Whoa There Cowboy!

This is one of the scariest landings ever!  On the flight deck, at the back of the bus, or just standing there with your mouth open and watching.

If you have a FEAR of FLYING DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO. I am as serious as a heart attack!  DON’T WATCH!

I have seen and been on several flights where there were horrific situations, but this is the nightmare flight from HELL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e37haDGp1ok&feature=related

I grew up in Texas, and I know about cowboys – well, a little bit anyway.  Cowboys in a pinch use instinct, past experiences, and hard-nosed determination.  They just don’t mess around – that means they don’t hem and haw.  They take the bulls by the horns and bring ’em down fast.  There are too many things that can go wrong when dealing with wild situations.  Best get ‘er done and done the right way.  There might not be any ‘overs.’

So you want to marry a wan-na-bee cowboy?  Maybe. Maybe not!  But I do digress.

Problem Solving

Flight Procedures are the life and death maneuvers that cover just about anything a pilot might ever encounter.  Horst, my husband and a retired Luftwaffe fighter jet instructor pilot (IP), saw this video and ran through the correct way to handle this situation.

His instructions went like this: Glide or slip in with nose flying into the wind, straighten out and bring the nose of the aircraft inline with the runway just before touch down, and lower the wing against the wind to keep the aircraft from being tipped.  It is not as easy as it sounds and takes some practice.

In flight training, a good IP will always let the student pilot sweat the load.  If, however, the IP says, “I’ve got it,” the student knows it was a serious state of emergency.  The student at that instant grimaces and recalls his IP’s comments during the classroom instructions, “You do this, you’ll be a little bit dead!”

Even when a commercial airline captain has practiced crosswind landings oodles of times in the flight simulator, rough cross winds in real-time flight are a challenge.  This is where the cowboy’s instinct comes in handy.

For the passenger in the back of the bus, however, it is always a white knuckle affair that calls for prayer.  Not so much for safety, but to verbally say, “hang on to her big guy, hang on!” and of course to calm the nerves!   It is after all a known fact that pilots want to live another day to tell their hair-raising stories.  And trust me, they are full of them.

Well, I’ve been there, done that – hopefully for that one and only time!!  AND, watching it happen is more terrifying than sitting in the aircraft. . .

Second Worst  Case Scenario

That is an easy choice – a navy pilot in the captain’s chair.  These guys really do not know how to perform a soft landing.  But, a solid, slam it down, bolt rattling, two point landing is better any day than a one point hop, skip, and a high flying arabesque.  Those big planes are not not designed to be toe dancers.  And when it happens, count on a nerve wrecking few moments.

Gadzooks!  My heart is still pounding after watching this hard-nosed, no nonsense cowboy at heart take that shiny hunk of metal by the horns and make it straighten up and fly right . . . Gotta love him!  But marry him?  Well, I did 49 years ago, and I don’t regret one single moment.  This love match has not been a cake walk, but oh my what sweet and crazy fun we’ve had.