Good lord :ugh::(:mad:

What is it with everyone holding a crab right into the flare and touching down totally misaligned with the runway :confused:

High wing Cessna's love a wing low slip with the aircraft aligned with the runway centerline in a crosswind.

flyinkiwi,

Thanks for posting that. I have never seen such bad landings. They reminded me of those flight-test videos of Boeings deliberately landing crabbed in strong crosswinds.

Obviously, the Cessna gear must be very strong to cope with that abuse.

Interestingly I recently read a travel report article in a German flying magazine, about a German guy flying down under (also New Zealand) on his vacation.

At one instance, when he began to slip his plane down onto final as he was coming in a bit high, the NZ safety pilot he had along apparently got into a light panic and took the controls from him, saying something like "we don't do that here, never ever!"
If that is true it might explain why the guys in this video crab in like that. Beats me what's to say against a good slip, though...

BPF

I just get video not available!

With incipient this and incipient that in training nowadays I am not surprised that pilots are taught to make arrivals rather than land and fly aircraft!
Churning out aeroplane drivers rather than pilots springs to mind!

Pace

Landing with all the crab on seems pretty foolhardy to me. There are swept wing types (B757 is just one example) which are designed to cope with huge side loads on landing - 40kt is the cross wind limit on that type. Frankly though, I am not keen on putting the theory to the test because I don't like drift in the flare!

I find it far simpler and much safer, even when flying the B757 in strong cross winds conditions to simply cross control on approach, it gives me much more control over whats happening with the added advantage of enabling me to land every time bang on the centre line. There are aileron/spoiler considerations for the swept wing pilots to consider before using this technique but that's another story! I use the same method when flying light aircraft.

Follow the FOH as one previous poster suggested every time, and adhere to cross wind limits but flying cross controls during the final stages of the approach will give you a far better idea of how much rudder authority you have left available well before the critical stage of actually landing the aircraft.

Well that's humble take on the subject anyway!

I think it's wrong to try and generalize much from this. This particular pilot clearly has trouble with the transition to wing-down in the combination technique. I'm quite happy to fly a wing-down approach, or a combination, and have no axe to grind either way. But what we're seeing here is an individual problem. The crosswind is a little gusty but it's not really at the level of being challenging for anyone with reasonable experience and technique. Maybe the guy was a student?

tecman,

There are multiple aircraft in the video, all making bad landings. flyinkiwi said it was a landing competition.

therealdooga,

I've flown with five different Kiwi instructors in five different types and I've done slips in all of them, without any negative comments.

IFT..thanks for that. The video was pretty hard to view on the IPAD 1 I had at hand. I guess they were all having a bad day. Or maybe there's some local training factor whereby the second part of the combination method is not taught well.

Not following your own advice Tecman? I thought very hard about posting this video to PPRUNE because I suspected people would get the wrong ideas about flight training in my country. I reiterate, this film was edited to show the worst landings of the day - it does not show ALL the landings (including mine).

That day was the roughest conditions I have ever had to deal with. After my first overshoot I shelved all notions of competing and went into survival mode, my goal being to land safely without bending anything. I am happy to report that everyone landed safely without injury or damage to the aircraft.

FK, I was trying to be charitable, especially when I thought I had one data point. When I said "local", I meant very local: I've seen occasionally clubs etc here in Oz where odd ideas have left their mark. We probably don't get the best idea from the windsock, but the sock and the crab angles make it look like it wasn't the very worst day to land an aircraft. Regardless, I applaud your own decision making but you might concede that a cohort of pilots who think it's OK to land side-ways gives pause for thought. Maybe some pics of the good landings of the day would balance things up?

flyinkiwi,

I think you did the right thing by posting that video. It is very good for discussion purposes. I have a couple of questions concerning that day.

What was the wind speed in terms of steady and gusts and at what angle to the runway?

Were any contestants (that you didn't show) using the wing-down technique? Were there any good landings (apart from yours, of course ;))?

I was amazed by the performance of the 180 (185?) pilot. I would have thought that anyone flying a Cessna taildragger would have good handling skills.

Thinking back over my flying years, I realize that I haven't watched many serious cross-wind landings, except at gliding fields, where the pilots are usually very experienced.

Looking at the video, it seems that the pilots you showed were all from the "kick off the drift" school. Perhaps that was all they were ever shown. That technique works quite well in mild crosswinds, but clearly was difficult in the conditions in your video.

My crosswind landings, and more importantly, my confidence improved rapidly after I was shown the wing-down technique.

Tecman, that video is not mine, it was not filmed by me and I was unaware of its existence until after it appeared on YouTube. I wish a movie showing proper technique under those conditions exists because I definitely would have posted it as a counterpoint.

