Incredible footage of an Airbus A380 hovering over Heathrow during storm Eunice

Had a neighbor in windy western Kansas who would go up and fly his Piper Cub backwards over town.

Compare the span of the wings to the features on the roof. It's obviously making substantial progress getting closer. The appearance of hovering can largely be attributed to foreshortening, changing of zoom, and parallax with respect to the direction the aircraft is pointing.

Ah the power of depth of field.

Don't these A380 aircraft have an immense wing area, about the same area as oh, Rhode Island.

Compare the flight track and see how close to hovering it was. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/A7API/history/20220218/0430Z/OTHH/EGLL

That, sir, is a kite.

Early in my flight training (C150) my instructor had me turn into the wind, configure for slow flight, and look out my left side window.

We were definitely hovering. Cross winds were the best!

Lowest ground speed of 89kts at 2,000ft on 3rd/last attempt... impressive.

I wonder how that felt being a passenger.

Quite a HOLDING PATTERN

I've had this happen going into Cheyenne, Wyoming in my Bonanza. The wind from the west was so strong it took a while to land on Final. Downwind went really quick.

I didn't figure it out until I was taxiing back, and saw as I was moving at what I thought was a normal speed, my airspeed indicator coming on scale (the bottom of the scale is 40 knots) so I jammed on the brakes. And found that it was still up in the 40's.

So I taxiied carefully back to the hangar.

With regards to the above, that's an example of not understanding the physics. I'd have just increased speed - the ground speed was virtually nil. A few knots, and they could have landed safely.

I recall flying backwards in my Cherokee during primary training.

Certainly not hovering but lots of pitch, yaw and rudder action going on. Cool…

Down to 102 kts at one point

Wow! It hovered for a long time! Love to see the faces of the passengers during this helicopter-type moment.

Considering the approach speed of an A380 (well above 100mph) that must have been one hell of a wind speed! Have to wonder about the validity of the video? Telephoto lens adds to the distortion as well.

I did this on my very first paramotor flight. Got up high in Wauchula, FL, made the turn to come back, and became what we call, PARA-parked! I had to descend to an uncomfortable level in order to make it back to the airport, hahaha! Took me a LONG time to get back! Was a great lesson in the effects of winds aloft.

To make the story even funnier, I had my iPhone set up in a Ram X-Grip mounted to the trike to film my very first takeoff. Well, the 2 X-mounts on either side of the phone apparently were able to press both side buttons at the exact same time, and somehow managed to dial 911! So as I was para-parked over a farm, the sheriff was over there talking to my instructor, lol! That earned me the callsign, "Smitty 911". Not so funny was my wife received a 911 alert on her phone showing my pinned location on a map of the airport, so she thought I had crashed & was hurt!

Story of my life - always an adventure, no matter what I do! :D

What did the A380 say to the other airplanes? Watch what I can do! ;)

wow

Looking at Victor Engels track post, there probably was a strong crosswind component too. Then reminding oneself that you're looking at ground speed data in the track stats, it was a bit of a roller coaster! Some amazing spikes there. (The slowest it got was 108mph ground speed, followed by a helluva "negative gust" that took it a/c to 300+mph within seconds after that--a bit harrowing to say the least..)

Angle of perspective

Hardly hovering

Back in the '60's my xmilitary flight instructor told me of an occasion during world war II when a typhoon went through Hong Kong. The military put their fleet of bombers into the air and they flew stationary for several hours before landing once again. I have watched small aircraft going backwards over Toronto in a strong windstorm.

My thought is: What if the wind had suddenly changed speed or direction? It would have been a really bad day for everyone.

I wonder what my blood pressure is after watching this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3g2i4XDrug

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO96qt0thJc

Could bring a whole new meaning to the term "Boarding Ladder".

What if the wind suddenly stopped? The A380 had very low ground speed. Would it not have fallen out of the sky?

Fantastico en sus maniobras

Now that we’ve dissected this video, let’s talk for a moment about the passengers 💩 themselves.

On an early solo flight with less than 20 hours under my belt I went up in a Piper PA11 and when I returned an hour later the wind straight down the runway was 40+ MPH. I called my instructor on unicom after two attempts at landing and asked for instructions. He and a mechanic went out to the runway and as I set it down they ran over and grabbed the wing tips. I was too green to really grasp the seriousness of the situation. I thought it was fun.

Awwww c'mon guys you need rotary wings to get that buzz, as mentioned below, there is no feeling like "flying" forward or hovering while ground speed is s minus number - aka reverse. The "nam was the place for that!

Stay safe, it is a cool thought that a 380 could "hover" need a really lot of wind!!!!

A shame it was taped in black and white...old school.

I have to wonder what kind of an idiot even attempts such an approach in those conditions. And if you pay attention you can see birds who didn't have any problem with the wind, which makes the video suspect.

If the wind that strong that an A380 would be hovering the person doing this video would not be able to stand.

He really was hovering. Never seen a final last that long. Proof is he couldn't get her down and finally decided to go around, because if he had reduced power further to increase his sink rate he'd have been going backwards. And reducing flaps was just too risky.

I'm not going to give your media player my credit card number just to play this video! Are you kidding? This is insulting.