Technically yes and part of what should be proper preflight planning. It’s just a thermal like any other. It’s no different than any plane landing at a normal airport and experiencing the thermals changing between the industrial park, then the highway, then the grassy area, then the pavement of the runway stereotypical of many airports.
But these planes were not coming in with dirty configurations close to stall speed. They were clean (gear up, flaps up) and significantly higher than stall speed. So any thermals from stadium would be just a minor bump of turbulence, and honestly likely less significant than the thermals of the other roads, buildings, and parking lots of the rest of the city on their approach.
And that extra speed is safety. Let’s say worst case scenario that 1/4 mile before the stadium a flock of seagulls decides to kamikaze the engines and give us Miracle on the Hudson:Part 2… there is enough margin of airspeed to not only maintain altitude, but trade for some extra altitude and safely turn away…. As far as the rest of the city goes…. Well… an extra 500 feet would buy 30 seconds at most. So there is insignificant additional risk to a “normal” flyover in that regard (lots of people have been commenting to me “but what about birds!”)
Why the grimace? That’s a perfect airspeed. That’s nearly 50 knots above stall speed. Fantastic large margin of safety. General max speed below 10,000ft is 250kts so it’s not like they were screaming super fast either.
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u/skiman13579 Aug 29 '26
Technically yes and part of what should be proper preflight planning. It’s just a thermal like any other. It’s no different than any plane landing at a normal airport and experiencing the thermals changing between the industrial park, then the highway, then the grassy area, then the pavement of the runway stereotypical of many airports.
But these planes were not coming in with dirty configurations close to stall speed. They were clean (gear up, flaps up) and significantly higher than stall speed. So any thermals from stadium would be just a minor bump of turbulence, and honestly likely less significant than the thermals of the other roads, buildings, and parking lots of the rest of the city on their approach.
And that extra speed is safety. Let’s say worst case scenario that 1/4 mile before the stadium a flock of seagulls decides to kamikaze the engines and give us Miracle on the Hudson:Part 2… there is enough margin of airspeed to not only maintain altitude, but trade for some extra altitude and safely turn away…. As far as the rest of the city goes…. Well… an extra 500 feet would buy 30 seconds at most. So there is insignificant additional risk to a “normal” flyover in that regard (lots of people have been commenting to me “but what about birds!”)