The ‘kick it out of the crab’ technique is what I described in my post slightly above and along with slipping has been taught to every US private pilot I’ve met, since the dawn of time. Since you don’t fly around in a slip under normal conditions, the issue when landing is only at what height you transition out of the crab. Some planes work better slipping all the way down final and modulating the slip to both counter the crosswind and control descent rate. Often this works well on types with no flaps. Other types don’t comfortably slip due to e.g. heavy rudder control forces or some aerodynamic defect, so they work better when crabbed almost all the way to the ground.
What hasn’t been much discussed here is that the same technique is used in reverse on takeoff: when properly controlled in a cross wind the aircraft leaves the ground in a slip and once you feel positive rate of climb (or at least no chance of contacting the ground again) you let it crab and further increase climb rate in doing so.
All this is elementary flying technique that should be very familiar to any pilot.
Elementary indeed my dear Watson.
So what is this debate about?
Add a tail wheel and a bit of gust on tarmac (high friction surface). Relying exclusively on crab technics sounds like a ground loop is going to happen any day.
Well all I can say is that around here we do it regularly in some pretty strong crosswinds, and we’re not ground looping regularly.
Despite being dominant the wind is not always from 26 or 08. In fact these last months it rarely has been. And the land round here is pretty flat, crosswinds from 20kts to 30kts are regular features during the day. They often calm in the evening.
But if you feel better with your technique then that’s the method you should use IMO. On here, most of us are trained pilots and can make our own decisions.
Pilot_DAR wrote:
Touched down fully crabbed and held it….
Is it me or does that photo not look like its actually a wing down (ie crossed controls) landing? ie specifically NOT a crab…Am I missing something?
