Originally Posted by
Intruder
I've flown the 747 Classic, 744, and 748. You can land the 747 (any model) in a crab. With a significant crosswind, it is almost mandatory. you cannot use more than 5 deg angle of bank, and you MUST have your velocity vector straight down the runway. Some pilots like to try to "kick out" the crab at the last moment, but just as often that will result in an overcorrection. On a wet runway, you'll hardly notice the airplane aligning itself with the runway; on a dry runway there will be significant shudder through the airframe as the tires scrub during the alignment.
I don't know what the difference is between 748 brakes and 744 brakes, other than capacity. Both have carbon brakes. I treated them the same. With the 748, always use Flaps 20 for T/O and Flaps 30 for landing, unless the airplane is VERY light (270T landing).
Just to be clear, there is no rudder to kick out in the flare, there is a crab angle, in coordinated flight, which must be reduced to runway alignment using rudder for longitudinal correction while using aileron to keep the upwind wing from rising due to the yaw. This crosscontrol in the flare is also be called a slip. Any aileron input error should be to the excess which would put the upwind gear down earlier than the downwind. Some guys do that on purpose. I've seen more sideslip to landing sideloads on big jets caused by the guy who wants to fly it like a cub than sideloads by guys who did not decrab enough.
If your airplane does autoland read how it corrects for X-wind.
Even on aircraft designed to land in a crab, such as the T-38, most guys naturally gravitated to a decrab in the flare.