Legendary Captain

Chapter 285 The One True God (Part Two)

"Any other problems?" Cheng Guangyu was taken aback. He thought that the mission was accomplished once the plane passed through the patrol vehicle using the pressure plate method. But judging from Xu Xian's words, could there be some unforeseen circumstances?

"Currently, the aircraft only has one left main landing gear, so it cannot slow down; otherwise, it wouldn't be able to maintain a single-wheel run. Since the aircraft can't slow down, the remaining runway isn't enough for it to run for much longer. In this short time, if we were to lower the other landing gears, we wouldn't have enough time."

Cheng Guangyu suddenly realized, "That's right! Why didn't he lower the other landing gear? If he had, none of this would have happened. Even if the other landing gear were lowered, it wouldn't have affected the pressure plate!"

Deploying only the left main landing gear is enough to depress the wing, causing the left wing to drop and the right wing to rise. Deploying the other landing gears wouldn't affect the depressing operation, so why deploy only the left main landing gear? This led to a situation that was difficult to resolve later.

What Xu Xian said is indeed a huge problem.

With proper handling, an aircraft can maintain a single landing gear run. However, this is contingent on the aircraft maintaining high speed; otherwise, the wings will not generate enough lift to sustain the single landing gear.

However, due to air resistance and ground friction, it is necessary to increase the thrust appropriately.

Because it takes time to lower the landing gear, the aircraft must maintain high speed; otherwise, the fuselage would rub directly against the runway before the landing gear is fully extended.

However, if the aircraft maintains high speed, it will only take a very short time to taxi the remaining runway. This short time is not even enough for the remaining landing gear to be deployed. Therefore, even if the aircraft passes the patrol vehicle's obstruction, the problem of how to stop the aircraft still remains.

At least for now, this problem has no solution.

"The right main landing gear definitely can't be deployed. Otherwise, when rolling to the left, the right landing gear will lift up. At that point, it's very likely that the engine nacelle won't hit the patrol vehicle, but the right landing gear will scrape against it. It's a trade-off; there's no perfect solution!" Xu Xian analyzed. "However, I don't understand why the nose landing gear isn't deployed either. Logically, whether the nose landing gear is deployed or not shouldn't hit the patrol vehicle; it shouldn't have any impact. Why not deploy it? Wait, if the aircraft can't stop on the runway, then it can only go around!"

"Retake off? You mean he's going to take off again, overtake the patrol vehicle, and then take off again?" Cheng Guangyu exclaimed in surprise.

Xu Xian became even more certain: "It must be! He must be restarting the second engine. But to prevent any delays in the second engine's launch, he must be prepared for a single-engine go-around, so..."

"Therefore, he must use the landing gear as little as possible!" Cheng Guangyu chimed in.

The presence of landing gear itself increases drag, negatively impacting go-around performance. Given the aircraft's inherent malfunctions, its go-around performance is already poor; adding the drag from the landing gear would likely prevent even an initial climb.

Therefore, Xu Qing could only try to minimize the impact of landing gear drag.

The drag generated by a single left landing gear is definitely much less than that generated by a left landing gear plus a front landing gear.

Under normal circumstances, Xu Qing's ultimate goal would definitely be to restart the second engine. Not deploying the nose landing gear was merely a necessary precautionary measure in case the second engine was not restarted within the normal timeframe.

In the cockpit, Xu Qing directly applied a pressure plate, causing the right wing to rise. At the same time, Lu Xinyu observed the contact between the left wingtip and the ground through the left side window. He had to ensure that the left wingtip would not touch the ground; otherwise, the wingtip scraping against the ground would affect the aircraft's directional stability.

It must be said that Xu Qing's operation was incredibly precise. He simply pressed down, and in one smooth motion, the left wingtip was perfectly touching the ground, continuously cutting through the emerging green grass. This meant that Xu Qing controlled the distance between the wingtip and the ground to an extremely fine 20 centimeters, almost as precise as a machine.

The aircraft's touchdown point was already very close to the patrol vehicle. Coupled with the relatively high approach speed, within almost two or three seconds after touchdown, as Xu Qing changed the aircraft's attitude, the engine nacelle on the right wing of the aircraft barely passed through the top of the patrol vehicle.

As the patrol vehicle disappeared from the two people in the cockpit's sight, Xu Qing did not correct the aircraft's left roll attitude. He needed to maintain this attitude and let the aircraft correct itself naturally. He even had to slowly pull back on the stick to keep the nose of the aircraft in a level flight state.

Keep in mind that right now it's just a single left landing gear supporting it.

Xu Qing's operation was extremely precise. Under his control, the nose of the aircraft did not change at all. However, in terms of roll, the aircraft began to roll involuntarily to the right, before returning to the normal horizontal attitude of the main wing.

