PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Using a wind component chart on final
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Old 24th Jul 2017, 20:00
  #17 (permalink)  
Gertrude the Wombat
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
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To answer the original question, you won't want to be looking at charts on final, you'll be fully occupied with flying the aircraft.

As you fly down the extended centreline it will be obvious whether you're crabbing to the left or to the right ... indeed after not very much more experience than you already have it will have been obvious whether flying down base leg has taken a longer or shorter time than usual, and it will be obvious whether you've struggled to make the extended centreline (headwind) or whether you've overshot it (tailwind).

Any or all of which tells you the direction the crosswind is coming from, even if you didn't do any homework before take-off and didn't remember what happened at take-off and didn't look at the windsock whilst downwind.

So there are two things left that you care about: whether you can land safely, and whether you can land legally (aircraft limits, club rules, whatever). And at your stage you're almost certain to form the judgement that you don't like it, and that you're therefore going to go around, long before "legally" becomes an issue.

One day "legally" will become an issue - say you're happy landing with an 18kt crosswind, 'cos you've done it dual, but the club limit for solo is 15kt - and you'll then want to be able to do the arithmetic. If you can't do "one sixth of the wind speed per ten degrees off runway heading" in your head there are other parts of the course you'll struggle more with.
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