I don't like pushing the limit too far either, but when you're time building in bad weather and all you can do is do circuits for 5 hours straight, you get bored and want to try something different.

FullyFlapped,

It might have been quicker if you had sent it to the flight test department but it will probably get there after much of the "hey did you see what this idiot has done" internal emails.

So what test pilot training scheme have you graduated from?

Your test cards must make up an impressive attachment to the email you sent.

Your analysis of the results and the in depth report recomending the increase in maximum demonstrated crosswind component will no doubt make waves at Cessna.

You will obvously also be able to justify yourself to the CAA test flight department who have also test flown the aircraft before acceptance onto the register and who will probably say......let's stick with what has been safe and efficient for the last 50 years.

Waiting for the Avweb joke....did you hear about the guy who did some home testing of a production aircraft.

I have been involved with an aircraft and test flight. One type in current production was tested to the mid 20Kts crosswind. However, the limit that was agreed for the flight manual was 15Kt. Why?......because the flight manual is and must always be for the average pilot with average skill.

:D

Regards,

DFC

DFC

A bit patronising if FullyFlapped turns out to be an experienced pilot with a lot of time on type, and if he took the right approach, with the right frame of mind. It doesn't take a test pilot.

I have landed (on a private flight I hasten to add) with a 30G40 at 70 degrees from runway heading, in an aircraft with a demonstrated crosswind component of 17 kts. BUT (and notice it's an important but) I had several hundred hours on type. I had landed before on a huge, wide runway in slightly lighter crosswind, so I knew the capability, and I flew for a go-around. Had the conditions not been perfect in the flare I was ready with the throttles, I had accepted that I was probably going to have to climb away to take the (short, grass but into-wind) cross runway.

When I was become an FI my instructor sent me up in a 26-kt crosswind in an aircraft with a demonstrated crosswind of 12 kts. He knew it was easily capable.

Demonstrated crosswind components were never meant to be limits, or they would be called such. They are recommendations intended to show what a mediocre pilot would be able to cope with and not break the aircraft, and as a sensible limit for most commercial operations (the operations manual will make the demonstrated crosswind a mandatory limit) to give greater safety margins.

I have yet to come across an GA type that cannot be landed in winds stronger than its demonstrated component and I doubt there are many over say a year old that havent been landed at more than their demonstrated component.

Does this increase leg fatigue?

Every landing causes some fatigue, some landings cause more fatigue than others (and not only the cross wind ones), and some pilots cause a lot more fatigue in more ways than you will ever know. :D

I have yet to fly an aircraft that can not be landed or taken-off in less than the distance specified in the flight manual.

The CAA and the insurer will ignore the 50,000 previous times you landed in a 50 knot crosswind if you break the aircraft while landing in a 20 knot crosswind when the max demonstrated is 15.

----------

Life's a Beech,

Your instructor would have been guilty of manslaughter if you had killed yourself.

The point is that FullyFlapped is by definition claiming to be a test pilot and consequently will have prepared in advance a test flying programme, have appropriate test cards as well as data obtained and will have a report that because of their credibility as a test pilot will be acepted.

I have been involved in test flying for a few years but still operate under the supervision and guidance of a more experienced pilot (as well as a flight test engineer) and must submit all reports through the designated senior test pilot.

Getting away with it and living to write an email is not test flying.

Regards,

DFC

At least part of the POH is the approved AFM which includes the section on limitations. i.e. approved by the FAA or equivalent.
I was involved in a mod to the landing gear of a Pitts S-1 - RV type gear (and Haigh tailwheel) instead of the bungees. We happened to find 25 kts xwing when we did our tests so submitted that in the AFM and the response was we could either leave it as 17 kts or have the authority's TP confirm it.

I cant imagine they would - it could go horribly wrong.

So you are telling the Court that you meant to use the word "limit" but actually wrote "maximium demonstrated".

Hmmm, could end up with a product liability suite me thinks.

I would rather be defending.

X/winds can be a real problem when flying in areas with poor or no weather reporting and forecasts.

So when I get to a destination with a X/wind that exceeds the demonstrated X/wind component of the airplane I will land it if there is no alternate available....

Unless they design an airplane that I can just park over the airport and wait until the wind changes.

How much for the Authority Test Pilot? or did you bother to ask? :ooh:

Regards,

DFC

Chuck - I was wondering if you call a Pan so as to enable you to do something that would otherwise be illegal?

Chuck - I was wondering if you call a Pan so as to enable you to do something that would otherwise be illegal?

Call a Pan?

Why would I call a Pan every time I landed with a X/wind that exceeded the demonstrated X/wind of the airplane?

