Cross wind Landings

One thing Westover was really good for was to teach a young pilot about crosswind landings! Perched up on a hill overlooking the Sacramento Valley, the winds would usually pick up in the late mornings untill late afternoon and they almost always were coming from 60 degrees and often times 90 degrees to the runway.

Well, it was a beautifull spring morning and I was doing the last of my practicing for my Check Ride scheduled for the next day. I checked the weather and all that and it was reported that winds would be calm for at least a couple hours, giving me plenty of time to do my thing.

So, after doing several power on stalls, I decided it was time to head back to the barn. I checked AWOS and the winds had picked up considerably more than prediced with gusts to 17kts at 90 degrees to the runway, and as many of you may know, the little 172 is only rated to 13kts max cross wind landing. The other thing is that the wind was shift back and forth so much that at one moment Runway 19 was favorable and the next Runway 1 was favorable.

I'd just get set up for my landing with some serious cross controls and then all of a sudden the wind would drasticly shift and blow my landing. Or I'd be withing 20' or so of the touch down and a gust would come in and knock me all over the place.

I was starting to get scared. After 5 or so called off landings I was beginning to think that perhaps it was time to think about another airport to land at. At the same time I was hearing all kinds of radio traffic about nearby airports and the trouble that people were having.

Just when I was about to head off to another airport, a seasoned pilot must have seen me go around the airport oneway and then the other several time and spoke up on the radio. "82U, ignore the wind indicator. Come in low on 19. The buildings will block the wind for you enough." "Thank you. I'll give that a shot."

Well I did put her down, but I tell you, my legs were shaking a bit and I'll never forget that day! I flipped over to AWOS soon as I cleared the runway. The wind cross wind was 15kts!

What do they say? "Any landing you can walk away from!" I learned later that day a plane had wrecked at a near by airport! My check ride went off with out a hitch the next day. I never met that pilot but to this day I sure do thank him!