Originally Posted by
abdunbar
Worse, I doubt that those test point were ever even flown in the actual aircraft. I suspect that at some point they said that they had tested recoverability at a high enough speed with enough nose down trim and called it a day.
similar to demonstrated cross wind capability that becomes the cross wind limit. It is the limit because they had no incentive to go higher and risk an airframe.
I know it's a thread drift, but just to clarify: The Boeing AFMs state the level of crosswind for which landings were actually demonstrated. I don't believe it is stated as, or intended to be, a hard limit. The level to which they demonstrate it is typically driven by customer contract and sometimes is limited by the conditions they can find during the test program. An exception to this not being a limit exists in the case of a few airplane/engine combinations where there is, for takeoff, an engine crosswind limit due to fan blade stress.