ORIGINAL: Apollo11
Hi all,
I know... I know...
But still, it is really not necessary to land on "piano keys" (i.e. the very beginning of the runway)...
Leo "Apollo11"
It's also not necessary to stand in the undershoot. Whether or not it's necessary for a pilot to land on the piano keys is totally irrelevant to the matter IMO. The piano keys are part of the runway and therefore the pilot is totally within his/her rights to touch down there. Let's put it another way, if they were walking around an airport would you let them stand that close to an aircraft starting it's engines?
The bigger issue is people thinking that they can just stand wherever they like, usually with some shouting about paying taxes or similar. They used to do the same at Brize until the RAF coppers got sent to move them on. It's idiocy, I've seen what damage an idling jet engine can do, even a relatively low powered VC-10 engine. Aeroplanes are dangerous, engines especially so.
If they are stupid enough to stand there when a Typhoon is landing then they'll do the same when something big comes in. And in that case someone could/will be seriously hurt. Without reheat a Typhoon produces (iirc) about 34,000 lbs of thrust. A single Tristar engine produces 50,000 lbs or a C-17 engine 40,000 lbs. You've seen the video of what the Typhoon did, so imagine something with almost 10 times as much power.
Look for videos of Princess Juliana airport on Sint Maarten. Because that is where the situation will finish up, and then someone gets blown across the road and breaks limbs or gets killed. Or worse, causes enough of a distraction that it causes a crash.
It all comes under the umbrella of Flight Safety. Perhaps I have a different perspective to most people having been so involved with aircraft, no doubt Steve will have an aircrew type perspective on it as well. But for now at least... Rant over.
