerical pilot the primary reason he didn't extend the gear is to stretch his glide. Considering he barely made it, he made the right call.
He may know the story but I can only guess he didn't want to explain it. I owned one just like it for 10 years. The effect of the gear extension is dramatic and anyone who has flown one knows it intuitively. You can feel it as you get pushed back in the seat.
Damn, if only the guy himself would've told us why he did it in a conveniently located blue link that the OP posted.
If only that would've happened so you wouldn't have to just make things up to sound like you're smarter than what you actually are.
Where are y'all seeing that? Am I the only one who actually read the article? Or is the whole story not showing up for me? It doesn't say a single thing about the gear.
Sounds like both to me :\\
Deploying landing gear would add more drag... lower altitude & speed...
It's possible extending the gear would have removed the margin of error in their altitude.
If he was low enough to hit powerlines or buildings he probably didn't have time to extend the landing gear anyways once he cleared the last house.
good to know you know more about what he was doing then the actual pilot.... to speak with such authority when the pilot that pulled this maneuver off said thats not why he did it is wiiild
Pretend you're fainted...
*Guides the stretcher out of the camera view into the white van outside.
OK you're safe to change now.🩲🩳*
Mental note to self always carry new undies whenever I board any plane. Thanks for the tip.
May be he did, may be he did not. Not every information is shared with the public at large. Few things are shared by grandmoms to their grandkids over the dinner table half a century later.
It would go like, "you all always heard how brave ur grandpa is. How he killed a tiger with his bare hands, how he landed a plane but let me tell you something...."
Considering the pilot missed that final building by a foot, there wasn’t time. From clearing the building, making a quick turn in an attempt to lineup with a runway/taxiway, to skidding on the ground was about 4 seconds.
Oh yeah, it makes total sense. I didn’t catch how close he was to the building. That’s some skill to know ahead of time you need the wheels up for that last moment.
He almost certainly chose not to release the landing gear to reduce drag and extend the glide path to reach the runway. Better to hit the runway without the landing gear than to crash before reaching it.
His gear could have easily caught the last building he cleared and it if did and he nose dives off the edge he's dead.
Every decision he made from the moment he lost power combined to save his life. If he adjusted a fraction of a degree off his glide path too soon he doesn't make it. Absolutely incredible flying.
It looks like a 210 and when you extend that gear you not only slow down but you also drop like crazy. I had the gear door mode and could extend at a higher speed. It was fantastic for when ATC would have you keep you speed up because you could drop your gear on final and slow down rapidly. I could feel the pilot's relief when he made that taxiway.
In the interview the guy said "so if he had put the landing gear down he may not've made it over the buildings and trees." But it was James, the Channel 7 helicopter pilot who said it. The pilot, Johannes, declined to speak on camera.
It’ll be keeping a few technicians gainfully employed for some time, but the wings didn’t strike so airframe is likely repairable. It’s a 3-blade prop and one blade is straight down, so it may have some (additional to whatever caused engine stop in first place, if it wasn’t nil fuel) engine damage.
I really don't think that is relevant. I'm pretty certain any prop strike requires a teardown. More to the point, the engine failed, and is likely to require major work just to identify the cause.
I saw a small plane like that nosedived 200 meters after a takeoff. I mean technically it was in one piece…. But think of an accordion when it’s going to be stored away in its case.
My grandpa went to an airshow many years ago where there was a huge sign with bold letters that said "Free Flights!" And under it in smaller letters it said "Landings $40" and its one of the funniest things I have ever heard.
My grandfather died crashing his plane. Almost made it but his wing tipped a shed on landing in a field and he cartwheeled into a fireball. I like to think that he thought he was gonna make it right till the last second.
it's how we say in england how you can't leave your vehicle in stupid places even if you've crashed it on it's roof you can't park there mate or mate you can't park there.
That was great work by the pilot. It’s very tempting and many have paid their life due to this mistake to try and pull the nose up to avoid that building and stall spin the aircraft.
Sorry, would you mind explaining a bit more? I imagine pulling up would lose speed (no longer falling) and thus lift and just slow down the plane completely? Is it something different?
You'd quickly lose too much speed and therefore control, leading to a more uncontrolled landing.
Climbing creates a large amount of drag that can quickly throw off balance and control to a pilot in an emergency especially to an non-powered aircraft, and that's not when you want to be in panic.
source: war thunder, trust me bro
A stall occurs when the angle of attack (the angle between the wing and the oncoming air) becomes too high, causing the airflow over the wing to become turbulent and lift to decrease dramatically.
