With experience, you develop and hone the techniques that work for you and your airplane. Experience, however, is not all that easy to acquire. The wind seldom cooperates with scheduled crosswind training sessions, and it is possible to earn a private pilot certificate and fly for many hours without being confronted by challenging crosswinds. During the practical test for a pilot certificate, a candidate is required to demonstrate proper techniques for taxiing, taking off and landing in a crosswind if crosswind conditions exist. If they do not, the candidate is merely quizzed on the subject of crosswind procedures.

A lot of pilots go out of their way to avoid crosswind conditions that provide a real challenge, but sooner or later, the challenge may be unavoidable. A pilot should be ready for it. Preparing to tackle a crosswind begins, like everything else, with a review of fundamentals.

Most airplanes tend to act like weathervanes and point their noses into the wind. The reason is that, like the tail of a weathercock, most of an airplane's side area is behind the main landing gear. A crosswind exerts its greatest force on an airplane's vertical tail and aft fuselage, thereby causing the airplane to pivot into the wind. (There are exceptions. Some airplanes, such as the Rockwell Sabreliner and McDonnell Douglas DC9, have more side area in front of the main gear than behind it and tend to swing their tails into the wind. Operating these airplanes in a crosswind requires special considerations that are beyond the scope of this article.) In addition, a light airplane can be upset while taxiing by a strong gusty crosswind (or by jet blast) if the pilot is not careful. Wind can get under the upwind wing or the tail and raise it, causing the downwind wing or the propeller to hit the ground.

Certification standards in Federal Aviation Regulation Part 23 state that an airplane must show no tendency to ground loop in 90-degree crosswinds with velocities up to 0.2 times Vso, the stall speed or minimum steady flight speed in landing configuration. In addition, the pilot's operating handbook must specify the maximum crosswind velocity at which adequate control of the airplane during takeoff and landing was demonstrated by the manufacturer during certification tests. Most airplane POHs state that the demonstrated crosswind velocities are not operational limitations. However, some manufacturers, such as Piper Aircraft Corporation, list the figures in the limitations sections of their POHs. In the absence of specific limitations, a pilot is on his own to explore the airplane's capabilities and develop workable techniques for crosswind operations. The best way to do this, of course, is with a competent flight instructor aboard.

Information on surface wind conditions is available from a number of sources, including flight service, a ground or local controller, a unicom operator, an ATIS (automatic terminal information service) broadcast and the airport's wind direction indicator. Surface wind direction is reported in reference to magnetic north, and velocity is in knots. With this information, wind component charts or tables can be used to compute both the crosswind and headwind components. (The headwind component is important in calculating runway requirements for takeoff and landing.) There are some rules of thumb for estimating the crosswind component based on the angle formed by the wind and the runway centerline: If the wind is 20 degrees off the centerline, use one quarter of the wind velocity as an estimate of its crosswind component. If the angle is 40 degrees, use half the velocity. If the angle is 60 degrees, use three quarters as a rough estimate.

Proper manipulation of controls is important when taxiing in moderate or strong wind to prevent an upset. While taxiing a tricycle-gear airplane in a quartering headwind, the upwind aileron should be held up (that is, the pilot should figuratively "turn" into the wind), and the elevator should be held in its neutral position. The technique is a bit different for a tailwheel airplane in that the elevator should be held up to keep the tailwheel on the ground. With a quartering tailwind, the technique for tricycle-gear airplanes and taildraggers is basically the same: The upwind aileron should be held down ("turn" away from the wind); the elevator also should be held down.

For takeoff, the airplane should be lined up on the centerline or, if the wind is especially strong, on the downwind side of the runway to provide more runway surface on which to affect recovery should the airplane turn into the wind. Use the ailerons to keep the wings level or banked slightly into the wind and the rudder to keep the airplane tracking straight down the runway. At the beginning of the roll, full up aileron should be held on the upwind wing. As the roll progresses and airspeed builds, making the controls more effective, aileron deflection should be adjusted to keep the wings level. Controlling a single-engine airplane's path down the runway is most difficult in a left crosswind, which exacerbates the effects of engine and propeller torque, which also cause the airplane to yaw to the left.

Most instructors recommend that a tailwheel airplane should be kept on all three wheels until lift-off. For tricyclegear airplanes, many POHs advise that lift-off should be performed smoothly and assertively at a slightly higher airspeed than normal to prevent the airplane from settling back onto the runway with its nose cocked into the wind. How much extra airspeed to use is left to the pilot's judgment. The pilot should be careful, however, not to use too much forward pressure on the elevator control while trying to keep the nosewheel on the runway. This could cause a condition called wheelbarrowing, in which the nosewheel is made to bear excessive loads while the main gear are either lightly loaded or clear of the ground (see "One Wheel Low," November 1984 Pilot, p. 60).

Generally, after lift-off the airplane should be turned into the wind to establish a crab angle that will keep it tracking the extended runway centerline, but there is one situation in which this procedure should not be performed: when instructed by air traffic control to maintain runway heading on an IFR departure line.

Landing with a crosswind is more difficult than taking off with one, because the effectiveness of the controls de creases as airspeed decreases. In addition, the crosswind component tends to change as the airplane descends, and the pilot must make continual adjustments. The two accepted techniques for crosswind landings are the sideslip and the crab. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, and a pilot should use the technique that works best for him.

In the sideslip (or wing-low) method, the pilot uses the rudder to keep the airplane's fuselage aligned with the runway and the ailerons to control drift. Airspeed should be based either on the figure recommended by the POH for a normal approach or, if none is published, 1.3 times Vso. A few knots should be added to the figure to compensate for a slight loss of lift in the sideslip attitude. For any approach in gusting wind conditions, it is recommended that the pilot add half the gust factor to his approach airspeed. If the wind is reported at 15 knots, gusting to 25, for instance, five knots should be added to final approach speed to provide a margin for loss of airspeed in a gust-induced wind shear. Generally, strong crosswinds and/or gusting wind conditions call for the use of some power and the lowest flap setting that will meet landing and rollout requirements. This reduces the potential for a gust upset. The slip is maintained through the flare. In most cases, the strength of the wind will diminish due to frictional effects as the airplane nears the runway, but the crosswind may still be strong enough at the surface to necessitate touching down first on the upwind main tire. If the wind is gusting, the pilot may want to lower the nosewheel to the runway as soon as possible (being careful to avoid wheelbarrowing).

During rollout (after either a slipping or crabbing approach), the rudder is used to track the centerline, the ailerons to keep the wings level. Some textbooks recommend retracting the flaps as soon as possible during the landing roll to reduce the potential for gust upset and/or an inadvertent lift-off. However, the landing roll is a period of high pilot workload, and the potential for mistaking a landing gear control for the flap control is great in some airplanes. Most instructors and pilot examiners prefer that pilots wait until the airplane is stopped on a taxiway before the flaps are retracted.

In a crabbing approach, the wings remain level, and heading is adjusted during descent to keep the airplane's track aligned with the runway. The crab is maintained to the point of touchdown. Then, rudder is applied briskly to align the fuselage with the centerline, and ailerons are deflected enough to keep the upwind wing from rising.

The crab method is more effective than the slip in strong crosswinds, and it is easier to perform during the approach itself. Some pilots claim the crab approach is more comfortable for passengers. On the other hand, although the sideslip method makes the pilot work harder during the approach, there is no need to change control configurations at the last second. In addition, many airplanes have interconnected rudder control and nosewheel-steering systems. If the airplane is not "kicked out" precisely during the transition from the crab approach, the nosewheel may contact the runway in a cocked position and cause a ground loop and nose-gear damage.