737 Crosswind crabbed Landing stuffed up.

[Judd]

Not with simulation, unrepresentative simulation of conditions

Providing the Level D simulator is well maintained, the fidelity of crosswind landings in terms of basic handling of flight controls is almost identical to the real aircraft. I am talking here about the 737 Classics. Most syllabus I have seen do not permit enough time to practice crosswind landings. For type rating purposes the "student" may need to practice at least ten crosswind landings one after another to be able to land with reasonable self confidence and consistency of no drift touch down. There is nothing wrong with repositioning the simulator at one mile final which with any Level D simulator will have the correct drift angle and speed and power setting automatically in place. This presupposes of course the aim of the exercise is to finesse the flare and landing manually with a 90 degree crosswind component of varying speed.
Some pilots are slow to recognize or "see" drift angle. They under estimate the drift angle on touch down and hit the runway still sideways.

When this happens a good instructor technique IMHO is to "freeze" the simulator at the instant of touchdown. Then have the student look at his compass heading compared with runway heading when it will be obvious there is a difference. Cross wind landing practice in the simulator is frequently glossed over because of time constraints and is rarely conducted over 20 knots crosswind component. This is not because of perceived simulator fidelity but instructor apathy. Equally it is extremely rare for an instructor to take a control seat to demonstrate a strong crosswind landing for fear of making a twit of himself in front of his student. In Asia it is called Loss of Face..