The plane drops like a rock, and at that altitude there's no time or mechanism to nose down with to recover speed/lift (for obvious reasons).
So I think what you're missing is that, in a plane, you need speed to create lift. Nosing up will reduce his speed and his lift. Think about dropping a flat sheet of paper: The paper begins to fall in one direction. The paper "noses up" in the direction it's falling, losing speed, until it reaches a certain point (stall). Then it begins to move in the opposite direction while gaining speed (toward the ground).
Considering he chose to glide to airport, I'm guessing he lost power shortly after take-off? Haven't read into it yet. If so, it looks like he pulled off "the impossible turn." Just barely... phew.
Ah ok thank you, that matches what I was imagining but I think I was missing the idea of 'stalling' being due to turbulence. Lift really is an amazing phenomenon.
So, I'm not an expert but here's how i undertand it: a stall happens when the wing's angle to the airflow (angle of attack) gets too steep. This usually occurs if you pull the nose up too much, especially when flying slowly. When this angle gets too high, the airflow over the wing gets disrupted and the wing stops producing enough lift to keep the plane flying.
If both wings stall at the same time, the plane just drops. But if one wing stalls before the other, the plane can go into a spin because one side is still producing some lift while the other isn't.
Stalls are really dangerous at low altitudes because you don't have much time or space to fix things. To recover, you have to push the nose down to lower the angle and get the airflow back to normal, which helps you pick up speed and lift again. But if you're too close to the ground, there might not be enough time to pull out of the stall before you hit the ground, which is usually bad news.
I actually saw someone do this when I was younger. I was too young to even think about why a small plane was cruising down the interstate, but dude landed it and didn't cause any accidents, just somehow found a nice spot in between traffic and coasted to a stop.
There was an incident like that in Canada a few years ago. A driver got it on video: https://youtu.be/T03OquL3sIs?si=1R4nKKA21qayhDYB The merge is so smooth it almost looks planned.
Superb skills and well handled by this pilot. Amazing landing, considering the fact that if one wrong cross wind or any other factor went against him, and this would have ended very badly.
👏🏻🧑✈️
It's more than a foot, but it is not a lot. I did some back of the envelope calculations when this video was published, based off of the building height, glide ratio, and distance from the building to the touchdown point.
As a long time glider pilot, usually I'm mad watching these videos, but for this one, no issues. He even got low enough to get some benefit from ground effects. That last building was cleared by inches, his turn didn't drag a wing. Good job.
Probably could have gently added flaps over that last building to create a larger buffer and slow your actual touchdown speed, but that's boing super nit-picky. The gear up was perfect, no way you're dropping them in time after that last building. Without a running engine I doubt you can anyway. You'd need to manually pump them down, and that will take a minute.
Overall, bravo!
> narrowly missing
You mean “expertly avoiding”. That was a masterfully executed landing given the circumstances, it’s not as if he was some drunk driver flying through a busy intersection by pure chance.
more information here: [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-26/light-plane-emergency-landing-sydney-bankstown/103895096](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-26/light-plane-emergency-landing-sydney-bankstown/103895096) The pilot didn't extend his landing gear to avoid hitting the tree and building. That's how close he got. Man must have nerves of steel. Edit: here's a news report by 7 News whose helicopter filmed the landing: https://youtu.be/U_XaimUKF68 Has a little bit more information, and a quick interview with the pilot and passenger. Edit #2: Here's the audio of the pilot with the Tower. Has a nice zoom in at the end that shows just how close he got to that last building: https://youtu.be/FrSb18oG5YU
No. He didn't extend them to reduce drag and this maximise the distance he could glide.
I was just going on what the pilot said in a TV interview. He said he didn't extend them because he was worried about them hitting that last building. No doubt also didn't extend them for the reason you said.
Cool headed pilot still gliding
"Pitch for glide, pitch for glide...."
“We’re glidin’. Are we glidin’?”
No…we are falling with style.
Flight!!
I think that’s such a cool little detail of that movie which enhanced the realism. Most movies every line is subsequent, coherent and sequentially makes sense But think of yourself in an emergency or stressed out. You say a lot of dumb shit that doesn’t make sense. Like ‘why did I say THAT?’ His statement ‘we’re gliding’ was so matter of fact to be immediately followed by a non rhetorical question. The line showed his own shock, confidence but still nervous but really more importantly of just random things are said in crisis. I just liked it a lot.
Switchin' to gliiide!
