"Ramapriya" wrote in message
oups.com...
Bob Moore wrote:

the crab at the last second before touchdown. Boeing said
that if one was not comfortable doing that, just touchdown in
the crab. Of course autoland approaches always use the crab

Sorry for being naive here Bob, but does touching down with the nose
not pointed down the center of the airstrip, which is what I presume
would happen if you touched down in the crab, bust the wheels?

Think of it this way.

All that mass is moving straight down the runway, still pretty fast. It is
going to try to keep going straight pretty fast. The only thing to cause
enough stress on the gear to try to break the gear is the tires.

What happens when the tires first touch down? A big puff of smoke, as the
tires spin up to speed. Just a little bit of force involved to do that. It
would take a whole lot more force to make that big bird go sideways, right?
So what happens? The tires skid a bit sideways for a while, until the FO
(the captain wouldn't have screwed up by not kicking the crab out, right?
g ) wakes up and corrects to get the thing pointed straight down the
runway, right?

It has been my experience, from riding the heavy iron, that the combination
of a slightly low wing and kicking the crab out is what is used. I say that
only from observation, as it feels like one side hits, followed *very
quickly* by the other side landing. Sometimes, it does feel like you are
taking a quick ride towards the lights.
--
Jim ( I'm grading your landings, Captains) in NC :-)