Insights

The key to crosswind landings

A presolo student pilot wrote this: "I am baffled by crosswind landings. I can correctly describe the procedure for the sideslip, but I simply don't do it. These landings turn me into a mess. I try to analyze what I am doing, but by the time I'm near the ground, I'm in a mental fog and wrestling with everything at once.

"What is it that overcomes me, and how do I break out of it? If I were to concentrate on one or two things, lock them down, and move on to the next items, what would you recommend I stabilize first? How can I convey to my instructor what's going on here? I think he's at the point of, 'I've told you everything I know; you just have to do it until it clicks.'"

My answer was quite simple: Use crosswind thinking for all landings, use the big picture, and stay relaxed.

If you're having this problem, tell yourself that crosswind landings are normal landings and landings without a crosswind are abnormal. I'm not kidding. For each skill that you master, always use thought processes and techniques that will work in the worst situation that you could encounter. This makes the easy stuff real easy and simplifies that which is more demanding.

You must use the big picture, which means this: Never fixate on one factor; continually monitor all factors. Right now, you're reading a magazine. Keep your eyes pointed at these words, but think about what's to the left and right and above and below this page. That's the big picture. You are aware of where your eyes are pointed and everything that surrounds that area out to edge of your field of vision. For example, as I look at my computer screen while writing this article, I see a telephone to the left, a stack of bills to the right, books on the shelf above, and a drawer handle below.

A key element of flying, particularly during takeoffs and landings, is the ability to use the big picture. You don't concentrate on where your eyes are pointed; you concentrate on the entire visual scene. If your eyes are pointed in the correct direction, you'll readily see portions of the windshield frame, glare shield, nose cowl, runway edge, and adjacent ground.

When the airplane is in a nose-high attitude, you must look to the left or right of the nose cowl, not straight ahead. Otherwise, you'll never make consistent landings in all types of airplanes. The proper visual references for flying are often contrary to what you used previously when earthbound.

Is there anything else to monitor in the big picture? Absolutely! Airplane motion and attitude, the most critical elements of all--pitch attitude, bank attitude, yaw, lateral drift, and sink rate. In fact, there's so much good stuff in the big picture that I call it the pie-in-the-sky sight picture.

Last but not least, you must fly relaxed. If you tense up during a landing, you'll suffer from tunnel vision, and the big picture will vaporize. All you'll see is what's directly in front of your eyes, and that makes it impossible to fly the airplane properly.

OK, let's execute a crosswind landing. I'm descending on final approach, crabbed into the crosswind. I change heading as necessary in order to track the runway's extended centerline, because the wind gradient (direction and velocity) changes as I descend.

Approaching the runway, I ensure that airspeed is correct and that my glide path will take me to the desired touchdown point. Then, I point my eyes at the far end of the runway and start using the big picture--rudder to align the airplane with the runway centerline; bank to stay over the centerline. I am not thinking about the far end of the runway, I'm thinking about what I see in the big picture. That tells me when rudder, aileron, elevator, and throttle inputs are required.

I'm also watching for the runway edges to start widening rapidly. That's the signal to start the landing flare. If everything looks good at that point, I close the throttle, and move my eyes to the left side of the nose (the pie-in-the-sky), and try not to land. The instant the upwind wheel touches down, I quickly increase aileron displacement slightly in order to glue that wheel onto the runway, I keep the airplane straight with rudder, and as the downwind wing starts to drop because of deceasing airspeed, I increase aileron displacement some more.

You do what? I increase aileron displacement so that I complete a crosswind landing just like I start a crosswind takeoff: full aileron displacement into the wind.

Crosswind landings? No sweat. Just stay relaxed and point your eyes properly so that you can use the big picture.

Ralph Butcher, a retired United Airlines captain, is the chief flight instructor at a California flight school. He has been flying since 1959 and has 25,000 hours in fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. Visit his Web site.