I was tracking the flight of Cargolux 7757 (Boeing 747-8) which landed a short while ago at Prestwick-EGPK airport. It arrived at 23:38 local time, but what caught my eye was that it was cleared to land in a tailwind (runway 30) for what seems to be no real reason?
To give you a better idea, Prestwick has standard straight-in ILS approaches on both sides of runway 30/12, so we can rule out low-visibility being a cause. The aircraft was arriving from the West, so this approach wasn’t exactly done to save fuel either. I’m doubtful it was a noise-abatement procedure too, as this route flew the aircraft over land a lot more than the other side would have.
The max tailwind for landing a 747 is 10kts, I believe. In this case though the tailwind component was reduced or ‘diluted’ if you will, as it wasn’t directly behind them. So it was more like ~4 kts tailwind with the slight crosswind from S/SE. Prestwick has pretty long runway so it was all safe operation. The airspeed would be slightly higher perhaps, but I don’t find the flightnumber in Flightradar24 to see the approx landing speed though.
Oh I have no doubt it was a safe operation. . I’m just trying to understand what reasons the ATC would have had to take this aircraft away from a straight-in approach from the West and instead get it to land with a tailwind from the East.
Or the AC requested it so they could log some type of approach not currently available the other way. Was all the other traffic landing the other way. Just interested.
Regards
In this Airport the Terminal is in the West area, near runway 12, perhaps in this way the plane, once landed, is already there and avoids going back by taxiway
I am not familiar with PIK procedures anymore, but I did sit on CV 747s quite a lot on that route SEA PIK back in the day (back seater, I am not and have never been a cargolux pilot)
There are many reasons for having aircraft land on a certain runway despite some tailwind (as said the 747-8 can accept 10kts direct tailwind), a lot of the are for noise abatement (look at the time, it was a night landing), traffic (some procedures allow for easier slotting in case of heavy traffic), bird or wildlife activity, or something as mundane as the main decision maker living close to the approach path of the opposite runway… difficult to say here, but wind isn’t the only deciding factor by far
Another factor is weather in combination with maintenance, f.ex. you could have a downgraded ILS on one of the 2 runways hence if wind allows and ceilings are low the cat II/III runway will be in use regardless of wind direction
Many airports have a preferred runway due to a whole host of factors that will be used if wind allows.
In this case wind of 140@6 on runway 30 is only 5.6 kts of tailwind which is acceptable even in a DA40 (and I’ve dine this many times)
. I’m just trying to understand what reasons the ATC would have had to take this aircraft away from a straight-in approach from the West and instead get it to land with a tailwind from the East.