PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Wing down during final approach.
View Single Post
Old 30th Jan 2014, 20:38
  #59 (permalink)  
Armchairflyer
 
Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Vienna
Age: 50
Posts: 359
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
As I don't feel competent enough to comfortably handle a crosswind landing with just one of the two techniques, I tend to use a mixture (in the rare occurrences where the need arises for me). Slightly wing-down-cross-control but mostly crab in the final approach which ideally changes to more wing-down-cross-control and no crab during the flare and touchdown. Granted, not a perfect landing if I fail to complete the abovementioned transition before the airplane completes its transition from airborne to aardvark, but it has never come to an appreciable gear abuse let alone a runway excursion.

Cross-controlling all the way just feels awkward for me and doesn't suit my laziness. In addition, even with my humble experience I can second the assertion in one aviation book I've read: the wind mostly changes near the surface anyway, therefore even with the cross-control method one has to juggle with rudder and ailerons in the flare to get it right, so why labor earlier than necessary?
Armchairflyer is offline