The linked video (Instagram) appears to show a 737 hovering essentially in one place. How strong do the winds have to be before this can happen? I notice that the trees are being blown but not that much.
That’s assuming this is real and not AI.
It’s not hovering - it’s coming more or less straight at the camera (which is why it looks bigger over time in the video - small/far away).
It looks weird because the adjustment that the pilot is making for crosswind means the nose of the plane is pointing off to one side, which makes it look like that’s the direction the plane is trying to fly.
The minimum airspeed for a 737 is apparently 140 knots, which is 161 mph - so there would have to be at least a 161 mph headwind for the plane to appear to hover. The maximum safe operating windspeed for a 737 is somewhere in the region of 30 knots. Trying to fly in winds of 140 knots seems like it might be a recipe for catastrophe, even if such wind wasn’t turbulent (which I don’t suppose it would be).
I agree with everything you wrote except this. Jets must encounter winds over 30 knots on every flight, I would think. (eta, I might be misunderstanding “windspeed”)
I don’t think the jet is actually hovering, but if it were, then I’m guessing, like Mangetout said, it could only hover if the wind were blowing so intensely that its windspeed matched the minimum airspeed (or more) needed to generate lift over the wings for the jet to remain airborne.
So if the Boeing 737 needed, say, 160mph to take off and stay airborne, then the wind would need to be at least 160mph. But any wind that powerful would lead to utter devastation of objects on the ground, and we don’t see that in the video. So it’s not hovering.
This, exactly. The pilot is essentially having to tack into the crosswind. The plane’s actual motion is, more or less, coming directly towards the camera.
I am definitely not a pilot (my entire expertise in this area comes from watching youtube videos) but I believe he is referring to the max wind speed for landing, or maybe the max crosswind speed. If the winds are too high while landing, the plane has to either wait for the winds to die down or divert to their alternate landing site.
Wind speeds at altitude can be much higher. I believe 100 knots isn’t out of the ordinary once you get up to altitude.
I’m sure you know this video doesn’t portray 161mph winds, you were probably referring to theoretical stall speed in normal level flight under normal conditions. A category 5 hurricane has winds of at least 157mph, and the video definitely doesn’t reflect that.
The stall speed is a lot lower at a high angle attack under thrust. Plus as mentioned earlier, the plane only appears to hover because it’s coming directly toward the camera, it’s actually descending.
As to the actual answer, I’m not sure. Google suggests that a 737 can handle a crosswind landing in conditions of not more than 20 knots, or 23 mph. That seems to track more closely with the tree motion that we’re seeing.
As an aside, that pilot did an effing awesome job - the plane wasn’t even over the tarmac one second before touch down. Amazing!
The Youtube version of the vid seems to indicate that it is from MS Flight Sim 2020. Note he almost planted it in the trees short of the runway.
Makes sense to me. From watching youtube videos, I believe that a real pilot would go around instead of trying to land. That is way too erratic to be called a stabilized landing.
Here are some real crosswind landings, along with some “nopes”.
What’s really cool is the B52 can turn its wheels while “crabbing” so that it doesn’t have to do the little turn at the end when it touches down to align itself with the runway.
This. Sorry - I should have said safe wind speed for landing - I thought it was self evident, since we’re talking about a plane that is right near the ground.
These maximum airspeeds aren’t so much about engineering limits - after all, in flight, the relative speed of air passing over the plane in motion is guaranteed to be more than 30kts (or the thing would just drop out of the sky).
Safe wind speeds for landing are about the interaction, turbulence and gusting of wind vs the plane and the proximity of the ground - if you hit nasty turbulent wind at altitude that throws the plane around, there is time to recover. On landing, there isn’t.
Yes - I know the plane isn’t hovering and neither is it subject to winds of anything like that speed. I was attempting to answer this part of the OP’s question regarding how fast the wind would have to be to make the plane hover in place; regardless of how impossible that might be to either occur, or aviate, the theoretical wind speed to make a 737 hover in place cannot be less than the minimum airspeed of the plane. Treadmills or not.
I see that now. Thanks to all who weighed in.
When my brother was in the Air Force in the early 60s a bomber landed in a taxiway perpendicular to the runway because the cross-wind was so strong. The taxiway was long enough because the winds were so strong. This was in Lake Charles, LA.
Landing (noun): A controlled midair collision between an aircraft and a planet.
The scary part of that landing isn’t the crab down final to landing. It’s the BIG swerve on the ground right as the video ends. 