However, the response speed was much faster than expected. Even though Xu Qing had almost pressed the left side of the disc to its limit, he still couldn't stop the right-side rolling trend from forming.

Large passenger aircraft are designed with stability in mind. This means that even without pilot intervention, the aircraft tends to return to its original stable state after minor attitude changes. Therefore, the aircraft's gradual rightward roll is natural and determined by its inherent characteristics; however, the speed of this recovery is unacceptable to Xu Qing.

Unfortunately, the inconsistent thrust, combined with inconsistent flaps, gives the aircraft a natural rightward roll torque, which is very significant and much greater than the aircraft's natural restoring torque. Xu Qing had actually been quite restrained in his use of throttle thrust; otherwise, the aircraft would have rolled to the right at an even greater speed.

Xu Qing was almost using the minimum throttle to keep the aircraft taxiing with a single landing gear. However, once this situation reached a certain point, it became beyond human intervention.

If the aircraft's second engine still cannot start successfully, he knows to increase the throttle to achieve a higher speed, thereby increasing the aircraft's control surface effect and controlling the attitude of the large wings.

However, increasing the throttle inevitably sacrifices the aircraft's directional stability, making its runway extremely difficult to control. Sacrificing directional stability to maintain a single landing gear runway is essentially a short-sighted solution. When the time comes, it's a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.

"Is the number two engine still not ready?" Xu Qing saw that the aircraft's roll attitude had returned from a left roll to near wing level, and if he waited a little longer, it would change from wing level to right roll.

The aircraft is currently supported by its left landing gear, which provides almost no support for right roll. This means that once the aircraft exhibits a relatively significant right roll, it is essentially impossible to correct it. The right wingtip will touch down first, followed by the number two engine nacelle, and finally the belly of the fuselage.

Xu Qing's left palm, which was gripping the thrust handle of the No. 1 engine, was slightly sweaty and sticky. At this critical moment, even someone like Xu Qing felt immense pressure.

Human strength has its limits; ultimately, it all depends on the will of Heaven!

Lu Xinyu had now turned his attention back to the engine indicator. He was also under immense psychological pressure, his back completely soaked with sweat. Lu Xinyu felt that this engine start was probably the most thrilling start he had ever experienced in his life.

"Not yet, it's still starting!" Lu Xinyu said anxiously. For the first time, he felt that the engine was starting so slowly!

The plane hasn't slowed down, and Xu Qing hasn't ordered the landing gear to be lowered, so Lu Xinyu probably understands Xu Qing's plan.

The aircraft was taxiing too fast, almost reaching the end of the runway in the blink of an eye, with no time to deploy the landing gear. The only option was to go around the barrage. Having already passed the patrol vehicles and drone swarm, there were no obstacles in the go-around trajectory. However, with an aircraft whose go-around capabilities were already mediocre, carrying only landing gear made it questionable whether they could even manage to pull up at the end of the runway.

No wonder they didn't put the front landing gear back on; Lu Xinyu immediately understood.

Removing the nose landing gear does reduce a lot of trouble in nose control, but that's about it. Nose control itself isn't the difficult part; the real problem lies in the aircraft's roll.

If the nose landing gear is deployed as well, then the only hope is that the number two engine can start quickly. If it doesn't start in time, a single-engine aircraft with asymmetrical flaps, featuring a nose landing gear, a left landing gear, and a left landing gear, will absolutely not be able to pull up before the end of the runway during the remaining acceleration. The only possible outcome will be overrunning the runway.

At least, if they only put out the left landing gear, they would still have a chance to struggle.

Removing the nose landing gear only slightly reduces the difficulty of handling, but it will lose the last shred of possibility for single-engine go-around.

Lu Xinyu glanced at the attitude indicator and found that the plane had been completely leveled, but the number two engine still hadn't started. If they waited any longer, the plane would roll to the right, and then the consequences would be uncontrollable.

From the floor-to-ceiling window in the lounge, Xu Xian could look down at the entire runway. He saw the plane speeding along after overcoming the obstruction of the patrol vehicle. Due to his perspective, he couldn't see the changes in the plane's horizontal attitude, but he could see the area of ​​change along the plane's Z-axis from above.

At the moment of touchdown, the nose of the aircraft remained almost horizontal, following the direction of the runway, indicating that the aircraft was still under the pilot's control at that time, and Xu Qing's corrections to the aircraft were satisfactory.

However, once the aircraft had cleared the obstacle of the patrol vehicle and was hurtling straight across the middle of the runway at a very high speed, the nose of the aircraft began to gradually veer to the right.

Xu Xian didn't believe that Xu Qing, who was in the cockpit, couldn't see that there was a problem with the direction of the aircraft's nose. However, in the time that followed, the aircraft's nose deflection did not improve at all. This meant that Xu Qing was not unable to see the direction of the aircraft's nose, but rather unable to deal with the problem. In other words, the control effects that Xu Qing could exert on the aircraft could no longer correct the aircraft's deviation.

