Originally Posted by
shdw
I am unsure about the phrasing, "pulled," but the net effect will be a turn to the left.
He is right and here is how you can see it. Imagine your in a boat rowing along, you drop the left ore into the water (your reverse thrust), the boat turns left. Similarly if you have a left to right crosswind, the upwind side being the left side, if you drop the reverse thrust on the left engine (putting the ore in the water) the aircraft will turn left, or upwind, assuming it has forward motion when this happens.
Edit: Reverse thrust is nothing more than massively increasing drag on whichever side it is applied, usually both equally, just like dropping an ore in the water massively increases drag on that side of the boat.
Make sense?
Sorry for the triple posts by the way, just saw this.
Yes, it makes 100% sense. Just because the aircraft is pointed into the wind, doesn't mean it is tracking upwind. Nose wheels have been known to slide. Wind body forces (pushing you downwind), the reverse thrust (pulling you downwind) ... and if you are pointed into the wind, reverse thrust is pulling you off the runway. But don't believe me, take it from McDonnel Douglas. Why would they put a warning into the flight manual then? This is especially dangerous on wet or icy runways. That is why Boeing, McD, and I would suspect, Scarebus, all say to discontinue revers thrust if directional control cannot be maintained.
It doesn't matter if you are single engine or which direction the wind is from. You can use reverse thrust or beta (not restricted in any aircraft I've flown). However, if you get yourself turned into the wind, which could have happened from asymmetrical reverse thrust, the opposite of what you expected (going off the runway on the downwind side while pointing into the wind) may very well happen.