This mission has been inspired by the spectacular wingstrike that occured during the landing attempt of Lufthansa Airbus D-AIQP "Suhl" on Mach 1st 2008 at Hamburg Fuhlsbüttel. Hurricane Emma was raging with winds averaging 30 knots and wind gusts up to 50 knots.

Hamburg Airport (EDDH) has two runways (05/23 and 15/33). The active runway when LH044 was on final to Hamburg was 23 with winds from 300 deg. This put them in the position to fight extreme crosswinds of almost 50 knots at an angle of 70 degrees.

It is worthwile watching one of the videos available on YouTube by just searching for "airbus wingstrike hamburg". The pilot that achieved this masterpiece of aeronautics in fact was the young female co-pilot.

It has not been possible to simulate the heavy wind gust that almost caused the crash, but apart from that every effort has been made to make this mission as realistic as it can be, including setting the weather at different height levels to the values measured at the weather observation stations or sounding devices along the way.