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Strong crosswind landing, and techniques

I am not saying this pilot was wrong but if you jump to the very end and watch the last few hundred feet the control input seems dramatic.



Last Edited by Fuji_Abound at 04 Jul 07:26

At least he’s not dramatic about checklist usage

Indeed a lot of control input, but the crosswind landing looks properly executed. He keeps flying the aircraft after landing…

Somehow I can’t reconcile “stressful” with Staniel Cay :-)

lenthamen wrote:

Indeed a lot of control input

It was. But then again, the amount of control input is proportional to the max roll/pitch/yaw rate of the aircraft. The Caravan is not exactly an aerobatic aircraft with lots of control authority. Lots of input is probably needed on that aircraft? Funny this sideways crabbing, an IFR thing? I would never do that, I always put the wing down on final, “side slipping” into the wind all the way to touch down.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

The “proper” technique (or the one mostly taught) is to fly a crab until the short final and to go to the side slip. Flying a whole final in the slip does not make much sense. I used to slip down the whole final many years ago, but my aerobatic instructor cured that … and he’s right, a crab is much easier tio fly and more efficient too.

Fresh from PPL training I can attest to have been taught the way Alexis described. Crab and Slip are not mutually exclusive.

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

Right. And the autopilot on a long (IFR) final down to minimums will not slip but crab. That final may be quite a few NM long.

Last Edited by Stephan_Schwab at 04 Jul 17:34
Frequent travels around Europe

It looked to me like he had good control of the aircraft. I’ve never flown a Caravan but larger aircraft do tend to have relatively ineffective alierons.

I slipped from 2000 agl almost to the ground on Saturday… with full flaps… because I needed about 1400 fpm descent. There was no crosswind

LeSving wrote:

Funny this sideways crabbing, an IFR thing?

I would rather say: A thing involved whenever passengers are carried. They usually get scared when the wings aren’t level close to the ground. Have you ever seen an airliner – or anything controlled by an autopilot or flight director – fly a crosswind approach with one wing hanging down?

And regarding the video I once again had to notice how much I detest that “steering by impulse” (or whatever they call it) flying technique wiggling and fighting the controls all the time. Just hold them as steady as you can and only correct trends. This works in turbulence and crosswind just as well. When I instruct I really try not to interfere with the controls. But on the few occasions when a student starts working the controls like that I will grab them and hold them for a second, demonstrating that all those fuzzy movements from stop to stop achieve nothing.

EDDS - Stuttgart

Fresh from PPL training I can attest to have been taught the way Alexis described. Crab and Slip are not mutually exclusive.

I am not quite so fresh from training as MedEwok but fresh enough to remember it well. My instructor preferred the slip all the way down final. I didn’t find the slip as easy as the crab and then wing down on landing. Perhaps with a high crosswind one is better than the other but for me, having set my cw personal limit at 12kts for now, the crab works fine!

I slipped from 2000 agl almost to the ground on Saturday… with full flaps… because I needed about 1400 fpm descent. There was no crosswind

While training I my instructor had me sideslip, full flap, on final several occassions. I used it on my skills test for the PFL too. On my recent (first) biennial I was high on final but had plenty on runway so could afford to let the aircraft descend normally. Afterwards I mentioned to the examiner that I’d considered a side slip and he cautioned against it, “especially with the flaps down”. He suggested the aircraft might become unstable. I didn’t get chance to quiz him further. I’ve previously found it fairly easy. Am I missing something other than …. ‘right boot, left aileron, nose down to maintain airspeed’ ??

PJL
EGMD, EGKA
111 Posts
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