CC,
But what's the obsession with making a runway? The aim is to make the best of a bad job and get back to the airfield because there's nowhere else to go. If you land into wind you won't have the benefit of a runway either. We didn't have the benefit of a computer to simulate engine failure so we used to practice turnbacks for real; as I said, every month, as a requirement. We didn't fly them like automatons, we used to see different wind conditions, obviously including crosswinds from each side. As I said in a previous post, some attempts would have been more successful than others. In some conditions on some runways I would brief that a turnback wasn't a viable option. But what to do if your only available runway took you over the sea in the dark?