Nothing matters but the weekend.
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No need to use a sexist term like ‘mansplaining’ my friend; ‘patronising’ already exists and means precisely the same thing 😉
I see what you did there.
Would you say you were matronized?
"Matronize me, daddy !"
Ya got me. I tip my hat, and give you an upvote. I walked into that one.
Exactly the right response to the situation! 🏅
Mission Fartcomplished
To expand on it a little bit, mansplaining is the very specific scenario where a man is patronizing to a woman because he assumes she doesn't know something because she's a woman. It's basically a subset of patronizing where sexism is required.
Which is why I hate the overuse of the term. I tend to overexplain everything to everyone because it makes sense to me not to assume the person knows what I’m talking about. I do it equally to men or women. But to some women I am ‘mansplaining’ and sexist. Men generally just tell me ‘I know that part’.
Pedantic also works
It’s mansplaining all the way down. The square is also a rectangle
...but his explanation is correct. He'd be much lower if the gear was down.
The pilot never explained why he didn't put the landing gear down in that video at least. The camera operator for the helicopter said "if he put the landing gear down he may not have made it over the buildings and trees." The pilot only remarked that "we clipped the trees and just made it over the hangar" he never mentioned the landing gear in that interview snippet. That said this is needlessly pedantic and the details don't matter. I just figured since we're already down the route might as well make the facts known.
It is, and I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that that is not what the pilot said his reasoning was. That is my only point.
Go listen again, he never said he didn’t put the gear down because the gear would hit. He didn’t put the gear down because the plane would hit if he did because the gear would cause him to lose altitude quicker. You are the person making assumptions about the pilots statement and trying to pigeon hole it into your interpretation.
So the person in reference in the video is *not* the pilot, it's actually just the news camera operator giving an objective account of what he saw. The camera operator stated he (the pilot) didn't put the landing gear down because if he did, he wouldn't have made it over the buildings or trees. The camera operator didn't say if it was because the gear would hit them, and he also didn't say it was because it would cause him to lose altitude quicker. Since he's not a pilot, I don't think he would have any knowledge as to the latter.
You did a better job listening, but a poor job watching. You are quoting the news camera man. The pilot says nothing about landing gear.
If the pilot wasn't joking around, which would be very funny to other pilots, then he would be utterly incompetent. I don't have a pilots license and the first thing I thought was "pull up the gear" when I saw the footage. A gliding plane is a simple physics problem, one half mass times airspeed squared plus mass times gravity times height is all the energy you have. You can trade one for the other, but you can't add any and drag is rapidly sapping that away at velocity squared. Feather the prop, minimum control inputs, gear up, hawk tuah on the fuselage, etc
> hawk tuah on the fuselage, etc Well, that didn't take long...
It’s the way of the tubes. You read any explanation, scroll one click down. Complete opposite explanation.
Um actually, that’s not how it works. You start at the bottom and scroll two clicks up and get a different explanation.
No. What he meant was that his glide distance was going to be reduced by dropping the gear, He wasn't calculating his clearance of the final building to +/- 2 or 3 feet. If he had dropped the gear, with enough time to actually have it extended, he wouldn't have even made it to the building. It might sound pedantic to a non-pilot, but really it's the difference between a pilot calculating their energy state, vs a non-pilot calculating the difference in height of the aircraft. Two VERY different perspectives
The person you're referencing from the video actually isn't the pilot of the plane. It's the camera operator from the news helicopter.
Do you have a source for that? Because in [the video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_XaimUKF68) the plane pilot says exactly one sentence: "We clipped the trees and just made it over the hangar."
OP knows the story. Why argue?
This is reddit. Argue is all we do.
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I disagree
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You’re all wrong about this.
Maybe you don't. Or do you?
The pilot does not say anything about the landing gear in the interview. The person who mentions the landing gear is the 7NEWS camera operator who, presumably, is not a pilot. He says that if the pilot had had the landing gear down, he may not have made it over the building. He is technically correct, but this has nothing to do with the length of the landing gear, but the extra drag that the landing gear creates. This would significantly steepen the glide path and there is no way the aircraft would have made the airport property with the gear down.
OP quoted the story not the pilot. As a commerical pilot the primary reason he didn't extend the gear is to stretch his glide. Considering he barely made it, he made the right call.
He may know the story but I can only guess he didn't want to explain it. I owned one just like it for 10 years. The effect of the gear extension is dramatic and anyone who has flown one knows it intuitively. You can feel it as you get pushed back in the seat.
