To be honest I see the wing-down AND crab approaches with last second kick round AND the combined methods as ALL one of the same th
I disagree, although I see your point.
Crab technique - the wings are level for the landing. Timing is everything. Aileron is used to counteract the secondary effect of rudder, but not to bank the aircraft.
Wing-low technique - the aircraft is aligned with the runway for some of the approach. I tend to find that if a student struggles to learn the crabbed technique, they might find the wing-low technique easier. Or, in many cases, after seeing the wing-low technique, the crab technique makes more sense to them and becomes easier. Wing-low used to be my preferred technique as a low-hours pilot, and still is on light tail-draggers (on the rare occassions I get to fly them), but if you apply the controls too early you need to make corrections as the wind changes on the approach and on entering ground effect.
Combination - probably the easiest technique, since it doesn't need the exact timing of the crab technique nor the changes during the approach of the wing-low technique. It is basically the same as the wing-low technique except that the aircraft is not aligned with the runway until in ground effect. Not really suitable for short-field landings where the time in ground effect is very short due to the lower approach speeds - although most attempts at crabbed landings in light aircraft turn into combination landings anyway due to the fact that none of us can get the timing perfect every time.
A clear distinction there, IMHO. The controls are the same in each case, that's true. But the timing, the amount of control required, and even the purpose of using the control (aileron is used to roll the aircraft for a wing-low approach but to counteract secondary effect of rudder in a crabbed approach) is very different.
FFF
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