If it is illegal then there are thousands of us flying for a living that do it because we had no other choice but to land.

Here is a question for you...

Many years ago we were hauling fuel with a DC3 in Canada's high Arctic the weather was perfect until our last trip.

Sixty miles out of Resolute (our destination ) the FSS called us and informed us that a sudden unforcasted wind had come up and Resolute was going below VFR limits in blowing snow.

By the time we were on final for the runway the FSS gave us another update.
Visibility zero in blowing snow and the wind was 50 knots 90 degrees to the runway.

It was dark and we could see the runway approach lights and the runway lights on final approach but only dimly in the blowing snow.

What should I have done with no alternate?

Declared a Pan?

WTF good would that nonsense have done me?

I landed it with the 50 knot X/wind and the sucker just slid straight down the runway. ( As I knew it would. )

Why would you transmit a PAN at the planning stage?

No weather info for destination means an alternate is required where the weather is suitable should a landing not be possible at the desination.

Furthermore, telling everyone that you have an urgent message to transmit but do not require assisteance may not be appropriate if caught out in such a situation.

regards,

DFC

Some of the writers here have read CAR 3, the CAR 3 Flight Test Guide, and FAR Part 23 many times, and understand the deliberate choice of terminology required by those documents.

It seems to me that it would be a great benefit for others here to at least have an awareness of the content of these documents. A lot of the silly comments here (and a response requested of Cessna) could have been saved by doing the homework first!

Pilot DAR

DFC,

Thank you for the insults in your previous posts. I see that you're now a test pilot as well as having the many other areas of expertise to which you have referred over the years : what a fantastic career you must be having.

As to myself, when I'm not pretending to be a test pilot, or acting as an idiot, or making myself the subject of Avweb humour, I'm just a guy with many hours on type who can read ... hey - let's see if you can too !

Here's a verbatim quotation from my POH ...

"Demonstrated Crosswind Velocity is the velocity of the cross-wind component for which adequate control of the airplane during takeoff and landing was actually demonstrated during certification tests. The value shown is not considered to be limiting." (my emphasis).

Good luck with the test pilot phase of your long and oh-so-varied career ... :rolleyes:

FF :ok:

I slightly doubt that DFC, gross negligence maybe but manslaughter?...Hardly. If you are doing a FI course then you're already going to be reasonably experienced and dead or not the AAIB will surely note that the ultimate responsibility lay with the idiot who agreed to go up in said wind in the first place.

I learned to fly in a member of the cub family, a 1946 PA12. As a student pilot I landed in the biggest xwind I ever have, during a solo cross country. It was pretty much 20kts across the runway. I find the cub series to be good crosswind airplanes. The super cub has the one issue where if you pull flaps in you can only get so much left aileron in, because the flap handle blocks your leg which then blocks the stick.

I fly pawnees too, in the really big crosswinds I worry about dragging a wingtip because it's a low wing. But I never have. I'm also known to cheat and takeoff/land a little into the wind rather than right down the centerline when it's sporty.

-- IFMU

All I can say is that you're a braver man than I...for my taildragger check out I had to fly in 8-10knots xw (while me instructor watched me from the ground) and I have to say on a rather muddy, slippery field the prospect of doing anything stronger was not very appealing.

I could not agree more. I wasnt being serious - sorry a bit of a strange sense of humour.

I was seeking to make the point that IF it was "illegal" to land with a cross wind over that demonstrated then presumably the pilot would have to declare a pan or mayday because he could reasonably expect the uc to collapse on landing.

For me the fact remains that these days with such a high risk of product liability etc if the lawyers had intended to say LIMITING then I think they would have managed to use that word in the POH - if the word LIMITING is not used then I think it is entirely reasonable for the pilot, insureres, CAA and any one else who cares to comment to consider it to be demonstrated NOT limiting.

In short, I dont understand and you havent convinced me DFC, why you believe otherewise?

To be fair some of the authority tests pilots are not all that. Ask my neighbour who handed over his turboprop converted glassair for test flying and had it left as pile of parts at Conington!!!

Here we are dealing with fact. Something that has been demonstrated, has been checked and which has been certified and something that the average pilot can repeat on a consistent basis.

That is opinion or speculation and is not based on any calculation demonstration or result.

What is says it that adequate control exists at the max demonstrated crosswind. It may or it may not exist above that figure.....if you want to try and find out, don't blame us if the aircraft breaks or you hurt yourself.

Your insurance company will expect you to take reasonable care. Test flying is prohibited by most policies.

Regards,

DFC