This is a very bad sign!

At least for now, the number two engine hasn't started yet! Otherwise, if Xu Qing, who has two engines, can't control the direction of the aircraft's nose, then he wouldn't be Xu Qing; he'd probably be possessed.

"Xu Xian, why isn't the plane slowing down? We're almost at the end of the runway!" Wen Jingshu, who was standing next to him, was a complete novice when it came to flying, so her question was rather one-sided. However, Wen Jingshu was right about one thing: the plane was almost at the end of the runway!

Suddenly, Wen Jingshu exclaimed, "What happened to the plane?"

The plane, which was originally roughly on the center line of the runway, suddenly became extremely unstable. Its taxiing direction, viewed from above, was crooked and serpentine.

This S-shaped takeoff direction is usually only seen in less skilled flight trainees. It should never have happened to someone of Xu Qing's caliber, even though the aircraft was only supported by the left landing gear.

Moreover, the observant Xu Xian noticed that the plane's takeoff speed seemed to have become even faster than before!

"Damn it, accelerate!" Xu Xian's eyelids twitched wildly. "It's the final moment!"

The only possibility that the current situation is that Xu Qing, as a last resort, increased the thrust of the No. 1 engine in order to achieve a higher speed, increase the control surface effect, and thus continue to suppress the aircraft's right roll.

However, once the thrust of the No. 1 engine is increased, the aircraft's directional control becomes extremely unstable. Under such circumstances, even with Xu Qing's skills, the aircraft is controlled like a novice flight student.

From above, the plane's taxiing direction is shifting between left and right, but the overall trend is towards the right. Xu Xian even suspects that the plane might run off the runway directly from the runway edge before it even reaches the runway threshold.

Adding thrust to the No. 1 engine can only buy a short time and cannot solve the actual problem. If the No. 2 engine has not started by then, Xu Qing will have to force a pull-up in single-engine mode, otherwise he will run off the runway.

However, even without the drag of landing gear, the climb rate is a meager 200 feet per minute. Now, with a left landing gear, whether the aircraft can be pulled up is truly an unknown.

Of course, regardless of the probability, we should give it a try.

If you don't pull up, you'll just crash off the track. If you do pull up, and you're lucky, you might recover, which is a small saving. If you don't recover, you'll still crash off the track; the result is the same. Trying at least gives you a slight chance of success.

However, Xu Xian was extremely reluctant to have this moment where he had to leave his fate to the judgment of heaven.

"Six hundred meters left!" Xu Xian could estimate the remaining runway length by looking down at the runway markings. At the current speed of the aircraft, the remaining six hundred meters would be covered in the blink of an eye, and the situation was already critical.

In the cockpit, Xu Qing could even faintly see the lights at the end of the runway. Under normal circumstances, a distance of over 600 meters would not be clearly visible, but the airport had turned the lights up to maximum brightness for the event, making the lighting effect extremely conspicuous.

Xu Qing swallowed hard. He had already withdrawn one hand from the thrust handle of the number one engine and began to operate the controls with both hands. During the go-around, the aircraft required a lot of maneuvering, and Xu Qing was worried that his right hand, which had a pre-existing injury, wouldn't be able to handle it.

The thrust of engine number one is already close to its maximum, so it doesn't really matter whether it's placed on top or not. The only hope now is engine number two.

"After the go-around, once you confirm that the aircraft is climbing, immediately retract the rotors. Don't wait for my command!" Xu Qing narrowed his eyes; he was already prepared for a single-engine go-around.

The plane was now nearly out of control, swaying back and forth on the right side of the runway, and almost went off the runway edge several times, but Xu Qing managed to save it.

Xu Qing knew that if things continued like this, they wouldn't even reach the runway tip; they would definitely overshoot the right edge of the runway. He would pull up when he felt the plane was out of control; he absolutely couldn't wait until the plane had overshot the runway before attempting to pull up.

Moreover, Xu Qing felt that the time for this upward movement was not far off. Releasing the thrust handle and gripping the control dial with both hands indicated that Xu Qing was preparing for a single-engine go-around.

Just then, Lu Xinyu finally saw the No. 2 engine start up, and a loud shout of surprise echoed throughout the cockpit: "No. 2 engine start-up complete!"

Xu Qing immediately shouted, "Align the thrust of the two rockets with the first one!"

This time, it wasn't Xu Qing who did it; Lu Xinyu pushed the throttle of the second engine, which had already started, to the same position as the first engine.

With the help of the powerful thrust of the No. 2 engine, the uneven thrust quickly disappeared, and the aircraft's direction was immediately brought under control. Xu Qing glanced at the speed, shook his hands, and the aircraft was immediately pulled up!

(End of this chapter)