Crosswind Landings and Take Offs
Crosswinds can make the Landing and Take Off much more harder. What has to be remembered is the the wing on the wind side will want to lift as the wing in the airflow will be faster than air on the leeside of the aircraft as the fuselage will be sheltering it to some degree. This means that the pilot may have to put a bit of aileron to the side of the wind to keep the wind from lifting the wing. This is in both the landing, and take off phase when on the take off roll.
Crosswinds can cause the aircraft to drift off the runway centre line.We therefore can employ 2 methods to counter this.
In these diagrams the wind is blowing from right to left as we look at the screen.
The Crab Method
In this case,the pilot will fly by assessing the drift and then aiming the aircraft off by the drift angle into wind. The aircraft although will fly down the Centre Line on approach will be actually pointing to the side of the runway. Just before the pilot touches down a bit of right rudder would be applied to straighten the nose onto the runway centre line as the wheels touch (The aircraft will yaw.)The effects of yawing will also cause the aircraft to want to bank so you will then have to turn the column left slightly to keep the wing from lifting.
The other method of flying the approach is the wing down into wind method as shown below. You will have to be very careful not to put too much bank on or you will scrape the wing tip or engine cowlings at the touchdown stage. The compass heading should agree with the required runway heading. As you get nearer the ground wind speed normally does decreases. You will gently remove the bank. However in some cases you would land the aircraft on one wheel. The aircraft flying wing down will try to slip to that side in the turn direction. The trick is to balance the slip to the drift angle so that the aircraft does not turn left or drift right in this case. you will also have to apply rudder to stop the aircraft yawing.
Effects of Control
Rolling the aircraft will cause a yaw.
Yawing the aircraft will cause a Roll
In flight simulator we use the auto cordination box to stop this
Have Fun