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FLYING LESSONS for March 31, 2016 Suggested by this week’s aircraft mishap reports

FLYING LESSONS uses the past week’s mishap reports to consider what might have contributed to accidents, so you can make better decisions if you face similar circumstances. In almost all cases design characteristics of a specific make and model airplane have little direct bearing on the possible causes of aircraft accidents, so apply these FLYING LESSONS to any airplane you fly. Verify all technical information before applying it to your aircraft or operation, with manufacturers’ data and recommendations taking precedence. You are pilot in command, and are ultimately responsible for the decisions you make.

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This week’s lessons: Everybody talks about crosswind practice, but few pilots do anything about it. Crosswinds are the number one factor in weather-related accidents, with even far more in-motion aviation insurance claims. The answer to handling crosswinds is usually to…practice crosswinds. But how can we develop the skills we need to employ during that practice, and in our day-to-day flying?

There’s no question that practice makes (at least closer to) perfect. But like other maneuvers, landing in crosswinds requires the artful combination of a number of individual skills. There are several of ways to develop and improve these skills so you’ll be ready to combine them in a strong or gusty crosswind. Here are five exercises you (with and without your instructor) can use to help you make better crosswind landings. 1. Flight at Minimum Controllable Airspeed Sometimes called “slow flight,” flight at Minimum Controllable Airspeed (MCA) is defined as flight at a speed at which any increase in angle of attack results in an immediate stall. MCA is generally presented in training as a “checkride circus trick,” a maneuver to be mastered for its own sake in order to pass a Task item on a Practical Test for a pilot certificate or rating.

Part of what is learned flying MCA, however, is the need for great rudder/aileron coordination—an essential part of mastering the final seconds before touchdown in a crosswind landing. According to the FAA’s Airplane Flying Handbook, the objective of flight at minimum controllable airspeed is to develop a “’feel’ for the airplane at very low airspeeds” where “the flight controls become less effective,” and a “strong yaw” tendency exists, requiring “coarse control movements…to retain control of the airplane.” Although the stated purpose of MCA is different, these are vital skills to have in order to instinctively compensate for crosswinds as the airplane decelerates in the flare.

In other words, practicing flight at MCA in the landing configuration at altitude will hone skills you need to more precisely control the airplane through a crosswind landing. 2. Dutch rolls Strictly speaking, “Dutch roll” describes a tail-wagging characteristic of many airplanes, especially swept-wing designs. Disturbed from straight-ahead flight by turbulence or

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uncoordinated control movement, the tail describes an ellipse with its foci near the horizon. The back seat of an airplane in a Dutch roll is not a comfortable place to be.

Dutch roll is also a name sometimes applied to a flight control coordination maneuver designed to improve instructive control movements while tracking toward a reference point. Here’s how I was taught the Dutch roll in US Air Force flight training:

• At altitude, after clearing for traffic, point the airplane at a reference point on the horizon. • Begin a continuous series of left and right banks, using short jabs of the rudder so the

nose remains pointed at the reference point. • Roll through the banks slowly (a hard concept for aspiring fighter pilots), pausing a few

seconds at the maximum bank angle left and right.

In the Air Force T-41A (a 1965 Cessna 172) we made 45° banks and had to do some serious finessing with the rudder to keep tracking toward the target. Depending on the airplane you fly, you may need to lead with the rudder first, then add aileron, as you bank back and forth without a pause a wings-level and with the nose pointed straight ahead.

If you don’t use the proper amount of rudder applied at the correct time, the nose will wallow back and forth across the horizon while pitching a little up and down and describing an oval or ellipse; the tail waggles around just as described in the “official” definition of Dutch roll. I guess the true name of the maneuver we learned in Air Force flight screening should be “avoiding a Dutch roll,” because that’s what we were trying to do.

Whatever you call it, precisely applying just the right amount of rudder to track straight ahead while the bank angle changes is the goal of flying this maneuver. Sounds a lot like maintaining runway alignment in a variable, gusty crosswind, doesn’t it? Not for the weak of stomach, even in the pilot’s seats, practicing “avoiding a Dutch roll” is another excellent exercise for honing your crosswind landing skills.

I was reintroduced to this maneuver during my Flight Review in a Piper J3C-65 Cub this week. I’ll talk a lot more about that superb re-learning experience in next week’s FLYING LESSONS. 3. Slips and crabs Are you a “wing low,” side-slip-to-landing pilot, or do you use the “crab method” to counter crosswinds? Here’s a radical thought—neither is the “right” way, and neither is “wrong.” No, they are two different ways to achieve the same result: a landing with no sideslip, exactly compensating for drift as a result of a crosswind.

