Student pilot: struggling with xwind correction and gusts on final
Posted by AtiumMist@reddit | flying | View on Reddit | 19 comments
I've got about 20 hours in, and initially everything was progressing pretty good, maneuvers, altitude, speed, slow flight, all that stuff was pretty good, a lot of it came intuitively as well.
As im heading towards my stage check, landings are the only thing that is elusive.
At my school, until stage check where you showcase control and demonstrate safety all the way to the ground, i won't move on to x-country stuff.
My traffic pattern is good, speeds and altitude is good, im able to maintain 75/70/65 with a 3-500 descent rate for downwind/base/final, but a lot of my landings end up being sideloaded.
I get that you point your aileron into the wind, and apply opposite rudder to maintian centerline, but either the plane drifts from the correction, or the wind takes me off. If i somehow manaage the correct controls, then a gust shoots me off. And sometimes there's updrafts and the plane just doesn't descend.
I've tried crabbing as well, and that is significantly smoother but i find it quite difficult to recover and realign if there's a gust.
I feel it is also a lot with the wind not being stable at all, and it is a bit more stressful to locate the windsock, then determine the wind and velocity all while maintaining descent.
As for flare and touchdown, i think that is still better than wind correction, even though they're not extremely smooth, and still hard. The only thing is im unable to gauge the height off the ground accurately to determine when the plane is well within ground effect vs out of it, to time the flare.
Any tips are appreciated!
hdecece@reddit
Try not to overthink it and make it so mechanical in nature.
You sound like you know what the appropriate controls are. You just have to continue to take the time to get the feel for how much is necessary in any given situation and rely on that feeling to be adaptable in variable conditions.
AtiumMist@reddit (OP)
I think this is the uncomfortable part. My cfii also looks at me weird when i try to quantify everything, and says a lot of it is based on feels.
my brain is just wired stupid and I'm unable to gauge the right feel for things
N546RV@reddit
I wouldn't say that it's based on "feels" so much as it's a continuous process of looking for deviations from desired behavior and adjusting inputs to compensate. For example, let's say you're coming down final and you've set up a crab to track centerline, and from there the following things happen:
...and so on it goes, all the way to the ground. I don't know if this is what you think, but I definitely think some people expect that sideslipping to land in a crosswind just means putting in some carefully-calculated amount of rudder and aileron and bam, it's done. But winds are always varying a little bit in both direction and intensity, plus control effectiveness changes as airspeed decreases, and so there's never any "just right" amount of input, you have to do that pilot shit and keep adjusting all the way to the ground.
That's it. Just look out the front of the airplane, and when it's not doing what you want, change your control input to fix that. Over and over and over and over and over and over again. This is your job, and it doesn't end until you're stopped on the ramp and shut down.
AtiumMist@reddit (OP)
I see what you're getting at. I think i need to be a lot more aware. There's a lot of overcorrecting and air doesn't have as much friction as say a car on a road, which causes me to go all over, with my cfii needing to tell me to increase or reduce corrections
nickjohnson@reddit
This is just the way our brains learn things. Initially you have to do everything "manually", which takes a lot of concentration, and your feedback loop is much slower because your conscious brain reacts slower. You overcorrect both because you don't know how large an input to make and because your feedback loop is slower.
Over time, your unconscious takes over more and more of the workload. Your responses get faster, you're more accurate, and you have more conscious attention to spare for the other things that are getting crowded out at the moment.
acfoltzer@reddit
I'm not sure "more aware" is quite it. If anything, you might be too aware at this point and thinking through each step of the loop described above as a discrete, conscious decision. In this phase of flight, the slight changes in error, the application of controls, and the results of those controls are happening continuously and very quickly.
If you have enough time to consciously think about the error you're seeing and what correction to make, your correction is going to be delayed enough to probably be wrong. And that's just with the latency between your own eyes, head, hands, and feet; bringing the instructor's verbal comments into it means you're acting on information that is hopelessly stale by the time your controls are having an effect.
I have had various plateaus that in hindsight I think were extended by a well-meaning instructor trying to talk me through in detail like this, but in practice making my timing terrible. Consider asking them to let you try some laps with comments saved for afterwards unless they're safety-critical.
Oh, and make sure you're looking down at the end of the runway
phliar@reddit
I assume you have a drivers' license. Let's say you're on the freeway and the car drifts a bit to the right. You just automatically twist the steering wheel to the left and return the car to the middle of the lane. How much did you turn the wheel? Did you try to quantify the drift and apply a formula to arrive at the twist angle? No, you just do it "by feel".
So don't say you're unable to gauge the right feel, you do it every day in your normal life. Just fly more.
