I get that the pilots need to see the sky above them, but don’t they need to also see below? In photos, it seems pilots can barely see the runway when landing, and when flying cannot visually scan the horizon below the aircraft.
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You’ve got the instruments in the cockpit that give you mean sea level as well as above ground level altitude, and after some practice, you just get a feel for where the ground should be as you’re landing. Some planes do allow a bit more in terms of visual cues. Cessnas with their wing-above-cockpit build aren’t bad.
Thanks to a severe increase in lift at about 5-50ft above ground (aerodynamics creates this little float ground effect on landing), you generally just coast as the aircraft eventually settles onto the ground…as long as you have useable runway left
While they don’t point down, in pretty much all aircraft the do allow for looking straight sideways. And when the pilot is sitting right next to the window, the same effect as sitting in your car works. You can see down, maybe not directly next to the aircraft, but a little away. When landing you don’t look straight down, but rather away from the aircraft to get an idea of your altitude and attitude.
The windshield is again the same as a car, while the glass is slanted up, the line of site is straight forward.
Not an engineer, but I’m sure aerodynamics comes into play here. Windows are curved for airflow, efficiency and probly also safety (bird strikes and such.) I don’t think pilots actually watch the wheels touch down, they use altimeter/ instruments .
Pilots don’t need to look down for the same reason drivers don’t need to look under the car while driving: once a threat is “under” you, it’s too late to do something about it. And most threats come from ahead and from the sides.
It’s not a bad comparison since, during landing, a plane is not much different than a car. Finding the runway and lining up with it happens well before landing and requires looking ahead, not down. Any “potholes”/threats on the runway are only relevant if you can dodge them so, again, you need to see them long before you hit them, not when you’re on top of them.
[edit, based on exceptions that others have mentioned below: some helicopters, and older bombers, have wraparound windows or see-through floors precisely because they DO need to see “under”. They are landing vertically or need to be above the bombing target. Those exceptions prove the rule. Standard planes have no such need.]
If you focuses your gaze at the runway below while landing you would crash or make a hard landing . Motion is best perceived with peripheral vision . When flying you usually focus on the horizon or the end of the runway .you only focus on the touchdown point for a brief period of time early in the approach when your angle of attack is low.
In addition, the nose is usually where you have the engine for single engine aircraft. For pressurized aircraft, any window is a stress concentration and this requires extra reinforcement, adding weight. In addition , large pressurized aircraft have a radar in the nose , much more useful for detecting obstacles than the naked eye.
Note helicopters have forward and down looking windows or curved glass bubble because of the nature of their missions. That is not for landing.
Many people aren’t mentioning here that the really expensive aircraft’s come with a helmet that allows you to look through your aircraft and see around you in 360 degrees. Soo that’s a thing.
You can see down at a far steeper angle from the flight deck than you would expect – much steeper than the sink rate when descending. (You can watch how close the rampers will stand under the nose when marshalling in a plane and still be seen by the crew in the flight deck.) Furthermore, the taller view allows the crew to keep a better lookout on the ground while taxiing, and perhaps more importantly, means the window doesn’t get covered in runway grime.
As for knowing exactly when you will touch down the pilots (at least on airliners and modern aircraft) have radar altimeters, and TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system) that gives them a display of any aircraft within a set proximity and trigger an aural warning if one is too close or on a collision course. TCAS will even coordinate between the two planes in question to avoid the collison, i.e. telling one to go up and the other to go down.
All of this (and probably more that I am forgetting – redundancy is a big thing in aviation) combined with external factors like flight lanes and air traffic control results in a very high level of safety.
It’s actually somewhat more common than you might think. Several WW2 fighters had plexiglass “floors” under the pilot. I sat in an F4U Corsair that was equipped with a transparent belly panel under the pilot. Ditto for several crop dusters. (Realize that these aircraft don’t actually have a floor…the pilot’s seat is suspended within the fuselage. There’s nothing to stand on). The C-130 Hercules also has several windows on the lower nose.
On helicopters, the chin bubble is critical. In the event of an engine failure, you look between your feet…because that’s where you’re gonna land!
Commercial jet pilots and co-pilots do most of their landing with instruments and don’t necessarily see the runway until the nose of the plane starts coming down. I have flown around the world and have experienced aborted landings which happen just when the rear wheels hit and the front of the plane starts coming down and the pilot sees an obstacle and has to pull up. Very scary.
I think you are overestimating a human beings ability to judge distance. The instruments in the cockpit give the pilot a perfectly accurate reading that helps them land safely. Play a flight sim for a couple dozen hours and you will see that you don’t even need windows to fly. Flying by instruments only is possible and sometimes necessary such as in bad weather.
Google Instrument Fly Rules.
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