A tad chilly

Picture perfect.  But even so I'll bet that pilot wasn't very happy when he heard what the crosswinds were when they briefed him during his approach. 

Here's a rather dishonest headline:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/28/lufthansa-flight-makes-dramatic-landing-in-149kmh-calgary-windstorm/

While strong, I'm pretty sure those weren't 149 km/h winds in the video....

Wow, those captions on the first two images are misleading. "Attempts to land"?  How about just "lands"?  After all, it was successful.  

And the pilot certainly didn't "change course".  He had the plane oriented the way it had to be for a high crosswind landing.

I found a forum in which an Airbus pilot writes that the maximum crosswind component for using the auto-land feature in an A340 is 20 knots-- anything higher requires manual landing.  If a runway is contaminated the maximum allowed crosswind for an A340 is 10-15 knots.

http://www.sciencelab.com/data/conversion_calculators/speed-conversion.shtml

For those of us who aren't very familiar with knots.

I saw a report about that storm on the news. That wind looked crazy.

This isn't related to Calgary, but check out this wild attempt to land in a bad crosswind-- this time on a rain-slicked runway in Hamburg.

Wow, attempt is right.

Scary. 

I was on a relatively small commuter plane once that was caught by a strong side wind as we were landing. It was more of a gust rather than a sustained wind. Made my stomach do a flip flop.

I've flown a lot, and even now, the slightest thing out of the ordinary during the landing and my stomach jumps into my throat a little.

I can't imagine looking out the side window and being able to see the runway laid out at an angle before me, let alone the sequence of tapping the wing, running off the runway and aborting the landing with full knowlege that we'll have to do it all over again.  Those pilots must have nerves of steel to get back out there after something like that.

Takeoffs and landings are the most dangerous.

I wonder if the flight in that landing attempt video was re-routed to a different airport with less weather. Can't imagine trying again after such a near miss.

I was wondering that too.  It's not like you have to fly very far in Europe to get to the next major airport.  But I was also wondering if they might have been trying to land in that weather because they had some reason they needed to put down fast, like fuel or medical.

Fuel crossed my mind, too.

Today is the last day of the official 2011 North Atlantic hurricane season.  Any hurricanes that crop up now are unauthorized pirate hurricanes.

You'll be able to tell because they have a patch over the eye.

note to self-- re-examine policy re: not blocking merely for bad puns

Another incredible video from last week's windstorm:

I saw that very clip on the news the day after the storm.

Hmmm . . . the comments on the actual youtube page are interesting-- mostly people pointing out that the driver of the slow vehicle (with the flashers) she was complaining about had probably seen the trailer tipping earlier and was warning people not to try to overtake it in the left lane (leeward side) like she was about to.