Perhaps the wobbly rockets are more realistic than we thought.

[InterCity]

As a sailplane pilot (yes, that puny little engine-less aircraft) I can only agree with mellojoe. I approached in a heavy crosswind (not that heavy, but enough to pull my half-ton aircraft off course) two times, and each time I almost thought i will die. Hitting the runway in such conditions in puny aircraft is a matter of luck (fortunately you don't need a runway in a sailplane).

The last time it happened, i was approaching perfectly straight onto the runway, just to find myself flying 10 meters to the right of it. this happened in less than 5 seconds of a heavy blow.

[Marlin]

Good gravy.. I know the planes are designed to handle such conditions, but my I know my wife would never fly again if we went through a landing like that! The sensation in the plane when the gear first contacted the ground must have stained a bunch of pants.

[rdfox]

The worst airline landing I ever experienced was actually also the most recent one I experienced. (Haven't flown since 9/11, not out of fear, but because I haven't had a need to fly anywhere.) Lining up for final, I was in the back of the 727 with an airline employee sitting behind me. The guy muttered, "Oh, this is gonna be a fun one," about as sarcastically as possible; I'd already snugged down my seat belt, but I pulled it as tight as it'd get after hearing that. We never seemed stabilized on approach--for the first time in my life, I mentally reviewed the safety card on short final--and looking out my window, I saw nothing but ground as we crossed the fence in a thirty-degree right bank, still wobbling in roll the whole time. Right over the numbers(!), we levelled out and dropped what felt like about ten feet straight down onto the runway, hard enough to drop some of the oxygen masks in the cabin (first time I ever saw that happen, though I'd heard of it before).

Getting off the plane afterwards, I asked the captain, "Bit of a nasty crosswind today, huh?" His reply sent chills down my spine: "Thirty-G-fifty perpendicular to the runway." Yikes. (Look up how aviation winds are reported to see why that scared me.)

[The Destroyer]

Crosswind. That's a scary thing to land in...

[TwoHedWlf]

His reply sent chills down my spine: "Thirty-G-fifty perpendicular to the runway." Yikes. (Look up how aviation winds are reported to see why that scared me.)

Interesting, The max demonstrated crosswind for the 727 is 29 knots and most airlines will set their limit lower than that.

[SuperBigD60]

Interesting, The max demonstrated crosswind for the 727 is 29 knots and most airlines will set their limit lower than that.

I guess we've found our real life analogue for Jebediah

[InterCity]

The video also reminds me of one aviation joke I've found @airliners.net

"Ladies and gentlemen, we've landed at XY. Please remain seated until captain Kangaroo bounces us to the gates..."

[Camacha]

The wings of commercial airliners are incredibly flexible. In some cases, you can not even see the wing tips from the windows anymore and you will still be safe. The idea is that what bends does not break. Having a totally rigid wing is not only very heavy, but it also needs to absorb a lot more stress.

Oh, and for the landing: hard landings are safe landings - to a certain extent, of course, but this looks well within reason. The reason for this is that a nice, soft, flared out landing means you spend a lot of time right above the tarmac in an incredibly vulnerable position. Even a small amount of instability will give you trouble, with little to no room to correct. So even though a hard landing is very uncomfortable for the passengers, it is usually safer. You just get past the most dangerous bit as quick as possible. This is something you would want to do in gusty weather - exactly like in the clip. With the continuous banking and movement of the various ailerons it is quite obvious the wind was nasty and the pilot really had to fight the airplane down. In such a case passenger comfort becomes less important and passenger safety is the main concern.

Edited February 21, 2014 by Camacha

[jmiki8]

And in the cases of soft landings when the runway is wet, the sensors on the gears may not "notice" that they are actually in contact with the ground - meaning the thrust reversers wouldn't activate (they are usually meant to deploy automatically, just after touchdown). To avoid this, pilots are trained to "whack" the plane to the ground on wet surfaces (albeit not with the force presented in this video )

[rdfox]

He might have been exaggerating the angle. I did manage to confirm that the wind *speed* was 30G50, but not the wind direction relative to the runway heading. It wasn't a fun landing, that's for darn sure.

[lajoswinkler]

Yeah, wings are designed to flex to handle the weight of the airplane plus any nasty winds that are thrown in its direction. The times I've flown and seen the wing doing this number kind of unnerved me, but I knew they were designed like that. Now the fuselage OTOH.... thats not supposed to do that, and one even did in the case of of an Aloha Airlines Flight 243, where a significant section the of the roof was ripped off in flight,

http://adtechenviro.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/b737-200-aloha-hawaii.jpg

Both the pilots and the passengers both reported that the cockpit was dropping by several degrees and there was some concern that it would snap off.

I was a kid when I first saw the movie

. It scared the **** out of me.

I don't think there was any danger of the cockpit snapping off because the bottom part of the plane is what keeps most of the structural integrity.

Few years ago I saw a plane landing with pretty rough crosswind. It was quite exciting, but nothing bad had happened.

What scares me in the OP clip are not the wings flapping (they're designed to do so), but the right engine wobble. They aren't right, but that's sure some mechanical stress right there...