Originally Posted by
Adlerdriver
Mr. Coors (nice!),
Your company manuals may say whatever they say but they don't change basic aero. If you've got a crosswind to land in and you want to track the runway centerline through rollout, two things must happen.
1 - You've got to align the aircraft fuselage/gear with the runway with rudder.
2 - Since #1 will remove the portion of the aircraft's flight vector that was countering the crosswind, you must now drop the upwind wing with aileron to counter the drift.
I know you know both those things. Call it a "de-crab" or "side slip", whatever. Maybe whoever wrote your company manuals never landed in a significant crosswind. There's no way rudder to align and "enough aileron to land wings level" will hack it. It may work to some extent on a large majority of mild to moderate crosswinds due to the forgiving nature of most aircraft designs and a nice, wide, dry runway with lots of friction. However, you’re either not completely aligning with the runway and putting extra wear on your tires or you’re landing with a downwind vector that needs to be countered with steering once you’re on the runway. Either way, you’re not really dealing with the crosswind completely and kind of just hoping for the best. Try doing it in crosswinds approaching the design limits of the aircraft on a wet or snow covered runway and the drift induced by the lack of aileron may become a significant problem. Just my two cents on that.
It's not like company's are inventing new ways to land in crosswinds. You've got to align the aircraft with the runway with rudder and kill drift with upwind aileron - period-dot. When you put those flight controls in is really what we're all talking about (and apparently what you call the maneuver). I've landed 757, 767, A320/319, 737 and MD-11s performing the above maneuver in the flare with no problem. I prefer to do it that way. Now, thanks to Fedex company policy, I must establish those control inputs (they call it an “align maneuver”) no later than 100’ AGL. I’ve warmed up to doing it this way but I’d still prefer to do it in the flare. You’ve never seen someone fly an approach in a side slip because that’s not the way your company chooses to land their aircraft. When you do it at 200-ish feet, it absolutely induces extra drag that must be countered with additional power.
Cheers.
Have you read any of my posts? If you would have read any of my prior posts you would have seen that you have just repeated what I said. You would have also read that I understand the physics lesson you so kindly gave me. I have stated that what I have said is for my company and my fleet on several occasions. I have mentioned 3 methods all of which may be named differently then what you call them but have stated your points.
The wing low method you describe is what we call the side-slip method. We apply it just prior to the flare at about 50 feet. If you are flying the plane at V approach and not Vref then no extra power is required. I agree with you that if you put the side-slip in at 100' then extra power maybe required. When I said I had never seen anyone fly an approach in a slide-slip I was refering to the actual approach not the transition from the approach to the flare. The side-slip technique is the most popular based on what I have observed, but as stated we apply it just prior to the flare and not while flying the approach.
The de-crab method as I described before is different from the side-slip method because it is applied in the flare not the transisition and it is designed to land on both main gears not one thus alowing spoilers to deploy rapidly and prevent pod and wing tip strikes. We have already discussed the pros and cons of each so please refer to prior posts for more info.
The landing in a crab method has also been discussed by several other members here. It is by far the least popular technique, but allowed by my fleet at my company. It is not recommended on dry runways and is really only there to take the workload off the pilot so he can concentrate on the rollout.
You should read peoples posts before you post............. This is not my first rodeo.