Most pilots are taught one method or the other early in primary flight training, and decide that their instructor’s technique is the “best” way to land in a crosswind. The reality is that unless there is some airplane type-specific reason that dictates using one type or another, either technique works just fine. For example, transport-category airplanes with four pod-mounted jets under the wings often say they must be landed in a crab because a wing-low slip will cause the outboard engine on the low side to drag the ground. That’s why so many airline pilots tell us you “have” to land in a crab in crosswinds, “kicking” the airplane into runway alignment with rudder and wings level just before touchdown.

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To improve your crosswind landing capability, why not find a CFI conversant with the “other” crosswind landing technique, and get some dual seeing how the other half lands? It may be that you’ve struggled with crosswinds landing wing-low but do just fine in a crab. Or vice versa. 4. Adverse yaw steering Wait for a completely calm-wind day. Find a wide runway with little traffic—a decommissioned bomber base is perfect for this exercise. Line up on the runway and add just enough power to roll forward at a running pace. With your feet off the brakes and very little pressure on the rudder pedals (but keeping your feet ready in case you need aggressive steering), move the control yoke or stick full over to the left.

The right aileron will deflect upward. In many airplanes, this will cause the nose of the airplane to move to the right. Why? When the right aileron moves downward, it generates more drag than the upward-deflected left aileron. This results in an adverse yaw force that makes the nose go to the right. The opposite happens when you move the controls fully to the right—the left aileron goes down, and adverse yaw moves the nose to the left.

In your exercise on a wide runway with no wind, you can determine whether and how much your airplane affected by adverse yaw on the ground. Some planes I’ve flown (Beech Bonanza, Baron) have nearly no adverse yaw effect, while others (Cessna 120, 172 and 185) exhibit quite a bit. In those airplanes you may be able to effectively steer—and combat crosswinds—with aileron alone.

When you think about it, this is part of what we’re taught for aileron control during a crosswind—if the wind’s from the right you land with right aileron and, as the plane slows and controls become less effective, you increase aileron deflection. Is this technique really designed to “keep the upwind wing down” against the wind? Or is it a holdover from the earlier days of aviation, in airplanes with significant adverse yaw on the ground, as a technique for using adverse yaw to resist the airplane’s tendency to weathervane into the wind?

Once you know how your airplane behaves you may be able to include adverse yaw steering in your repertoire of crosswind technique, and include the wide-runway exercise now and then to keep your adverse yaw steering skills sharp. 5. One-wheel touch-and-goes This is the graduate maneuver of crosswind exercises. Once you have very solid crosswind skills, you can maximize the experience by making one-wheel touch-and-goes. Landing in a crosswind, let the upwind wheel touch, and go around without letting any other tires touch the surface. This exercise fine-tunes all your crosswind senses and lets you practice a lot of crosswind landings in a short period of time.

All my previously published warnings about touch-and-goes apply. I recommend against the practice in retractable-gear airplanes, because there is a strong correlation between touch-and-goes and landing gear mishaps, when the pilot moves the gear switch instead of the flaps while “cleaning up” during the on-ground phase of the maneuver. Retractable gear or fixed, I suggest you perform one-wheel touch-and-goes only with an instructor pilot in the right seat, and with a strict division of duties—you add power and control the airplane, the instructor adjusts trim and flaps as necessary. You can minimize the risk even more by using no more than manufacturer-recommended takeoff flaps for one-wheel touch-and-goes. That way you don’t need to move the flaps at all while on the ground. You power up and fly the exercise; your instructor re-trims and provides quality control for your efforts.

Practicing crosswinds can make you a better crosswind pilot. But you’ll actually learn more by flying additional exercises to fine-tune your stick and rudder skills, then combine them into a much more effective crosswind technique…correlating all these “checkride circus trick” maneuvers into the Task of touching down with zero drift and tracking the centerline in a

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crosswind. Could it be someone actually had this correlation in mind when the original Private Pilot syllabus was created?

Don’t forget this quick way to estimate the crosswind component before every landing, as well as takeoff: the 1/3, 2/3, 100% technique. Download the poster free at www.mastery-flight-training.com/estimating-crosswind.pdf to share with fellow pilots, use with your students if you’re an instructor, and post on the airport bulletin board to help us all become better at avoiding Loss of Directional Control on the Runway (LODC-R) mishaps.

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Pursue Mastery of Flight™.

Thomas P. Turner, M.S. Aviation Safety, Three-time Master CFI Flight Instructor Hall of Fame 2010 National FAA Safety Team Representative of the Year 2008 FAA Central Region CFI of the Year

FLYING LESSONS is ©2016 Mastery Flight Training, Inc. For more information see www.mastery-flight-training.com, or contact mastery.flight.training@cox.net.