Hercules wonder...

Today, the good-old C-130 Hercules gave away yet another lesson for generations to come: a greek C-130 coming home from a civilian flight had problems with its landing gear. The pilots have decided to have a forced-landing, meaning to land right on the air-strip, but without the gears down, land right on the belly of the aircraft. I've seen the images and they were awesome to me. I've never thought that the Hercules would handle it so well and without any incidents of any kind. The pilot flared, then a bit up, a bit down again, correction up, up up up, almoust touchdown, up again, half-flair to evoit stall, and then, after a little "handleing" of the ground-effect, the Hercules landed on its belly. Very straight-forward...no fires, no explosions, no pieces of the fuselage flying here and there, no nothing, the only thing that visibly distinguished this landing from a normal one was the huge dust-cloud which was growing behind the on-going aircraft (and of course the atmosphere and shacking in the cockpit, but they waren't visible from outside).
OUTSTANDIND if you ask me...gooooo Hercules !

©2000 Sorin A Crasmarelu

february 2000

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