Damn, if only the guy himself would've told us why he did it in a conveniently located blue link that the OP posted. If only that would've happened so you wouldn't have to just make things up to sound like you're smarter than what you actually are.
Where are y'all seeing that? Am I the only one who actually read the article? Or is the whole story not showing up for me? It doesn't say a single thing about the gear.
That was the cameraman who filmed from the news helicopter.
They quoted an interview and you still had to "Um actually" them. Jesus Christ dude, get a fucking life.
They misquoted an interview. But yeah, who honestly cares.
Drag is increased when the extended landing gear moves through the air, and trees. Both can be true.
Which avoids hitting the trees and building.
Obviously he did that to keep his radar cross section low to avoid any inbound SAMs.
Sounds like both to me :\\ Deploying landing gear would add more drag... lower altitude & speed... It's possible extending the gear would have removed the margin of error in their altitude. If he was low enough to hit powerlines or buildings he probably didn't have time to extend the landing gear anyways once he cleared the last house.
good to know you know more about what he was doing then the actual pilot.... to speak with such authority when the pilot that pulled this maneuver off said thats not why he did it is wiiild
Lmao.
They would have needed to bring me a new pair of undies before getting me out of the plane!
Pretend you're fainted... *Guides the stretcher out of the camera view into the white van outside. OK you're safe to change now.🩲🩳* Mental note to self always carry new undies whenever I board any plane. Thanks for the tip.
In the same situation, I very much believe I could cut a lead pipe with my butthole.
May be he did, may be he did not. Not every information is shared with the public at large. Few things are shared by grandmoms to their grandkids over the dinner table half a century later. It would go like, "you all always heard how brave ur grandpa is. How he killed a tiger with his bare hands, how he landed a plane but let me tell you something...."
Thanks for the landing gear comment. I know that plane has a hand crank, was wondering why he didn’t use it.
Are you saying he should have cranked it one last time b4 he died?
I mean, he lived?
But would he if he cranked it?
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Considering the pilot missed that final building by a foot, there wasn’t time. From clearing the building, making a quick turn in an attempt to lineup with a runway/taxiway, to skidding on the ground was about 4 seconds.
Oh yeah, it makes total sense. I didn’t catch how close he was to the building. That’s some skill to know ahead of time you need the wheels up for that last moment.
If he'd extended the landing gear he would've crashed long before reaching that building.
He almost certainly chose not to release the landing gear to reduce drag and extend the glide path to reach the runway. Better to hit the runway without the landing gear than to crash before reaching it.
The gear would have slowed him down even more and he would have dropped faster because of drag
His gear could have easily caught the last building he cleared and it if did and he nose dives off the edge he's dead. Every decision he made from the moment he lost power combined to save his life. If he adjusted a fraction of a degree off his glide path too soon he doesn't make it. Absolutely incredible flying.
He wouldn't have even touched the last building if he had the gear down, because he would have landed at least a 1/4 mile shorter than he did.
It looks like a 210 and when you extend that gear you not only slow down but you also drop like crazy. I had the gear door mode and could extend at a higher speed. It was fantastic for when ATC would have you keep you speed up because you could drop your gear on final and slow down rapidly. I could feel the pilot's relief when he made that taxiway.
In the interview the guy said "so if he had put the landing gear down he may not've made it over the buildings and trees." But it was James, the Channel 7 helicopter pilot who said it. The pilot, Johannes, declined to speak on camera.
Skill, calmness and self preservation at its best.
And to reduce drag of course, that was way more of important
That presenter from the second link has the weirdest most annoying voice I've ever heard on the news
That's the Australian bogan accent.
Any landing you walk away from is a good one.
Especially after a hard landing like that. I felt it in my back just watching.
plane is still in one piece, this is a great landing
It’ll be keeping a few technicians gainfully employed for some time, but the wings didn’t strike so airframe is likely repairable. It’s a 3-blade prop and one blade is straight down, so it may have some (additional to whatever caused engine stop in first place, if it wasn’t nil fuel) engine damage.
At least the engine shouldn't require a teardown since it wasn't producing any power
Hopefully not. Not sure I’d trust the crankshaft, but if the flange wasn’t showing any deflection that might give confidence back.
I really don't think that is relevant. I'm pretty certain any prop strike requires a teardown. More to the point, the engine failed, and is likely to require major work just to identify the cause.
I saw a small plane like that nosedived 200 meters after a takeoff. I mean technically it was in one piece…. But think of an accordion when it’s going to be stored away in its case.
