A new approach to an old debate
Let’s say the maximum demonstrated crosswind capability of your airplane is 15 knots. The winds at your destination are from 30 degrees to the left of the runway at 30 knots. You’re flying and it isn’t convenient to pull out the crosswind-component calculation chart to calculate whether the winds exceed the demonstrated capability of your airplane. What to do?
Taylor Albrecht, manager of Crosswind Concepts at Centennial Airport south of Denver, has come up with a method to do the calculation in your head.
Crosswind Concepts uses one of 30 Redbird Xwind moving simulators sold so far in the United States and Europe to help pilots tame crosswinds. Albrecht is the only one to build a business solely on the simulator. Universities incorporate it as part of pilot training programs.
“I need easy,” Albrecht said. “You have to consider, how high is your workload if you have to do that? You’re already in a heightened state of workload in the approach phase of flight. You don’t need to be heads down looking at a chart.
“There are several techniques that you can use, but I have fun with this one. I have a phrase, ‘30 degrees is half.’ What does that mean? If the wind is 30 degrees off the runway, the crosswind component is exactly half of the wind reported.
“Going out of that, I want you to think 60 degrees, all of the wind is [crosswind component]. So if it’s 60 degrees from the runway, every last bit of that wind is crosswind component. So that is the basis, the foundation.”
What if it’s 30 knots, gusting to 40? Ignore the 30 and use the gusts to calculate crosswind component, Albrecht said. “That’s for us, to make it easy. Mathematically at 60 degrees it’s a 90-percent crosswind component. Close enough for me!
“What if it’s 50 [degrees]? Then I engage what I call the rule of sixths. That rule is, for every 10 degrees that the wind is off the runway [heading], one-sixth of it is crosswind component,” Albrecht said. Under that rule, the crosswind component of a 10-degree crosswind is only a sixth of the total wind speed. Mentally we can come up with a guess. At 20 degrees, the crosswind is a third (two-sixths). At 50 degrees, the crosswind component is five-sixths of the wind speed.
When we get ATIS or the tower gives us the wind, it’s always history. What is the crosswind that we’re facing at the exact moment? “Does it matter if the crosswind component is 18 knots or 17 knots or even 16 knots?” Albrecht asks. “And the answer is no. It looks about right. Flying is an art. It doesn’t matter that you know to the exact knot what the crosswind component is. You need to be in the ballpark. That looks about right.”
So what do you do with the information? You compare it to your personal experience level. If you have been flying three days and greasing crosswind landings at near your personal maximum, you can accept a report of high winds. If you haven’t flown in months, would you accept a crosswind of five or seven knots? “Maybe not,” Albrecht said.
No more crab and kick
Perhaps you consider yourself an experienced pilot and use a crab to maintain the centerline until just above the runway, seconds from touchdown. Then you use the rudder to align the aircraft with the centerline and perform a slip for touchdown. Albrecht’s advice is, don’t do that anymore unless you are flying daily.
“Quarter mile out, max. Half mile out—depends on what the experience [level] is—we have you go wing low, because you can address it. Now you know how much rudder and bank angle you’re needing to maintain centerline. If you get pushed off one side or the other it’s a rudder and bank change, but it’s very easy and more stable.
“In the crab and kick, I’m stabilized very nicely until the last second, a couple of feet above the runway. Then I destabilize the aircraft. It takes a pilot with greater skill to do that. The pilot should be at one with the airplane and the wind. If you’re flying the same airplane over and over, you’ve got to be one with the airplane. If you’re in a rental flight and you’re flying different 172s or different other aircraft, you don’t know how that wind is going to act on the aircraft. Where do I know whether I’ve run out of rudder and I’m beyond the capability of the airplane, or my capabilities, if I don’t go wing low?”
He also noted that if you use rudder to kick out of a crab into a sideslip, you have to move your head to see straight ahead. “I’m messing with my body, and my senses, and all of that.” As he noted, how early you switch to the wing-low method (sideslip into the wind) depends on how much experience you have.
If you are flying an airliner or are flying every day, you are going to do the crab-and-kick method, Albrecht said. That’s because you have the needed experience. Also, always brief your passengers if a crosswind landing is needed, letting them know it will look funny—and that it’s the safest way to accomplish the landing.AOPA
Other tips from Crosswind Concepts
Let your feet do the talking
“Point your nose with your toes. Rudder is king in a crosswind landing,” Crosswind Concepts Manager Taylor Albrecht said. Rudder tells you how much bank angle you need once you are pointed down the extended centerline.
A second tip is that banking controls your lateral position. Let’s say you press right rudder and bank to the left to maintain the centerline, using a slipping maneuver. Too much bank and you’ll go upwind. Too little and you will go downwind. “All the time I’m keeping the runway centerline aligned with the longitudinal axis of the aircraft with rudder,” Albrecht said.
He added that you should assume a go-around will be needed, and even if you land you still need proper control input on the rollout. “Fly the airplane, don’t land it,” he said. Don’t get it in your mind that you must land. Also, an airplane loves the air, Albrecht said, but fails at being a high-speed tricycle. —AKM