AtiumMist@reddit (OP)
That makes sense actually. I think it's the amount of controls at hand that need to be moved together in coordination that makes it different. Especially when you're using the controls in a manner that is not strictly normal (straight wings level, no xwind scenario)
Sad_Distribution8650@reddit
sounds rough bro keep grinding landings youll nail the stagecheck ngl
Zestyclose_Duck_9359@reddit
Crosswind landings are the great humbler, everyone struggles here and 20 hours is right in the thick of it. Think of it like riding a bike into a sidewind, you're constantly making tiny adjustments not one big correction. The inputs never stop so just breathe and trust your hands.
For gusts, fly a slightly faster final, an extra 5 knots gives you more authority when the wind tries to boss you around. For flare height, look further down the runway instead of straight down, your peripheral vision handles the height better than you think.
Don't overthink it. The plane wants to fly, you're just guiding it. Relax your grip, ease the nerves, and let the corrections come naturally. It clicks when you stop fighting it.
rumpel4skinOU@reddit
Idk how "correct" this is but I used to teach it this way. Start with a little bank into the wind. Now think of the centerline like a point you want to "balance" on. Use bank to hold that balance. Use the rudder to hold runway alignment and touchdown upwind wheel first. Once I started thinking of the centerline as a balancing point, my crosswind landings improved greatly.
Icy-Bar-9712@reddit
I've found the opposite works better. Pull the nose straight down the runway, then use the ailerons to hold level.
The crab angle generally sets the rudder need, then the aileron to counteract it. The other way takes too long to feel your way into the correction.
sniper4273@reddit
These are all very typical problems. Don't sweat it, you're only at 20 hours.
Crosswind is very much a feels thing, in that:
And here amounts change from day to day, and even during a landing with gusts.
See if you can have your CFI do some low approaches with you, where you just fly 10 feet above the whole runway, and practice aligning centerline with rudder and fighting drift with aileron.
Icy-Bar-9712@reddit
Plus as airspeed and pitch change the requisite inputs also change.
arcticslush@reddit
Think of them as two independent controls.
Rudder until you're aligned, aileron left and to neutralize drift.
Don't think of it so rote as "aileron into the wind". Just feel it out.
Mobe-E-Duck@reddit
It’s hard for everyone. Strong / gusty xwind landings are some of the most challenging parts of flying. Being good at it is a very nice show of skill.
Canadian47@reddit
Wind, especially the gusts, are not stable at all. My cross wind landing got better when I realized how much input is sometimes needed (vs my initial thoughts that I could put in a correct and just hold it). On really gusty days you might go from neutral to full ailerons back to neutral in a fraction of a second.
RiccWasTaken@reddit
As said before, it all comes down to feeling. The rudder maintains directional control. If the crab is undercorrected, apply more rudder into the wind. If overcorrected, less rudder into the wind. At touchdown you want to get the nose down the runway. The bank is to reduce the sideloading but more importantly you want to land on the windward wheel (so the wheel into the wind) first. In case of gust during flare I tend to put the nose back into the wind a bit to reduce the sideload. Rotating the aircraft with the nose back towards the runway centreline is not a big deal if only one wheel is touching. (at least in my experience).
Any way, crosswind landings is the most difficult part of the training I would say. Practice makes perfect as always.
rFlyingTower@reddit
This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:
I've got about 20 hours in, and initially everything was progressing pretty good, maneuvers, altitude, speed, slow flight, all that stuff was pretty good, a lot of it came intuitively as well.
As im heading towards my stage check, landings are the only thing that is elusive.
At my school, until stage check where you showcase control and demonstrate safety all the way to the ground, i won't move on to x-country stuff.
My traffic pattern is good, speeds and altitude is good, im able to maintain 75/70/65 with a 3-500 descent rate for downwind/base/final, but a lot of my landings end up being sideloaded.
I get that you point your aileron into the wind, and apply opposite rudder to maintian centerline, but either the plane drifts from the correction, or the wind takes me off. If i somehow manaage the correct controls, then a gust shoots me off. And sometimes there's updrafts and the plane just doesn't descend.
I've tried crabbing as well, and that is significantly smoother but i find it quite difficult to recover and realign if there's a gust.
I feel it is also a lot with the wind not being stable at all, and it is a bit more stressful to locate the windsock, then determine the wind and velocity all while maintaining descent.
As for flare and touchdown, i think that is still better than wind correction, even though they're not extremely smooth, and still hard. The only thing is im unable to gauge the height off the ground accurately to determine when the plane is well within ground effect vs out of it, to time the flare.
Any tips are appreciated!
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