PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - crosswind landings, side slipping woes
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Old 27th Apr 2011, 14:34
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You're a guy right? Remember: We are bad at multitasking.

When I started flying I could manage two control inputs more or less at the same time, but three was too taxing. Here's my trick of dealing with it.

Once I get to short final (say 15 seconds to go) I use the rudder to align the fuselage with the centerline. I then lock in that amount of rudder and don't move my feet anymore for the next few seconds.

I then use the yoke/stick to fly the aircraft to the centerline again with the correct speed, and maintain the centerline by adding or removing some bank. But I don't touch the rudder while I'm adjusting the bank angle. This will keep the fuselage more or less aligned with the centerline.

Once I'm on the centerline and have the correct bank angle to compensate for the crosswind, I check whether the fuselage is still aligned and if necessary apply a bit more or less rudder. I then lock in that amount of rudder again, and start playing with the yoke/stick a bit more. And I keep cycling between those two modes all the way to the flare.

But trying to work all three (pitch, roll and yaw) at the same time never worked for me during training. And now that I've got my license I still have trouble sometimes, particularly when I'm rusty or tired. I then simply fall back to this technique. So during those last 15 seconds you may find me making a rudder adjustment only four times or so, but pitch/bank adjustments almost continuously.

Oh, and the other thing that helps a lot is to be on the right speed, pitch angle and approach path before you transition from crab to sideslip. This means you don't have to make large power changes or pitch changes anymore. Particularly power changes have consequences for yaw and roll. Yes, a side slip introduces extra drag but you compensate for that by dropping the nose just a fraction, not by feeding in massive amounts of power.
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