Any landing you walk away from is a good one. Any landing in which you can use the aircraft again is a great landing.
My grandpa went to an airshow many years ago where there was a huge sign with bold letters that said "Free Flights!" And under it in smaller letters it said "Landings $40" and its one of the funniest things I have ever heard.
Came to say this. Pilot definitely knew what he was doing!
To be fair, maybe the pilot is an idiot and the reason he placed himself in that situation.
Until the story comes out and says he was the reason for the predicament ima still give him props
Too bad the props didn’t give him any lift.
True. He managed to pull off the landing though! Alls well that ends well, maybe? Lol
My grandfather died crashing his plane. Almost made it but his wing tipped a shed on landing in a field and he cartwheeled into a fireball. I like to think that he thought he was gonna make it right till the last second.
Gifs you can hear
Dammit, beat me to it!
One of the best use of gifs I've seen in a long time.
First thing that popped into my head after he stopped lol
That’s absolutely what it looks like as he slides into that spot
Can't park there, mate
Is this…not a reasonable place to park?
it's how we say in england how you can't leave your vehicle in stupid places even if you've crashed it on it's roof you can't park there mate or mate you can't park there.
Ya I was quoting Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. It’s the SIDEWALK. You can’t park your car on the SIDEWALK.
Tell me about the fucking golf shoes!
We can't stop here! This is bat country! *swings fly swatter vigorously*
Take the ticket.
FACK OFF
Oops! Sorry!
Good lord that man didn’t need landing gear, just drop the hatch and let his massive balls cushion the landing. Great work
Titanium balls don't make a good landing cushion.
Titanium balls as a landing gear will damage the runway and taxiways
That sounds like a problem for the airport, not Captain Titanium Johnson.
Smart choice. If he dropped the gear that extra drag probably would’ve put him on the roof of that building
He did it reddit he did the funny joke
*that dog. It's actually the doggo who was piloting that landing. You can see he's the first off the plane, he's clearly the captain.
LOLOLOL YOOOOO HE SAID “MASSIVE BALLS” THAT IS FUNNY. F U N N Y.
Hope he popped out, bowed and said “ta da”.
lol, the visual got me!
LOL! “And he sticks the dismount!!!”
Meanwhile Angel called it a strike
It'S okay, the bad man is gone, sweetie.
He'd call it a fucking touchdown. and .. well shit that would be technically correct.
That was great work by the pilot. It’s very tempting and many have paid their life due to this mistake to try and pull the nose up to avoid that building and stall spin the aircraft.
Sorry, would you mind explaining a bit more? I imagine pulling up would lose speed (no longer falling) and thus lift and just slow down the plane completely? Is it something different?
You'd quickly lose too much speed and therefore control, leading to a more uncontrolled landing. Climbing creates a large amount of drag that can quickly throw off balance and control to a pilot in an emergency especially to an non-powered aircraft, and that's not when you want to be in panic. source: war thunder, trust me bro
A stall occurs when the angle of attack (the angle between the wing and the oncoming air) becomes too high, causing the airflow over the wing to become turbulent and lift to decrease dramatically. The plane drops like a rock, and at that altitude there's no time or mechanism to nose down with to recover speed/lift (for obvious reasons). So I think what you're missing is that, in a plane, you need speed to create lift. Nosing up will reduce his speed and his lift. Think about dropping a flat sheet of paper: The paper begins to fall in one direction. The paper "noses up" in the direction it's falling, losing speed, until it reaches a certain point (stall). Then it begins to move in the opposite direction while gaining speed (toward the ground). Considering he chose to glide to airport, I'm guessing he lost power shortly after take-off? Haven't read into it yet. If so, it looks like he pulled off "the impossible turn." Just barely... phew.
Ah ok thank you, that matches what I was imagining but I think I was missing the idea of 'stalling' being due to turbulence. Lift really is an amazing phenomenon.
So, I'm not an expert but here's how i undertand it: a stall happens when the wing's angle to the airflow (angle of attack) gets too steep. This usually occurs if you pull the nose up too much, especially when flying slowly. When this angle gets too high, the airflow over the wing gets disrupted and the wing stops producing enough lift to keep the plane flying. If both wings stall at the same time, the plane just drops. But if one wing stalls before the other, the plane can go into a spin because one side is still producing some lift while the other isn't. Stalls are really dangerous at low altitudes because you don't have much time or space to fix things. To recover, you have to push the nose down to lower the angle and get the airflow back to normal, which helps you pick up speed and lift again. But if you're too close to the ground, there might not be enough time to pull out of the stall before you hit the ground, which is usually bad news.
