Originally Posted by hindsight2020

I don't know why people make such a big deal out of landing on a crab. All these airplanes are designed to withstand the side load. That Airbus saw more sideloading from the botched attempt to kick the crab out at the end game (wingtip strike no less) than if they had just landed the thing in the crab, gone for coffee and then kick out to centerline. Seems like spending 2 dollars (wing strike) to save 50 cents (a couple cycles of tire life).

In the T-38 we would do this by the book. Yeah you could tell after a half dozen crosswind landings that the tires were about done, so there is merit in minimizing tire contact while tracking centerline in a crab. As you got better you were able to kick the nose out right as the tires where touching and it looked pretty, but again, you're splitting hairs at that point as far as tire wear is concerned.

Somebody mentioned the Buff, and I fly the old dirty thing. Yeah we have a crosswing crab system, but it's not an exact science, the math is done on the fly and tower's winds are a snapshot at best. The reality is that Boeing built the thing so we could land the whale even if the system was inop. Now in real world we don't exercise max crosswind component if this were to happen, but by the book you could (wouldn't be pretty tough). Operationally you could right about disregard 15knts of direct crosswind and the thing won't complain landing with susbtantial side loading on the trucks. Of course it is the most non-standard airplane to fly when it comes to aerodynamics in all phases of flight so not much can be compared to it, but it does stand to say that too much is being made of landing that 320 on a crab, which would have been a better alternative than botching the de-crab so miserably.