A Day in the Life of an Airbus Pilot
It has been a long day, but the end is in sight. The fun began in Los Angeles with two round trips to Las Vegas; now we are enroute to Cleveland with 112 passengers. We had interesting landing conditions on the last flight to Las Vegas, in that the wind forced the tower to utilize runway 7 Right for arrivals, which is unusual. I have landed on 7 Right about a dozen times, maybe... My new to the Airbus Captain had not, and guess who was flying that day….
The Captain is a decent guy, former Navy pilot, who is still trying to come up to speed in the all-electric world of the Airbus after flying the 737. Unusual for a “Hooker” (my term for Navy pilots) he seems to have a confidence problem, and gives me the landing, despite the fact I don’t have that much more time flying the Bus than he does.
When we briefed the landing, I told him I would fly the approach by the numbers, and to not let the rising terrain freak him out. In other words, be configured with landing gear down, flaps extended and 1,500 feet above the airport five miles from the runway. If you have never landed on a runway before, those numbers will work every time and everywhere. The trick is to be flexible with the lateral path leading to the runway. In other words, if the tower is using four mile final approach segments, then you have to use one mile of the base leg turn as part of your five mile configuration path. Sometimes the tower will clear you to fly direct to the runway from a point in space that will not yield a path lined up with the runway, i.e., a crooked final. We call these dog legs. No big deal if the flying pilot's brain will accept this as the path to the runway and get configured. The flying pilot can roll out on runway heading a few hundred feet above the ground. No problem for a youngster like me, with cat like reflexes, that is, if my brain will quit thinking about issues at home and concentrate on a simple geometry problem.
The tower cleared us for a visual approach to runway 7 Right ten miles from the airport and on a right base leg. I could tell by watching our movement over the ground that we had a strong tailwind... One look at the inertial navigation read out confirmed a 60 m.p.h. tailwind. The heavy 767 ahead of us blew through the final approach path and was now banking sharply right to regain the final path. Ooops! The wind is being a real dick, as I roll out on runway heading to the right of the actual path, then allow the wind to blow me back on the path. Once on the final path, I bank gently right until I get a heading that would prevent the crosswind from blowing us off the final approach. In pilot land, this is known as crabbing.
The maximum recommended crosswind for an A320 is 43 mph, although in the hands of an experienced crosswind pilot, it can handle 45 mph. I’m not sure how experienced I am, but at this moment, I’m the better choice of the two idiots sitting here. The tower was calling the winds 35 mph with gusts to 42 mph, and to make it interesting, a slight tailwind component. The Captain had previously told the flight attendants and passengers that the landing would be less than smooth, so at least everyone is prepared for that.
As I fly the beast over the end of the runway, I can see fingers of sand blowing across the surface and the windsock was standing straight out, perpendicular to the runway. I begin to slip, or cross control, the aircraft, trying to bring the fuselage parallel to the centerline, so as not to touchdown at an angle, which is really hard on the aircraft. As I slip into the wind, the right main landing gear touched down first, then the aircraft bounced about a foot. At the top of the bounce, I foolishly selected reverse thrust. Yikes! Here it comes... It was as if the aircraft asked, "You want to stop flying? OK, we can do that!" We fell back to the runway with much vigor. Behind me, I could hear stuff clanging in the forward galley. When my vision cleared, we were on the centerline and decelerating rapidly with sand, dirt, and loose paper blowing across the runway. Welcome to Sin City folks.
Needless to say, I was mortified as we taxied to the gate.
When I opened the flight deck door, the flight attendants said, "Good job, Boys!" Several passengers complimented the crosswind landing.