I42:

It was blowing about 17-20 knots at right angles to the runway. It was fairly steady and smooth at altitude but as you can see down low flying was akin to being in a tumble dryer.
As I said, I didn't make that video. As I was competing I didn't see all the landings but the ones I did see were crab and kick. I thought the taildragger would have flown the wing down technique, but the video shows otherwise...
Mine was not pretty, but nowhere near as bad as those ones. The guy who won the competition put his plane down in the 50 point box like it was on rails. I am trying to think of the percentage of shown vs not shown landings, but at a guess I would say about 75% are not there. Remember this competition was held over about 6 hours.

Crosswind Landings
 

Hi there,
I applied the technique you described for Crosswind Landings on my skills test on Sunday 6th October,worked for the examiner as well,cheers,
Al.

Airplanes have been landing in crosswinds for decades and there is still argument about how to do it properly. Another example of management by committee.

Slip on final or crab on final? If you are an instrument rated pilot flying an airplane with an autopilot, you should manually fly final the same way the airplane does with the autopilot coupled...in a crab. Even though my little spam can doesn't have an autopilot, I personally always use the crab technique, FWIW. I mention this because I have had this discussion with Bonanza and Centurion owners who swear that slipping is the best method...and then I ask how they get their autopilot to slip on final when coupled up. Wouldn't you want your sight picture and technique to be the same all time, especially when popping out of the clouds at minimums? If you ever transition to larger airplanes, crab on final is the technique to know.

All I can add without getting more specific and relating personal experience is that the committee doesn't exist when you are flying the airplane. Read the book, listen to a good instructor with time in type and perhaps with specific experience in what you want to do with the airplane, and then work out the details that suit you best.

Practice landings with zero flaps, partial flaps and full flaps under conditions leading up to the aircraft limit or your own personal limits. What I do with my airplane at my level of experience, whether more or less than your level of experience, may not suit your particular situation. See what works best for you.

There may also be a time when those electric or hydraulic actuated flaps don't work...which may not be the optimum circumstance to experience your aircraft's new-to-you handling.

Being landing approach related, I will say that aircraft with flap gap seals will glide/float much farther and slow down noticeably slower than those without the aftermarket seals when in a flap up condition. If you expect to glide a certain distance with a stock wing and then try a no flap in a flap gap seal equipped airplane, you're in for a surprise. The reverse is also something to consider, but perhaps in a more negative manner if you are expecting a longer glide distance. This is something most CFI's don't consider or highlight during a checkout in a mixed fleet environment.

It isn't clear what your experience of large airplanes is but the B757/67 autopilots will give an immaculate demonstration of a crossed control/slip approach.
Crab to minima tempts the pilot to straighten up when the lights come into view with a consequent downwind drift that opens a whole can of worms in trying to retrieve the situation at low level.
Kicking off crab in a large airplane at the last minute requires a measure of fine judgement only gained through long experience. It has led countless airmen to some very dramatic landings - without even mentioning the effect on the unfortunate souls in row 40.
Professionals should try and emulate the Boeing autopilot.

My Boeing/Douglas autopilot doesn't slip, and neither will other less sophisticated aircraft than yours. One has to be a pilot when clicking it off. :ok:

I have always been told that you must crab in the big jets
I was also led to believe one such reason was if you use a wing down approach you might drag an wing mounted engine pod on the ground at the bottom.
Also that Airbus does not allow sideslips in its normal law flybywire software config anyway.

Somewhere in the back of my mind is the point that any side slipping permitted and the max level of it might be limited by some 'rear fuselage Va' limit consideration in these sorts of aircraft.

With a background in gliding and having no experience of flying such aircraft nor am likely to, so I do of course defer to those on this forum that have.

Totally agree with scotbill and actually that technique also works admirably on any light aircraft I've ever flown.

The most common mistake I've seen comes from those forgetting to centralise the rudder once on the ground.

It works like this:

During the approach phase apply sufficient downwind rudder to point the nose down the centre then apply sufficient opposite aileron to hold a straight approach path along the extended centre line. Once on the ground just centralise the rudders but continue to hold into wind aileron throughout the landing roll. This technique looks and feels very professional and once perfected it will enable you to stay right on the centre line throughout your crosswind approach, landing and rollout.

Go to YouTube in order to see some of the balls up jet pilots have made when they've tried crabbing in. There is some scary stuff to be seen and I know which technique I'm going stick with!

I thought this was the private flying bit of the forum, not the airliner bit? :)

I teach both techniques, C152/PA28. Students tend to gravitate towards one and stick with it.

Regardless, in the ubiquitous GA single engine, the aim should be to touchdown in the direction of travel, with no lateral movement and this can only be done if the aircraft is in a slip at the moment of touchdown.