Crosswind practice

[Mike6158]

I spent about an hour practicing crosswind landings last Saturday. 16G24 kts, 90 degrees at times. Since it's way outside of what I've done before, due to the gusts, I had an instructor in the right seat, just in case. I made 7, 8 if you count the bounce on the last one and he did two. There were a few other little planes in the pattern. Before we took off I saw a Cirrus get a two for one landing deal. Another guy in a twin was doing his checkride. There were a few people practicing the 25 ILS approach. One broke off about 8 miles out, the other went missed (bluebird day so he was just practicing.

There was a B17 that had stopped in for the weekend doing their preflight about 100 yards from where I was doing mine. Theirs took longer Photo to follow.

Right after I took this a gust knocked us sideways. You could feel it in the rudder pedals so it was a doozy. I think it was a gust that just hit the eppanage and rudder. But, we landed, throttled up, and went around for another one. And no, I wasn't the flying pilot when I shot these.

 

[7milesup]

Remember to fly that airplane all the way to the "chocks". I have seen too many people get the aircraft on the ground and think that it their job is done. You probably already know that though.
I was going into Bedford, MA once and one of the passengers remarked to me once we were on the ground that he didn't expect to see our landing runway out his side window once we broke out of the overcast! I was in a Citation at the time. Fun stuff!!

 

[Flyinfool]

Oh the memories this brings back. I have not flown a full size aircraft for 15 years now due to medical stuff.
I remember very well some of my cross wind work, and my "wind and gust" training. Ahh the good old days.

I am still very active in ALL types of RC aircraft From park flyers and helies to turbine jets and everything between.

 

[7milesup]

Me too Flyinfool!! I am currently the President of the Rice Lake Model Airplane club. Lost my medical too (and my career). Really miss flying the jets.

 

[Hawkeye]

I flew my 1947 C-120 into a city south of here once, into a strong headwind. Just as I was about to turn right onto the apron, I realized that my tail was still in the air. Could have been dicey if I didn't pull it down before the turn.

 

[Mike6158]

There's a site on the web called Kathryn's report. I subscribed to a daily digest and the number of ground loops and exiting the runway but not on a taxiway accidents took a major uptick in the last month. It seemed like there was 4 or 5 a day for a while. So I called the instructor that gave me my BFR and told him that I wanted to practice crosswind landings the first time there was a good chance for it. He called me at 6am a few days later and asked if I was ready to get my butt kicked I said heck yeah, lets go. On the way to the airport (FMN) there was no wind. When I got there the wind sock was straight out and 90 degrees to 23. It really was a good day to fly N7688X.

I spent a little bit of time in a Super Cub once, about 3 hours, so I do know that it's not done flying until it's tied down but I'm not in it all the time (not a professional) so it's good to be reminded on my terms (practice). Well... as much my terms as the wind lets me have

Sideways in a Citation, now that's something...

I used to fly RC. I had a Kougar (not the hot expensive kind, the kind that flies ) with an OS 50 in it (up from the 40). I scratch built an F4. It was my first ducted fan aircraft but it never got a chance to fly. A tornado dropped a tree on the building it was in. I lost a lot of hard work. I have some of the parts for a Byron P51 Mustang. Most notably the "chainsaw motor, prop drive, and prop. I need to look for the stuff I have left.

 

[Winegrower]

I gave up RC flying when I computed that per hour, it was way more expensive than my real Baron B55.
There were a lot of 30 second $200 RC flights.

 

[Mike6158]

I like the B55. I've never flown a twin but I like the lines of it.

When I was flying RC it was at an RC field that an Air Force KC-135 tanker captain frequented. The man could fly who knows how much fuel across the pond in a KC 135 from Barksdale AFB to Japan (where he bought his kits) and build some of the nicest looking aircraft I've ever seen but he couldn't fly them. One day he showed up with a brand new freshly built aircraft. This was in the 80's so all I remember is that it had a tailwheel. Everyone cleared the pattern and he walked out on the runway, started it, and set it down. He stood behind it (normally not allowed) to takeoff. The rest of us had to taxi out and stand in the pilots area (taxiway in the real world). Anyway, he started his takeoff roll, it started weaving, as did he. He put a lot of body english into his flying. He applied full power and pulled it up. It got about 5' off the ground, rolled inverted, and he pulled back ... and that's when it went straight into the runway, nose first. The engine and firewall broke off and it started spinning around. The engine was at full throttle and running on residual fuel. We all hauled it out of there to avoid getting sliced up by it. I never had a 30s flight (good teacher) but I've seen a few. And if I tried to fly today? I'd have a few.

 

[Winegrower]

I took a sick pleasure watching RC crashes. I’m a bad person.

A high point of my Baron flying has been taking a number of longer flights with Chuck Yeager and hearing his stories, the unedited versions.

And by the way, I was surprised to notice that there were basically no common skills between RC and general aviation flying. At least none I had.

 

[Mike6158]

Well... I will admit to uncontrollable laughter when he started twisting his body in the direction that he wanted the aircraft to go. I ultimately had to walk to the porta-can and go inside to try to muffle it. My buddy told me it didn't help. I don't know if I have laughed that hard since

Chuck Yeager. Wow, now there's a legend. I'll bet those stories were amazing.

I learned to fly before I got into RC. I don't think it helped me. I worked for my dad just out of high school. The job title was instrument fitters helper. I graduated to fitter fairly quickly. We measured out our tubing with all of it's 90 degree bends and turns, then walked away from the area, transferred the measurements to the tube, and then bent it to fit in the space we had measured. Doing that taught me to visualize an object in 3D space. Every now and then I'd bend something 180 degrees out. Sometimes 90 degrees. I think that helped with the RC hobby but not so much the pilot license.

Now they have real turbines pushing 1/4 scale aircraft at very high speed. I think that for me, that would be a very expensive 30s or less flight