Hone those crosswind skills
If a total stranger were to stop me on the street and say, "I know that you are a flight instructor. I am a student pilot. What is one piece of advice you can give me about my training, without knowing a thing about me?" I'd be ready with three pieces of advice. "One: Get lots of crosswind practice. Two: Get lots of crosswind practice. Three:..." You guessed it.
In how much wind? A federal aviation regulation that student pilots learn about as solo flying nears is the one that prohibits him or her from acting as pilot in command of an aircraft, "in a manner contrary to any limitations placed in the pilot's logbook by an authorized instructor." Take a look in your logbook. There's a section, probably in the back, where your flight instructor can pen endorsements and remarks setting forth the conditions under which you may fly solo. Have any wind restrictions been written down for your solo flights? What are they?
I wouldn't be surprised if there were at least two specific wind limits you have to keep track of: maximum wind and a crosswind limit. How did those values for the limits on wind come to be? Were they random? Based on some general rule your flight instructor uses? Flying club rules or requirements of a flight school or FBO? Did they come from observing you fly?
Here's why I ask: Have you actually trained at and above the wind limits you have been authorized to tangle with on your own? I hope so. In the real world, no matter how carefully you review a weather forecast and assess the conditions you find when you get to the airport, the time will come when you are handed a surprise. All pilots have "war stories" they love to tell about their flying. It's common for a student pilot's first true war story to follow a plot like this: Student pilot books favorite trainer for an hour's local solo practice. Weather forecast is great, winds light and variable. Student pilot takes off and heads for the practice area. On returning to the airport, student pilot tunes in the automatic terminal information service and learns the winds are X, gusting to X+10. Student pilot is authorized to solo in winds of X+5. Oh, and there's a pretty good crosswind component too. Whatever happens next makes a great story.
None of this is a problem if your dual instruction has included a few sessions of pounding out traffic patterns in winds higher than the equations given above. Let's say 2X with gusts to 2X+5, and what I call FCD crosswinds--that is, crosswinds requiring full control deflection. And make sure you have recent crosswind practice. Those old ones--more than a month ago--remain valuable because they put experience into your pilot DNA. But the recent ones tuned your muscle memory, occurred in the current season, and may have been accomplished in the aircraft you're flying right now.
Remember, crosswinds are a target of opportunity in training. You have to pounce on them when they come along. So if tomorrow's going to be a breezy Monday and you're not planning to fly until Thursday, seize the breeze! Book the trainer and roust your CFI.
Speaking of CFIs, let's ask them the following question: "How many of you would send a student pilot solo in winds of 11 knots gusting to 16, with a slight crosswind component thrown in?" Some would. My guess is that the majority wouldn't. It would be fun and educational to hear them debate the question.
The discussion might pivot on a minor accident that occurred in Taylor, Texas, on June 15, 2008. The National Transportation Safety Board said in its online accident summary: "The student pilot was landing on Runway 17. During touchdown, the airplane bounced twice before swerving and exiting the right side of the runway. During the accident the left main landing gear collapsed and the left wing and fuselage sustained substantial damage. Approximately 16 minutes after the accident, a weather reporting station located 13 miles northwest of the accident site, reported winds from 160 degrees at 11 knots gusting to 16 knots." Based on that information the NTSB assigned as probable cause two factors that make the case for extensive practice: "The student pilot's improper flare during landing. Contributing to the accident was the gusty winds."
If you had a buck for every accident that occurs in a year as a result of a mistimed landing flare, a "surprise" gust of wind,
or a badly flown go-around, you'd have some nice money to invest in your flight training. From what I've witnessed in who knows how many trainer cockpits, many of those surprise gusts would not have even been noticed--let alone cause accidents--if the pilots had been maintaining correct control deflections, as a matter
of discipline, throughout landing, rollout, and taxiing.
This may surprise you, but there are pilots, student and above, who can render an articulate dissertation on proper control deflections but still don't use them when they should, or relax them prematurely immediately after touchdown. They may have been taught to think of those techniques as some vague form of insurance only to be used in a howling gale, but that's wrong. A pilot who uses aileron and elevator on the ground in the presence of any wind is unlikely to "lose it" in a gust. Ask yourself if your technique rises to that level.
Which brings us to June 28, 2008, in Baldwin City, Kansas, where an accident had all the elements described above. There was a crosswind, a gust, a mistimed flare, a bounce, more bounces, and a belated bid to go around. The pilot of the Cessna 177, "was performing a crosswind landing on Runway 34. During the landing flare, the airplane 'bounced' on the runway and then continued to bounce several more times. The pilot raised the flaps and added full power. The attempt to execute a go-around was unsuccessful and the airplane drifted left, off of the 80-foot-wide grass runway. Realizing that he would not clear buildings near the runway, the pilot aborted the takeoff and pushed forward on the yoke. The airplane struck the ground, collapsing the nose landing gear and buckling the left wing. The pilot reported that the winds were from 240 degrees and variable, 10 knots with gusts at the time," reported the NTSB summary. It attributed the accident to "the pilot's loss of directional control resulting from a hard landing and failure to recover from a bounced landing. Contributing to the accident was the crosswind."
The NTSB also made this observation which makes the summary worthy of appearing here for your consideration: "The operator also reported that more training and experience in crosswind landings would have prevented this accident."
Very likely. Being prepared, that is, using on every flight the techniques you learn--not just after some alarming occurrence has reminded you that they exist-- prevents trouble and makes you skilled enough to get yourself out of a jam. A few extra sessions in the pattern when the wind is brisk will hammer that lesson home. It's money well spent, and a skill that will never fail you. But practice routinely.
Dan Namowitz is an aviation writer and flight instructor. A pilot since 1985 and an instructor since 1990, he resides in Maine.
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