Originally Posted by
Pace
Surely that is a more accurate way of deterring the crosswind limit and adding a safety buffer between that maximum ?
I still am not convinced that demonstrated has any meaningful relevance to what an aircraft and pilot can handle and it seems to be very un scientific and out of the hat
Pace
I think that you're right Pace to be honest - and I've flown several crosswind trials, and written or signed off several more POHs.
The way it's done has some value - a figure has been determined - through a combination of opportunity and requirement (basically it was the best the TPs could get in the time and locations available, but they were required to at least hit 0.2Vso - which for a part 23 single means 12 knots or greater - less for microlights and part VLA aeroplanes.
The requirement to evaluate against "typical" piloting ability is minimal - although tools to do so certainly exist: the Cooper-Harper Scale being the most immediately obvious, and the requirement to provide much meaningful handling advice in the POH is also minimal.
A few lines of informed narrative would be much better, viz...
"During flight trials, the aeroplane was tested on both take-off and landing up to 20kts crosswind from the right, and up to 15kts from the left. The preferred landing method was the wing-down method. The aircraft was fully controllable up to those values without requirements for advanced piloting skill, with up to half control deflection being used. It is likely that an experienced pilot on type will be able to handle greater crosswind values, but no guarantee of this is provided."
Or something like that.
Undercarriage strength *should* be a bit of a red herring incidentally, as any correctly flown technique should result in the aeroplane tracking straight down the runway at touchdown, not skidding sideways.
Unless it's one of those rare aeroplanes designed to be landed crabbed - I can only think of one of those on the UK GA fleet, and there aren't many HM1000s flying nowadays, so that's a pretty obscure case.
G