>> ^Constitutional_Patriot:
heh.. the winds are always gusting.


No, the winds were steady, as evidenced by the fact the pilot was able to hold the same attitude on approach until right down on the deck. If the winds had been gusting (eg., 30 mph gusting 50), the pilot would've had to keep correcting for the winds continually getting much stronger then weaker again.

So, a strong but steady crosswind. Much less likely to make your palms sweat than a strong gusty one.

heh.. the winds are always gusting.

Honestly, it didn't look like the situation was as bad as all that. At least the winds weren't gusting.

I think it was a strong gust of wind hitting a flimsy door at precisely the wrong moment. Can't think of anything else it could be. Except maybe a vengeful spirit.

That's actualy a sly marketing joke. The event was actually, as you can see by the comment-linked video, an enormous gust of wind preceding a thunderstorm

>> ^shuac:
What's being marketed? There's no sound that I can hear. I'm not making fun, I'm honestly asking because I'm not sure I see a campaign.

Me gustó el Pato:)

>> ^rychan:
What do you do after something like that? Divert to another airport? But wind like that is hardly a localized situation.


Storm was all over central Europe on Saturday, so he really did not have a choice.

If the wind is steady it is usually not a problem I guess.
The problem in this case was the strong gust of wind right before he touched down. Hamburg tower reported that they had a few touch and go landings on saturday but they have never seen anything like this before.

From the Village Voice:

"Jim Finn's Interkosmos, a retro gust of Communist utopianism, is set to open the New York Underground Film Festival on March 8. A cosmonaut romance set aboard a 1970s East German space mission to colonize the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, Interkosmos weaves together lovingly faked archival footage, charmingly undermotivated musical numbers, propagandistic maxims ("Capitalism is like a kindergarten of boneless children"), stop-motion animation (of a suitably crude GDR-era level), a Teutonic (and vaguely Herzogian) voiceover, and a superb garage-y Kraut-rock score (by Jim Becker and Colleen Burke). Finn's deadpan is immaculately bone-dry, and his antiquarian fastidiousness is worthy of Guy Maddin"

man if a wing fell off in those strong gusts I woulda shit myself.

Omg. Droolalicious. I was hoping for a nice wind gust to blow up that skirt for a few seconds.

"So is that damaging to your ears? Or do only high pitched sounds do significant damage?"

Damage to your (inner) ear occurs when enough energy is transferred to your hair cells, causing them to break.

A loud low sound like in this video has a low frequency (pitch) and a high amplitude (volume). As sound is just a displacement of air, at low enough frequencies with high amplitude it would basically just be a gust of wind (as you can clearly see).
The energy in a wave depends on its frequency and amplitude, imagine the hairs just swaying about 1 time per second..no big deal.
  15000 times per second however, all the while swaying just as far, the stress would cause them to break.
High-energetic waves have the potential to do more damage, just think of visible light ("low" frequency) and x-rays (high frequency). Even ultraviolet light, which is just beyond the visible light in frequency, can cause skin cancer.

A low sound that blows your hair about won't damage your inner ear.
Lower sounds could theoretically kill the hairs but your eardrum would sooner rupture..ouch?
The basic rule probably should be, if it hurts turn down your volume down to about 30% of that volume : S long term higher frequency exposure is a bitch.