Crosswind landing 101, how not to?

[gmcjetpilot]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=4Ob7toBLP2I (It's 9 min long, the landings start about 5:50 in, nice music. Originally posted by Gary)

The only real nice x-wind landing in the above link was the last one, the T-34, I give it a 9 out of 10. A few of them where scary, most where in a crab. What happened to the side slip, wing low landing technique. Cross control is not in some pilots bag of tricks any more.

http://www.geocities.com/cfidarren/r-crosswind.htm

(click - excerpts from FAA flight training handbook)



Here are some videos of airliners doing x-wind landing. This is not an example of "how-to" but just shows some flight test (intentional full crab landings) and a few marginal landings by airliners in a crab. Airliner's are stout planes that can take a crab landing; however they are just planes and should be slipped to landing just as any plane.

http://www.flydamnit.com/2006/07/20/crosswind-landing/

The limit with airliners is max bank angle and dragging wing tips or wing mounted engines. It's a big issue with some jets which have real landing bank angle limits based on grinding metal on the ground, so a combo of slip, crab and kick it straight is used in high wind conditions (DC-8 is bad for engine dragging).

In a light plane we run out of mass, lift and control effectiveness against a real strong wind, usually not a wing tip clearance issue. However if the winds are that bad, I'd land some where else or in a different direction more into the wind if possible. There is always a go around!

Have a nice one Gary

[dan]

Hard to do anything other than crab when you're flying an Ercoupe! The only pedal on the floor is a brake, iirc.