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Why Is Landing So Hard After Shooting A Perfect ILS?

Two days ago, a 737 slid off the runway at LaGuardia airport. The jet was carrying vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence, as well as a group of campaign staff and media reporters.

Fortunately, everyone was ok. But the incident brings up something that all of us need to be thinking about this time of year: contaminated runways. And it doesn’t matter if you’re flying a 737, or a 172.

LANDING ON A CONTAMINATED RUNWAY

While we don’t know exactly what happened during the landing, we do know the 737 came to a stop after going through the Engineered Material Arresting System (EMAS) at the end of the runway.

Around the time of the landing, there were overcast ceilings with moderate to heavy rain at LaGuardia.

How Interference Drag Affects The Performance Of Your Airplane

To fly efficiently, it’s important that you understand how drag affects your airplane in different phases of flight. Here’s what you should know about one of the most common forms of drag created by your airframe…

MIXING AIRFLOW

Interference Drag is generated by the mixing of airflow streamlines between airframe components such as the wing and the fuselage or the landing gear strut and the fuselage.

As air flows around different aircraft components and mixes, it needs to speed up in order to pass through the restricted area. As the air speeds up, it requires extra energy. At the same time, it creates turbulence, resulting in an increase in drag. The more acute the angle, the greater the interference drag generated.

WHERE YOU’LL FIND INTERFERENCE DRAG

Look at where the fuselage and wing meet. Interference drag forms behind the trailing edge of the wing adjacent to the fuselage. Airflow over top and underneath the wing mixes with airflow around the fuselage, creating interference drag. So if the wing was flying without an attached fuselage, there wouldn’t be interference drag at this location. This type of interference drag can be minimized by the use of fairings to ease the airflow transition between aircraft components.

Prevent A Crash By Learning To Fly As A Crew

Have you ever flown in someone else’s airplane? Have you had another pilot fly in your airplane? The answer to both of those questions is probably yes.

In crewed aircraft, over 70% of accidents are due to human error and group performance problems. Even if you’re not an airline pilot with crew resource management training, there are some simple and critically important steps you should take before turning on the engine and rolling down the runway. Using the following tips will ensure you’re ready to fly with another pilot onboard, no matter who has more experience.

IT’S NOT EASY

Crew resource management isn’t limited to communicating effectively, it’s more importantly about using all of your resources to achieve safe and efficient flight operations. This means you must know how to work with the people around you. Trust me, that’s easier said than done.

How To Make A Perfect Crosswind Takeoff

Crosswind on takeoff might not seem like that big of a deal, but if you don’t add correction you could end up skipping down, or off, the runway. And nobody wants that to happen.

Wind correction for takeoff is a lot like wind correction for taxi: start by fully deflecting your ailerons into the wind.

Why? Without correction, your upwind wing can lift off early, and the wind can send you careening toward the edge of the runway.

INITIAL TAKEOFF ROLL

When you’re getting ready for takeoff, check out the wind sock before you throttle up (there’s at least one visible from the end of each runway at public airports).

Your Engine Just Quit, Should You Land On A Road Or A Field?

WHEN YOUR ENGINE FAILS, WHERE SHOULD YOU LAND?

Awhile back, we posted a video of a pilot making a forced landing on a highway. The landing was a success, and from what we could see, there was no damage to the plane. However, there were a lot of comments – over 150 of them – questioning why the pilot didn’t land in one of the fields next to the road.

It’s definitely a good question, so we decided to do some research on forced landings to see if there was a significant difference in the outcome of road and field landings.

We researched the NTSB accident database, and we pulled 10 accidents, 5 that were road landings, and 5 that were field landings. Keep in mind as you read these, our goal isn’t to criticize or critique the landings, but instead to identify the hazards each pilot faced when they attempted their landing on a road or field. Here’s what happened with each landing: