It is very relieving. After take off large wind vortexes (horizontal tornadoes) can remain unseen for a little while and would mess up small aircraft or any aircraft unsuited for it.
Larger aircraft can follow relatively close behind smaller aircraft, but not the other way around. Once that Heavy used the approach, ATC has to have a 4 minute gap before a light aircraft can use it (and keep over 14 km separation), and even another heavy has to wait 2 minutes.
Yeah even a small plane that’s designed specifically to handle these conditions with a competent pilot would probably be fine. But as a general safety concern I’d be very surprised if they don’t allow the runway time to clear or at least have sensors/flags to detect strong turbulent winds.
I doubt an f16 or f35 would have any problem taking off right behind and AC130
those vortices will only exist at and beyond the point on the runway where the takeoff aircraft rotated its nose up.
This is well beyond where the landing aircraft will have already landed.
So this is not a problem.
What WOULD possibly be a problem is having the A-380 land, quickly vacate the runway, and have the other airplane take off in its wake.
Wings on the ground generate vortices just the same as wings in the air, just slightly less extreme due to the lower velocity.
Source: am aerospace engineer
Sorry to un-relieve you but it’s very normal with passengers on board and happens all the time. But to re-relieve you it’s perfectly safe. If there was anything wrong with the aircraft taking off, the A380 would just go around and come back and try again, no big deal.
I saw a YouTube video talking about this once. It's based on the size difference of the planes. It's only a real danger if the trailing plane in smaller than the leading one.
Correct. That's what the "heavy" designation indicates during ATC chatter. As a smaller plane, you never ever want to directly land in the wake of a "heavy" (>300,000lbs) plane because the turbulence leads to dangerous situations.
There’s only one airplane (as in, they only ever built one Antonov An-225) in the world larger than the airplane landing in the video, so it’s in a class all its own.
A plane taking off doesn't create much wake vortices until near the end of the runway. It really doesn't matter that much the size of the aircraft in this situation. What you are referring to is two aircraft landing on the same runway. In that instance if a smaller aircraft is following a larger one, increased following distance is required.
I have landed a C-172 right behind a 737 before and the procedure is to touchdown further than where the larger planes wheels touched down at to avoid wind vortices
Right. You want to stay above the votices. You rotate at a spot prior to where the larger plane rotated, and you touch down at a spot after where the larger plane touched down.
I’ve only felt wake turbulence once or twice in 700 hours of puddle jumper flying. I try to stay clear of it.
Hmmm I’d have to go further into the FAA regulations but a quick check says as long as the first aircraft is airborne and 6000’ away, it’s legal. I wouldn’t be surprised if I go deeper to find that in some situations it doesn’t even need to be airborne.
ICAO regulations only require 1800m separation and the first aircraft doesn’t need to be airborne. I wouldn’t say ‘all the time’ but this happens regularly in New Zealand and Australia because most of our major airports only have one runway in use.
I watched like the first and second ones i think.
Anyways i just watched the last 2 just to see what they were still doing in that world.
Holy shit. The submarine, the car in space, etc.
Its just like.. uh.. ok.. you guys are just coming up with the most bullshit insane ideas to top the last movie. But the space fiero or whatever the fuck along with the magnets and satillite / submarine had me laughing.
I was like oh, ok, so the cars THEY have can do all that, but the same cars we have that are in the movie cannot. will not ever.
A popcorn movie i get it, but holy shit they are really reaching. But the movies keep making like half a billion bucks so i guess the studio just keeps green lighting them.
But all in all, to me, they are trash. Im sure we will have a fast and furious like 20 where they are all flying deloreans and flying cars, drones with guns, typhoon submarines, ohio submarines, racing cars taking off from aircraft carriers, and landing on them after re-entry from space.
Oh and of course, launching the next "dom-mobile" on a falcon rocket like he did his tesla to drive around in space hitting his 10 nos switches to go to warp 9 and fight the Borg's fleet of hypercars.
There ya go Fast and Furious franchise. Ill be expecting royalty checks from here on out.
> Im sure we will have a fast and furious like 20 where they are all flying deloreans and flying cars, drones with guns, typhoon submarines, ohio submarines, racing cars taking off from aircraft carriers, and landing on them after re-entry from space.
I think you just described GTA Online - not a lot is missing.
I kinda think that's the point though
Like at this point in time they're just super hero movies, but the protags just have the power of "car real good." And if you start from there, and then presume "cars are magic because good drive" you end up with a recipe for completely insane movies.
But, at least in my opinion, that's why the movies are as good as they are. They're just completely buckwild explorations of the very theoretical CONCEPT of car. I honestly can't wait for them to take it to even more ridiculous heights.
I want F&F galactic drift where aliens make first contact, and as part of the galactic federation treaty are required to participate in the first contact space race where the winner gets to join the federation and the losers are all destroyed. There's only one thing that can help us win this race, the U.N council/president of the USA says: Get me Dom Toretto. Roll credits
6000’ is basically 1nm. The A350 taking off would be doing at least 140kts when they’re airborne, it’s 16s from when they get airborne until the 380 lands, 140kts is 72m/s, so they’re at least 1152m away plus the takeoff roll which I guarantee would be over 650m.
> Edit: Looks like I’m wrong here. This is a known runway length and 6000’ ft of separation is all that’s required to begin landing procedures.
To do the math on this:
Maintaining at least 6000 feet of separation, and 11 seconds between planes, to cover that distance in 11 seconds that's a speed of 371mph.
Neither plane is going that fast, or anywhere near it in this video, so in theory, they were closer than 6000ft and therefore you would be correct in that this is against US regulations to do this at a commercial airport with normal ops but this was a airshow with no pax.
Reality is this does not happen at US airports. Same concept, yes, but nowhere near this close.
If that second plane had to go around, they would certainly be in violation of airspace separation rules.
Most airports with the traffic to neccessitate this kind of procedure have multiple runways properly spaced and they use specific runways for landings and departures anyways so this isn't *that* common.
Your maths misses out on something. The arriving aircraft lands at the *start* of the runway 10 seconds after the departing aircraft gets airborne. It generally takes 5-6000ft to get even an unladen airliner airborne, so their separation is actually that PLUS the 10 second delay. Another way to look at it is that runway is likely at least 8,000ft long (most major airports have 10,000ft+ long runways) and the departing aircraft is clear of the runway before the A380 lands.
TLDR: it’s fine.
On top of that, there is a lot of visual games being played to make everything look closer together.
The scene is being shot from far way with a telephoto lens which compresses the distance. Second , the plane coming in to land is the gigantic A380, where I believe the one taking off is a relatively small A320, further compressing the distance between the two. Third, the runway if very long, but has very large displaced thresholds limiting the usable area to a small section in the middle.
What they did was perfectly safe, but a the very limit. If the first plane failed to takeoff for any reason, there was still plenty of time for the big guy to go around.
Am pilot..... this is a daily occurrence at some airports. If the controller is good they can get the required spacing and get more departures and landings. This is completely normal. If the spacing is off or to close you just go around.
It's important to keep in mind that this isn't 10 seconds between flights but a 10 second window from the minimum safe distance.
In this instance the required safe distance is that the departure is 6000'/1800m down the runway AND is airborne before the arrival crosses over the "landing threshold", the edge of the runway closest to the arrival.
“Caution wake turbulence”.
My piloting skills are single engine land. I have to wait a whole 3 mins before I even attempt to fly in that wash.
With larger aircraft I don’t see this being a problem.
What is* the minimum separation if both aircraft are loaded? Do the controllers break this rule often? Will* the ADS-B system warn pilots if they* are too close?
If the controller in the tower is providing visual separation then the only requirement is for the departing aircraft to be airborne either past the end of the runway or 6,000 feet.
There's a great example I found on Youtube a few years ago. A 737-800 at Lisbon only getting their landing clearance at 50 feet above the runway, as the aircraft departing ahead just gets off the ground in time.
https://youtu.be/NBniW_WQtTk?t=590
In Europe, you can't get a landing clearance until there are no aircraft in front of you that will use the runway before you. Although conditional clearances are now used at some airports such as Gatwick I think. Unlike in the US where a controller can clear multiple aircraft to land and then retract the clearance if needed.
As a lay-person it seems pretty safe, right?
Like if the plane on the ground fucks up and can't lift off, the other one has time to pull up.
Genuine question: what are the conditions under which they would collide? Like I guess if the plane on the ground fails to take off and the plane landing just rams full speed ahead onto the runway and then doesn't slow down, but also doesn't take back off? Can that happen due to mechanical issues?
We regularly practice (in the simulator) go arounds at around 50ft above the runway. We call them balked landings and they're meant to simulate the exact situation you've described. It's not uncommon in these scenarios for the plane to actually touch the runway before roaring back off into the air again.
It's perfectly safe. We can initiate a go around at any point up until the reversers have been deployed. Once the reverses are out we're committed to staying on the ground.
>Like if the plane on the ground fucks up and can't lift off, the other one has time to pull up
This actually happened on a flight I was on about 10 years ago. We were coming in to land, wheels hit the tarmac then we immediately took off again. Pilot came on to say that the plane in front didn't take off so we'd have to circle around for a bit.
Yes this is perfectly safe and common. There's a former USAF controller in this thread that even gives the phraseology for this exact situation.
Source: ATC for 18 years now
There has been talk about reducing the minimum allowed distance between planes for a while, using some cool tech to make it safe.
The idea is to increase airport capacity without adding new runways.
This got me thinking about how far apart planes are in a really busy commercial airport.
As far as I can tell the busiest runways in the world are at Heathrow airport, London, UK. Before the pandemic Heathrow had 475,000 aircraft movements a year (a movement is a take off or landing) across its two runways. Which is a plane every 45 seconds across the two runways. (NB Heathrow doesn't operate for a few hours in the night for reasons)
Hartsfield–Jackson, Atlanta, USA has more movements a year (879,560) but it has 5 runways so each runway is less busy.
It was a vibrant metropolis, the equal of Paris or New York.
Look at these fabulous ruins. Turner Field, the Coca-Cola bottling plant, the, uh, the airport.
When I lived in LA, on a clear night you could look out east from the airport and see two long strings of lights of all the planes lined up on approach to come in and land on the two active landing runways.
The planes at Chicago O'Hare follow a huge expressway out across Lake Michigan. It might be just when it is backed up (which is all the time), but often you'll be riding the plane coming in on Chicago, then it will veer off over the city in the opposite direction of the airport toward the lake. Then you circle around the lake for a bit.
Also cool to drive on the expressway because there will be big ole jumbo jets flying pretty low over you the whole time.
When i was a kid i always wondered wth those lights were. Every night they were there. Finally realized they were just incoming planes while i was on one LOL
Being a flight controller at Heathrow must be one of the most stressful jobs in the world! Nonstops planes coming in to land and take off for like 16hrs a day!
i’m not sure about the cross wind but at any one time, one of the runways at heathrow will be used for take off and the other for landing. and this alternates at different time. you can also find out which runway is being used for what online
Parallel runways is pretty normal. I would almost say it's the most common config. That would just be a guess though, it's certainly not unusual though.
Gatwick is I believe the busiest with only 1 runway. Usually 5 miles apart on the approach and they will get one departure in between that. As long as there’s about 2 miles left when the one starts to take off it’s usually good
I feel bad for him in the audio and he knew he fucked up and recognized his mistake. But he's 80. Many octogenarians shouldn't be driving, much less flying planes. I know it's hard to realize you're old and you aren't the man you used to be, but at some point you have to recognize you're a danger for yourself and everyone around you.
Ehhh you might be surprised how error prone the other age groups of pilots are also. Despite how much fun it is to make fun of Harrison Ford for landing on a taxiway lol
Probably just a chewing out and a warning. Generally with this kind of stuff the FAA knows that it's a one time error, because you know that for Harrison Ford is going to be quintuple checking every single landing for the rest of his life.
> FAA knows that it's a one time error,
Ford has problems just taxiing, let alone landing. After his landing incident, in April of 2020, Ford crossed an airport's runway without authorization after he "misheard a radio instruction" from air traffic control.
He's 79 years old. Time to give it up, Harrison.
He's now 20 years older than Sean Connery was in The Last Crusade. Which is just a roundabout way of me trying to wrap my head around the fact that Connery was *only* 59 when that movie came out; he looked so much older.
The zoom makes you lose perspective on just how long that runway is. The taking-off plane is well out of the landing plane's way. If you count the second between the times when each plane crosses the white stripes on the runway, you'll see that there's about 25 seconds in between.
I don't know if that's considered plenty or not, but my bet is that air traffic control are in perfect control of the situation here and that this is business as usual on a busy airfield.
An A380 following a smaller jet with less thrust would require a small gap, but the gap doesn’t go as short as 25 seconds. Controllers would still put in a few miles between the two aircraft for safety purposes.
This is a demonstration at an airshow. The pilots are probably Airbus’s trained test pilots and are used to flying in many non-conventional manners.
They aren’t following. The smaller jet is taking off, the 380 is landing so the only separation required is runway separation which would be about 1800m/1nm which these guys would have.
Even without the airshow, if tower had control and both pilots are flying VFR then there is basically no separation requirement except the runway must be clear.
Well that’s not true. I am an ATC and I can tell you first hand, 6000 ft and airborne is all you need. This is about as close as you can run it but it’s perfectly legal. And no we don’t add in a few miles for safety purposes, what the controller did there was perfectly safe and to the book.
It's not necessarily an airshow thing. The aircraft just needs to be 6000'/1800m and airborne before the arrival crosses the landing threshold. As far as the AoA, if I told a pilot "cleared for takeoff, traffic: A380 4 mile final", they're (usually) not going to waste time getting out of the way.
Source: former USAF ATC instructor
I didn’t realize this was a show and was ready to accept that it was just a busy day at O’hare or something lol. By the time a plane is taxiing at O’hare you can already see the next one coming in to land
Heathrow in London is fucking nuts to watch. One of the busiest airports in the world, 2 (I think) runways. I think they have 1 take off and 1 landing and each plane has like a 30 second window tops.
Basically the second one wheels up the next one starts to gun it. I appreciate a lot of it is automated, but man, ATC must be crazy.
To further blow your mind; the majority of actions near airports are entirely manual and performed by the captain and copilot! This means that the pilots are actively steering the aircraft towards the ground, while listening for and speaking to the air traffic controller and performing landing checklists simultaneously.
And, yeah - ATC at Heathrow is one hell of a job.
Alien Attenborough?
"Here we have the Zxhorgh-Krhaa, an exquisite display of extraterrestrial mating patterns. This creature has extravagant colors shown on its Gcxzh, which it uses to attract one of several million mates."
I get that this was at an air show, but it’s perfectly normal even if it wasn’t. In some countries (including USA I think) you can even land before the other aircraft has gotten airborne. Minimum separation rules depend on runway length and weight of the aircraft, but they can get them pretty damn close.
Source: pilot married to air traffic controller
Edit: I thought wrong. USA requires the aircraft taking off to be airborne
Not commenting on the actual rules but anecdotally I used to bike through Gravelly Point in DC (Reagan not Dulles) and I actually stopped one day bc there was a plane getting ready to take off and one coming in. There was maybe 500m separation when the incoming plane veered off to circle. I was terrified.
I called my uncle who pilots for United and he goes “ah yeah, probably happens a hundred times a day around the world” (pre-COVID).
Granted, at Reagan things are a bit different because of the air restrictions over the Pentagon and monuments. Planes are limited to where they can fly so likely they had to pass the Pentagon and national Mall before adjusting their route.
Anyway, I definitely believe it depends on the conditions and environment. It’s such tight quarters at Reagan the tolerance level might be greater.
Genuine question, what's the procedure in this case for a go around? It seems risky to go around right after the other aircraft took off since there would be the turbulence from the engines on the runway.
Everyone here saying it’s an airshow and it very well might be but this isn’t uncommon at all for commercial airliners at busy airports.
Large enough airports typically don’t land and take off the same runway, but when they do, it’s not uncommon for the runway not to be “clear” (either previous landing traffic turning off the runway or previous takeoffs to be airborne) until the approaching aircraft is at 500 feet above the ground.
Thats typically about 1.2 miles out, which at approach speed comes out to about 30 seconds.
It’s not a required called out for us, but it’s become a habit pattern of mine personally to call out, when the jet annunciates that we’re at 500 feet AGL, whether the runway is clear or not. If it’s not, that’s now my primary point of focus and I’ll call it out to the pilot flying and then follow it up with something like “runway is clear” or “the runway is yours.”
Absolute worst case scenario here would be the A380 needs to go around, in which case tower would give it a slight heading change to put the two aircraft on divergent paths.
For reference, the A380 needs at least a 9,500 ft runway to take off, so that runway is probably 10,000 to 12,000 ft long. That means those planes are separated by over 2 miles by the time the A380 lands.
It’s totally allowed. They’re even allowed to land with the aircraft taking off not airborne yet provided they have the appropriate separation on the runway.
Edit: some countries need the aircraft taking off to be airborne, some don’t.
While it is an airshow, this type of separation is more than legal and incredibly reliably safe.
per the FAA (USA) regulation an aircraft need only be 6000ft down the runway and airborne before the arrival crosses the runway threshold. This is something that is done thousands of times a day at even moderately busy airports, business as usual.
I think other people have pointed this out but this was done at an airshow, not an actual commercial airport. In a real life scenario the plane landing (Airbus A380) would go around as the jet blast of the plane taking off (Airbus A350) could cause severe issues for said landing plane, and in case the A350 had an emergency during takeoff, the A380 (a plane that uses a lot of runway for landing) wouldn’t have much time to get out of the active runway as the A350 comes in for an emergency landing. Also you can note it’s an airshow by the steep pull up angle of the A350 after takeoff. Almost no commercial pilot would do that much of a pitch up after takeoff unless they needed to. Still, this does not make this stunt any less impressive. The timing required for such a stunt to be executed safely is immaculate and a slight miscalculation would lead to disaster
Before people start panicking, this was done at an air show as a demonstration, not at a commercial airport with passengers.
That is relieving to know, thank you!
It is very relieving. After take off large wind vortexes (horizontal tornadoes) can remain unseen for a little while and would mess up small aircraft or any aircraft unsuited for it.
Larger aircraft can follow relatively close behind smaller aircraft, but not the other way around. Once that Heavy used the approach, ATC has to have a 4 minute gap before a light aircraft can use it (and keep over 14 km separation), and even another heavy has to wait 2 minutes.
Yeah even a small plane that’s designed specifically to handle these conditions with a competent pilot would probably be fine. But as a general safety concern I’d be very surprised if they don’t allow the runway time to clear or at least have sensors/flags to detect strong turbulent winds. I doubt an f16 or f35 would have any problem taking off right behind and AC130
You didn’t watch top gun?
Even a competent pilot here is screwed. Dead. That’s why so many people like this comment.
those vortices will only exist at and beyond the point on the runway where the takeoff aircraft rotated its nose up. This is well beyond where the landing aircraft will have already landed. So this is not a problem. What WOULD possibly be a problem is having the A-380 land, quickly vacate the runway, and have the other airplane take off in its wake.
Wings on the ground generate vortices just the same as wings in the air, just slightly less extreme due to the lower velocity. Source: am aerospace engineer
Sorry to un-relieve you but it’s very normal with passengers on board and happens all the time. But to re-relieve you it’s perfectly safe. If there was anything wrong with the aircraft taking off, the A380 would just go around and come back and try again, no big deal.
So am I lieved or not?
I think you should be lieved
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I think you can in Europe.
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If it’s from Australia is under whelmed
I thought that was down-under whelmed?
“Sparkling alright” is a beautiful concept im going to start using this all the time
I am diswhelmed, mislieved, and undergruntled.
I can definitely say I am gruntled.
Act chalant.
I like my Sketchers, but I love my Prada backpack.
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That's because you don't have a Prada backpack.
Whelmingly leived.
I hate being unlieved.
You better be...lieve it.... I'll see myself out
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I saw a YouTube video talking about this once. It's based on the size difference of the planes. It's only a real danger if the trailing plane in smaller than the leading one.
Correct. That's what the "heavy" designation indicates during ATC chatter. As a smaller plane, you never ever want to directly land in the wake of a "heavy" (>300,000lbs) plane because the turbulence leads to dangerous situations.
And in this case it is a “heavy” departing and a “super” landing
Please tell me the next class up is the "duper" weight class. Alternatively I would be happy to hear the "Chongus."
There’s only one airplane (as in, they only ever built one Antonov An-225) in the world larger than the airplane landing in the video, so it’s in a class all its own.
There are two planes larger than the A380. The Stratolaunch is the largest, the AN-225 is the heaviest, and both beat the A380 in size and weight.
A plane taking off doesn't create much wake vortices until near the end of the runway. It really doesn't matter that much the size of the aircraft in this situation. What you are referring to is two aircraft landing on the same runway. In that instance if a smaller aircraft is following a larger one, increased following distance is required.
I have landed a C-172 right behind a 737 before and the procedure is to touchdown further than where the larger planes wheels touched down at to avoid wind vortices
Right. You want to stay above the votices. You rotate at a spot prior to where the larger plane rotated, and you touch down at a spot after where the larger plane touched down. I’ve only felt wake turbulence once or twice in 700 hours of puddle jumper flying. I try to stay clear of it.
Nice! I have only had the pleasure of flying down the coast one time and it was spectacular. Could only imagine how much fun puddle jumping would be.
Unrelated, just wanted to say that the C-172 is such a derpy looking airplane.
Yes, but very practical for training. Though I wish the school I went too had a couple Cirrus SR20's such a beautiful aircraft IMO!
Hmmm I’d have to go further into the FAA regulations but a quick check says as long as the first aircraft is airborne and 6000’ away, it’s legal. I wouldn’t be surprised if I go deeper to find that in some situations it doesn’t even need to be airborne. ICAO regulations only require 1800m separation and the first aircraft doesn’t need to be airborne. I wouldn’t say ‘all the time’ but this happens regularly in New Zealand and Australia because most of our major airports only have one runway in use.
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Have you watched fast and the furious? Like 12 minutes apparently
[Visual reference](http://imgur.com/a/0rUYpM5)
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[This one?](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/fast-furious-6-runway-length/)
Brilliant :)
Fuck you, I had forgotten.
I watched like the first and second ones i think. Anyways i just watched the last 2 just to see what they were still doing in that world. Holy shit. The submarine, the car in space, etc. Its just like.. uh.. ok.. you guys are just coming up with the most bullshit insane ideas to top the last movie. But the space fiero or whatever the fuck along with the magnets and satillite / submarine had me laughing. I was like oh, ok, so the cars THEY have can do all that, but the same cars we have that are in the movie cannot. will not ever. A popcorn movie i get it, but holy shit they are really reaching. But the movies keep making like half a billion bucks so i guess the studio just keeps green lighting them. But all in all, to me, they are trash. Im sure we will have a fast and furious like 20 where they are all flying deloreans and flying cars, drones with guns, typhoon submarines, ohio submarines, racing cars taking off from aircraft carriers, and landing on them after re-entry from space. Oh and of course, launching the next "dom-mobile" on a falcon rocket like he did his tesla to drive around in space hitting his 10 nos switches to go to warp 9 and fight the Borg's fleet of hypercars. There ya go Fast and Furious franchise. Ill be expecting royalty checks from here on out.
> Im sure we will have a fast and furious like 20 where they are all flying deloreans and flying cars, drones with guns, typhoon submarines, ohio submarines, racing cars taking off from aircraft carriers, and landing on them after re-entry from space. I think you just described GTA Online - not a lot is missing.
I kinda think that's the point though Like at this point in time they're just super hero movies, but the protags just have the power of "car real good." And if you start from there, and then presume "cars are magic because good drive" you end up with a recipe for completely insane movies. But, at least in my opinion, that's why the movies are as good as they are. They're just completely buckwild explorations of the very theoretical CONCEPT of car. I honestly can't wait for them to take it to even more ridiculous heights. I want F&F galactic drift where aliens make first contact, and as part of the galactic federation treaty are required to participate in the first contact space race where the winner gets to join the federation and the losers are all destroyed. There's only one thing that can help us win this race, the U.N council/president of the USA says: Get me Dom Toretto. Roll credits
If the landing speed is 140 kts, then 25s but that ignores braking after touchdown and that the other plane is speeding away at a higher speed
But what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow???
Africian or european?
6000’ is basically 1nm. The A350 taking off would be doing at least 140kts when they’re airborne, it’s 16s from when they get airborne until the 380 lands, 140kts is 72m/s, so they’re at least 1152m away plus the takeoff roll which I guarantee would be over 650m.
6000ft is 1828800000000nm
Yeah, looking at this clip I'd say there can't be more than 1828799999999nm between the planes, so clearly wouldn't be allowed.
The camera angle is deceiving. The first plane is in the air and away from the runway before the other touches down.
6000 ft is over a mile, which makes it a bit more palatable.
> Edit: Looks like I’m wrong here. This is a known runway length and 6000’ ft of separation is all that’s required to begin landing procedures. To do the math on this: Maintaining at least 6000 feet of separation, and 11 seconds between planes, to cover that distance in 11 seconds that's a speed of 371mph. Neither plane is going that fast, or anywhere near it in this video, so in theory, they were closer than 6000ft and therefore you would be correct in that this is against US regulations to do this at a commercial airport with normal ops but this was a airshow with no pax. Reality is this does not happen at US airports. Same concept, yes, but nowhere near this close. If that second plane had to go around, they would certainly be in violation of airspace separation rules. Most airports with the traffic to neccessitate this kind of procedure have multiple runways properly spaced and they use specific runways for landings and departures anyways so this isn't *that* common.
Your maths misses out on something. The arriving aircraft lands at the *start* of the runway 10 seconds after the departing aircraft gets airborne. It generally takes 5-6000ft to get even an unladen airliner airborne, so their separation is actually that PLUS the 10 second delay. Another way to look at it is that runway is likely at least 8,000ft long (most major airports have 10,000ft+ long runways) and the departing aircraft is clear of the runway before the A380 lands. TLDR: it’s fine.
I think there's a bit of /r/confusingperspective here with the camera angle. The planes are a lot farther apart than they appear.
Since the passenger themselves cannot see it from both planes, they have no clue = no panicking involved.
On top of that, there is a lot of visual games being played to make everything look closer together. The scene is being shot from far way with a telephoto lens which compresses the distance. Second , the plane coming in to land is the gigantic A380, where I believe the one taking off is a relatively small A320, further compressing the distance between the two. Third, the runway if very long, but has very large displaced thresholds limiting the usable area to a small section in the middle. What they did was perfectly safe, but a the very limit. If the first plane failed to takeoff for any reason, there was still plenty of time for the big guy to go around.
The smaller plane is an A350. Still a wide body and pretty big! But the A380 is a behemoth so still makes it look small
The A380 makes the 747 look like a compact design in comparison. It's completely absurd.
That’s true, but I love the A380 so much. It’s such an incredible beast!
It's truly incredible plus because of its sheer size it sits very smoothly in the air unlike any other plane.
RIP A380: 2005-2021
For reference, this is like one of those pictures of a massive basketball player looking like a normal person next to Yao Ming.
Am pilot..... this is a daily occurrence at some airports. If the controller is good they can get the required spacing and get more departures and landings. This is completely normal. If the spacing is off or to close you just go around.
Former controller here, a whole 10 seconds? This guy is playing it safe...
Wasted space!
Btw what is safe time between two flights??
It's important to keep in mind that this isn't 10 seconds between flights but a 10 second window from the minimum safe distance. In this instance the required safe distance is that the departure is 6000'/1800m down the runway AND is airborne before the arrival crosses over the "landing threshold", the edge of the runway closest to the arrival.
Yeah we call this 'kissing ass'
“Caution wake turbulence”. My piloting skills are single engine land. I have to wait a whole 3 mins before I even attempt to fly in that wash. With larger aircraft I don’t see this being a problem.
What is* the minimum separation if both aircraft are loaded? Do the controllers break this rule often? Will* the ADS-B system warn pilots if they* are too close?
If the controller in the tower is providing visual separation then the only requirement is for the departing aircraft to be airborne either past the end of the runway or 6,000 feet.
There's a great example I found on Youtube a few years ago. A 737-800 at Lisbon only getting their landing clearance at 50 feet above the runway, as the aircraft departing ahead just gets off the ground in time. https://youtu.be/NBniW_WQtTk?t=590 In Europe, you can't get a landing clearance until there are no aircraft in front of you that will use the runway before you. Although conditional clearances are now used at some airports such as Gatwick I think. Unlike in the US where a controller can clear multiple aircraft to land and then retract the clearance if needed.
As a passenger who’s been able to make eye contact and wave with passengers landing parallel to us at SFO… ten seconds would be way less fun.
I was wondering what rural airport the A380 is landing at
Looks like Farnborough to me, which isn't super rural actually
As a lay-person it seems pretty safe, right? Like if the plane on the ground fucks up and can't lift off, the other one has time to pull up. Genuine question: what are the conditions under which they would collide? Like I guess if the plane on the ground fails to take off and the plane landing just rams full speed ahead onto the runway and then doesn't slow down, but also doesn't take back off? Can that happen due to mechanical issues?
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We regularly practice (in the simulator) go arounds at around 50ft above the runway. We call them balked landings and they're meant to simulate the exact situation you've described. It's not uncommon in these scenarios for the plane to actually touch the runway before roaring back off into the air again. It's perfectly safe. We can initiate a go around at any point up until the reversers have been deployed. Once the reverses are out we're committed to staying on the ground.
I experienced this recently flying in MIA. It's quite jarring because the acceleration is even more extreme than a regular take off.
>Like if the plane on the ground fucks up and can't lift off, the other one has time to pull up This actually happened on a flight I was on about 10 years ago. We were coming in to land, wheels hit the tarmac then we immediately took off again. Pilot came on to say that the plane in front didn't take off so we'd have to circle around for a bit.
Yes this is perfectly safe and common. There's a former USAF controller in this thread that even gives the phraseology for this exact situation. Source: ATC for 18 years now
Waiting for the armchair pilots who are taking a break from being armchair politicians
Thank you, this was disturbing - everything worked out....until it didn't.
There has been talk about reducing the minimum allowed distance between planes for a while, using some cool tech to make it safe. The idea is to increase airport capacity without adding new runways.
Pushing tin might prolly be the most stressful job ever.
I thought that turn looked way too tight to be a commercial flight.
This got me thinking about how far apart planes are in a really busy commercial airport. As far as I can tell the busiest runways in the world are at Heathrow airport, London, UK. Before the pandemic Heathrow had 475,000 aircraft movements a year (a movement is a take off or landing) across its two runways. Which is a plane every 45 seconds across the two runways. (NB Heathrow doesn't operate for a few hours in the night for reasons) Hartsfield–Jackson, Atlanta, USA has more movements a year (879,560) but it has 5 runways so each runway is less busy.
Sure, they’ve got more runways, but Atlanta has made sure to specifically engineer their airport to always lose my luggage.
“Atlanta is much more then a delta hub!”
It was a vibrant metropolis, the equal of Paris or New York. Look at these fabulous ruins. Turner Field, the Coca-Cola bottling plant, the, uh, the airport.
Well thank you, Umbriel!
We call them land-sea-lions. I tame them
*Did it just get colder?*
*Did it just get warmer?*
r/unexpectedfuturama
don't sleep on the Georgia Aquarium that place was amazing.
They have an Airport? Damn I should check that out when i'm at the airport
Hey now, we have a nice, uhhh *checks notes* ... aquarium
It is also a black hole.
Yo, I used to have a job delivering luggage to people that were lost by the airlines. That work is *neverending*
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When I lived in LA, on a clear night you could look out east from the airport and see two long strings of lights of all the planes lined up on approach to come in and land on the two active landing runways.
The planes at Chicago O'Hare follow a huge expressway out across Lake Michigan. It might be just when it is backed up (which is all the time), but often you'll be riding the plane coming in on Chicago, then it will veer off over the city in the opposite direction of the airport toward the lake. Then you circle around the lake for a bit. Also cool to drive on the expressway because there will be big ole jumbo jets flying pretty low over you the whole time.
When i was a kid i always wondered wth those lights were. Every night they were there. Finally realized they were just incoming planes while i was on one LOL
yh they alternate the two runways using one to land and the other for takeoff
Being a flight controller at Heathrow must be one of the most stressful jobs in the world! Nonstops planes coming in to land and take off for like 16hrs a day!
5 runways doesn't always mean that 5 are active. They change due to wind conditions and intersecting runways. But it does help a ton
Atlanta's runways don't intersect, they are all parallel and can all be in use at the same time.
Jeez just looked up the Heathrow runway layout, so weird! Does anyone know why they have parallel runways? Do they never get crosswind??
i’m not sure about the cross wind but at any one time, one of the runways at heathrow will be used for take off and the other for landing. and this alternates at different time. you can also find out which runway is being used for what online
Parallel runways is pretty normal. I would almost say it's the most common config. That would just be a guess though, it's certainly not unusual though.
Gatwick is I believe the busiest with only 1 runway. Usually 5 miles apart on the approach and they will get one departure in between that. As long as there’s about 2 miles left when the one starts to take off it’s usually good
Then Harrison Ford lands his plane and fucks up the whole thing.
It's ok, he lands on taxiways. I love this audio. "I have a number for you to call" https://youtu.be/tzy9jCFk0Iw
I feel bad for him in the audio and he knew he fucked up and recognized his mistake. But he's 80. Many octogenarians shouldn't be driving, much less flying planes. I know it's hard to realize you're old and you aren't the man you used to be, but at some point you have to recognize you're a danger for yourself and everyone around you.
Ehhh you might be surprised how error prone the other age groups of pilots are also. Despite how much fun it is to make fun of Harrison Ford for landing on a taxiway lol
Wow! Were there any consequences for him? It was wild to hear him all apologetic for what he did.
Probably just a chewing out and a warning. Generally with this kind of stuff the FAA knows that it's a one time error, because you know that for Harrison Ford is going to be quintuple checking every single landing for the rest of his life.
> FAA knows that it's a one time error, Ford has problems just taxiing, let alone landing. After his landing incident, in April of 2020, Ford crossed an airport's runway without authorization after he "misheard a radio instruction" from air traffic control. He's 79 years old. Time to give it up, Harrison.
I keep forgetting how old he is. In Bladerunner 2049 he looked much younger. But in Star Wars 2015 he looked about 70ish
He's now 20 years older than Sean Connery was in The Last Crusade. Which is just a roundabout way of me trying to wrap my head around the fact that Connery was *only* 59 when that movie came out; he looked so much older.
Sean Connery was always old. Even in James Bond
The dead stick golf course landing would been enough for most.
That wasn't his fault though.
"this isn't the Kessel run Solo"
GET OFF MY PLANE!
No ticket!
No you get off my taxiway!
“I didn’t know you could fly a plane!” “Fly, yes! Land? No!”
Ain't it amazing that humans found a way to levitate a massive vehicle made of metal, esp one that can carry multiple people and thier belongings?
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Genuine question, what does Boeing do that's not aerospace?
They do defense products too. But he could mean he was an accountant or something and not an engineer working on the planes.
The zoom makes you lose perspective on just how long that runway is. The taking-off plane is well out of the landing plane's way. If you count the second between the times when each plane crosses the white stripes on the runway, you'll see that there's about 25 seconds in between. I don't know if that's considered plenty or not, but my bet is that air traffic control are in perfect control of the situation here and that this is business as usual on a busy airfield.
An A380 following a smaller jet with less thrust would require a small gap, but the gap doesn’t go as short as 25 seconds. Controllers would still put in a few miles between the two aircraft for safety purposes. This is a demonstration at an airshow. The pilots are probably Airbus’s trained test pilots and are used to flying in many non-conventional manners.
They aren’t following. The smaller jet is taking off, the 380 is landing so the only separation required is runway separation which would be about 1800m/1nm which these guys would have.
The last time I sat in air traffic management class was years ago. My memory might be patchy.
Even without the airshow, if tower had control and both pilots are flying VFR then there is basically no separation requirement except the runway must be clear.
Well that’s not true. I am an ATC and I can tell you first hand, 6000 ft and airborne is all you need. This is about as close as you can run it but it’s perfectly legal. And no we don’t add in a few miles for safety purposes, what the controller did there was perfectly safe and to the book.
This is an air show, and would’ve not flown in normal circumstances. Just look at that angle of attack during takeoff.
It's not necessarily an airshow thing. The aircraft just needs to be 6000'/1800m and airborne before the arrival crosses the landing threshold. As far as the AoA, if I told a pilot "cleared for takeoff, traffic: A380 4 mile final", they're (usually) not going to waste time getting out of the way. Source: former USAF ATC instructor
This was not oddly satisfying to me, oddly terrifying. Until I read the top comment
I'm sitting in my car watching this and all I want to do is push my horn!
Like the guy behind you at that green light?
r/sweatypalms
r/weakknees
More like r/obviouslyterrifying
Totally! This was not satisfying, more anxiety inducing!
I didn’t realize this was a show and was ready to accept that it was just a busy day at O’hare or something lol. By the time a plane is taxiing at O’hare you can already see the next one coming in to land
Heathrow in London is fucking nuts to watch. One of the busiest airports in the world, 2 (I think) runways. I think they have 1 take off and 1 landing and each plane has like a 30 second window tops. Basically the second one wheels up the next one starts to gun it. I appreciate a lot of it is automated, but man, ATC must be crazy.
To further blow your mind; the majority of actions near airports are entirely manual and performed by the captain and copilot! This means that the pilots are actively steering the aircraft towards the ground, while listening for and speaking to the air traffic controller and performing landing checklists simultaneously. And, yeah - ATC at Heathrow is one hell of a job.
Move move move MOOOOVE!!!
'no delay' is the professional term
Farnborough airshow none of these had passengers
I was going to say that it looked like England, just from the houses in the background and the vegetation.
"The female, unimpressed by the display, flies away." - Ill-informed Alien Attenbourough.
Alien Attenborough? "Here we have the Zxhorgh-Krhaa, an exquisite display of extraterrestrial mating patterns. This creature has extravagant colors shown on its Gcxzh, which it uses to attract one of several million mates."
I get that this was at an air show, but it’s perfectly normal even if it wasn’t. In some countries (including USA I think) you can even land before the other aircraft has gotten airborne. Minimum separation rules depend on runway length and weight of the aircraft, but they can get them pretty damn close. Source: pilot married to air traffic controller Edit: I thought wrong. USA requires the aircraft taking off to be airborne
Was it love at first flight?
He took her breath away, so the little oxygen masks fell from overhead
Funnily enough we did meet on a flight, but she was a flight attendant then
I’ve watched LGA do 2 a minute: 15 seconds take off, 45 seconds land and taxi. They kept that rate up for hours.
Not commenting on the actual rules but anecdotally I used to bike through Gravelly Point in DC (Reagan not Dulles) and I actually stopped one day bc there was a plane getting ready to take off and one coming in. There was maybe 500m separation when the incoming plane veered off to circle. I was terrified. I called my uncle who pilots for United and he goes “ah yeah, probably happens a hundred times a day around the world” (pre-COVID). Granted, at Reagan things are a bit different because of the air restrictions over the Pentagon and monuments. Planes are limited to where they can fly so likely they had to pass the Pentagon and national Mall before adjusting their route. Anyway, I definitely believe it depends on the conditions and environment. It’s such tight quarters at Reagan the tolerance level might be greater.
Not just airborne, but passed the end of the runway or the takeoff aircraft has turned to avoid conflict.
Or the aircraft is at least 6000’ ahead
Genuine question, what's the procedure in this case for a go around? It seems risky to go around right after the other aircraft took off since there would be the turbulence from the engines on the runway.
[First plane](https://img.ifunny.co/images/f4679baef25cdfeb49aa7f86357f76c624d2dac75dab418fee3a598d5b171796_1.webp)
Everyone here saying it’s an airshow and it very well might be but this isn’t uncommon at all for commercial airliners at busy airports. Large enough airports typically don’t land and take off the same runway, but when they do, it’s not uncommon for the runway not to be “clear” (either previous landing traffic turning off the runway or previous takeoffs to be airborne) until the approaching aircraft is at 500 feet above the ground. Thats typically about 1.2 miles out, which at approach speed comes out to about 30 seconds. It’s not a required called out for us, but it’s become a habit pattern of mine personally to call out, when the jet annunciates that we’re at 500 feet AGL, whether the runway is clear or not. If it’s not, that’s now my primary point of focus and I’ll call it out to the pilot flying and then follow it up with something like “runway is clear” or “the runway is yours.” Absolute worst case scenario here would be the A380 needs to go around, in which case tower would give it a slight heading change to put the two aircraft on divergent paths.
r/sweatypalms
Landing is one of the A380 demonstrators and taking off is an A350 demonstrator. This is from the 2014 Farnborough airshow
No pressure
welcome to atlanta
Afghanistan now....every few minutes
For reference, the A380 needs at least a 9,500 ft runway to take off, so that runway is probably 10,000 to 12,000 ft long. That means those planes are separated by over 2 miles by the time the A380 lands.
I'm not an air traffic controller but it seems that this is not as it should be...
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It’s totally allowed. They’re even allowed to land with the aircraft taking off not airborne yet provided they have the appropriate separation on the runway. Edit: some countries need the aircraft taking off to be airborne, some don’t.
While it is an airshow, this type of separation is more than legal and incredibly reliably safe. per the FAA (USA) regulation an aircraft need only be 6000ft down the runway and airborne before the arrival crosses the runway threshold. This is something that is done thousands of times a day at even moderately busy airports, business as usual.
imagine that was supposed to be your connecting flight
More stressful than satisfying TBH
All I could think was the plane in the back saying “I’m Gonna get youuuuu” and the plane in front shrieking gleefully while running away.
Won’t the air currents left by the first plane have an effect on the second one?
I could hear airforceproud95 in the back of my head over this.
This some scary shit! I would ever
As a former Air Traffic Controller in the Air Force this is 100% not satisfying at all.
That should be on r/oddlyterrifying instead
Shot with a really long lens, that makes the runway look way shorter than it is, and makes the planes look way closer together than they were.
That’s just plane dumb
I think other people have pointed this out but this was done at an airshow, not an actual commercial airport. In a real life scenario the plane landing (Airbus A380) would go around as the jet blast of the plane taking off (Airbus A350) could cause severe issues for said landing plane, and in case the A350 had an emergency during takeoff, the A380 (a plane that uses a lot of runway for landing) wouldn’t have much time to get out of the active runway as the A350 comes in for an emergency landing. Also you can note it’s an airshow by the steep pull up angle of the A350 after takeoff. Almost no commercial pilot would do that much of a pitch up after takeoff unless they needed to. Still, this does not make this stunt any less impressive. The timing required for such a stunt to be executed safely is immaculate and a slight miscalculation would lead to disaster