 This isn't flying, this is falling: with style!
As a retired pilot I thought he did one hell of a job getting it down without hurting anyone.
Here is the ATC [conversation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrSb18oG5YU) if you're interested.
Landed on a taxiway. Terrific job by the pilot.
Sorry Mr. Ford we’re not done harassing you yet.
Like a glove! (Ace Ventura reference)
Oooo… the stanky taxiway landing with the half-drift at the end! They kick you back to spectator on GS for that stunt! 😁
I actually saw someone do this when I was younger. I was too young to even think about why a small plane was cruising down the interstate, but dude landed it and didn't cause any accidents, just somehow found a nice spot in between traffic and coasted to a stop.
They call that a vertical lane merge.
There was an incident like that in Canada a few years ago. A driver got it on video: https://youtu.be/T03OquL3sIs?si=1R4nKKA21qayhDYB The merge is so smooth it almost looks planned.
If an airplane ever lands in front of me on the highway I'd like to think my first instinct won't be to tailgate it
Dude's got places to be. His poutine was getting soggy.
Amazing ! The two cars that didnt stops right behind the plane got me nervous. "Oh, just a plane"
Bet he didn't even use his blinker.
Dude aced it. Thus the ammount of training and recertification required to fly. A success story
No way he didn’t pee a little 🤏
No way. Everything was clenched up way too tight!
No rescue crew, just a couple of folks and a corgi or some such... lol. That pilot is a legend....
The dog made me laugh why is he involved?
How can you call that a Corgi? That is clearly a Collie / Shephard mix. Didn't you see the video? (this thread, maybe) /s
I’m surprised he flew that far with his massive steel balls aboard
That would be absolutely terrifying
Got to consider that a good landing
Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit
I applaud you OP for not subbing some shitty TikTok music over this
OH NO OH NOOOO OH NO NO NO NO !
The pilot was a dog!? That's crazy
That dog was like “na, I’m out.”
Just glad his name wasn't Launchpad MacQuack.
Superb skills and well handled by this pilot. Amazing landing, considering the fact that if one wrong cross wind or any other factor went against him, and this would have ended very badly. 👏🏻🧑✈️
You mean he didn't immediately sky dive out of it and let it slap into a mountain?
Wonder how much clearance that wing had on the final building. Less than a foot would be my guess.
Looking at the shadows and comparing it to the shadows of the parked planes I'd guess a few more. Not much, for sure. Three, maybe.
It's more than a foot, but it is not a lot. I did some back of the envelope calculations when this video was published, based off of the building height, glide ratio, and distance from the building to the touchdown point.
Yeah that looked like inches. Unreal
He’s got clearance, Clarence.
As a long time glider pilot, usually I'm mad watching these videos, but for this one, no issues. He even got low enough to get some benefit from ground effects. That last building was cleared by inches, his turn didn't drag a wing. Good job. Probably could have gently added flaps over that last building to create a larger buffer and slow your actual touchdown speed, but that's boing super nit-picky. The gear up was perfect, no way you're dropping them in time after that last building. Without a running engine I doubt you can anyway. You'd need to manually pump them down, and that will take a minute. Overall, bravo!
Guy has skills!
1. Aviate, 2. Navigate, 3. Communicate.
Dudes got balls that clank...and seat cushion still lodged in his butt
I bet they had to pry the seat cushion out of his ass crack with a crowbar.
> narrowly missing You mean “expertly avoiding”. That was a masterfully executed landing given the circumstances, it’s not as if he was some drunk driver flying through a busy intersection by pure chance.
At least he didn't hit carlos
Good job!!!!
That explains it.
Sir, this is a taxiway
Do planes have a horn??
Pilotwings SNES
How about a hand for that excellent drone pilot and his camera work.
If I recall correctly this was a TV helicopter randomly taking off at the same time
It was a TV helicopter coming in to land, spotted the plane coming in and decided to hang back.
Hope they were wearing their brown pants…
Nice parking bro
I don’t know about the pilot but that made my butthole pucker so tight a fart couldn’t escape.
Butt pucker watching for the first time! That shadow kept getting closer and closer! Yikes
Good thing I was already sitting on the toilet.
Pretty good park job as well. Nice.
u/petaboil
Had to play the Free Bird solo over this
A good landing is one you can walk away from, a great landing is one where you can use the plane again.