Crosswinds!! In a word, YUCK!!!!!!! Sorry about the damage, think we have all felt the pain of watching all our work go "crunch" by having the wind from the side!!!

The good news, is that you can learn from this. More importantly is that you can learn to deal with crosswinds! I am not saying you won't have ever have it happen again, because quite frankly YOU WILL!!!

BUT!!! We as pilots can do somethings to make them a little easier on us and our beautiful airplane!!!

First thing first, AIRSPEED!!! Proper airspeed control is CRITICAL to consistant landings in a crosswind! Most people tend to be a little on the cautious side when flying in Xwinds. This is a good thing! BUT what most people do is they tend to try and fly the airplane a little bit slower, or hold it off the ground just a little bit longer hoping that if that if they can get it slower it won't do as much damage. Good thought in theory! But watch out!!!! The first thing you have to remember is to make the airplane land at the same realitive airspeed in a Xwind as it would in no wind, maybe even landing with a LITTLE more speed in the Xwind!

Second thing is to remember that the way the airplane is facing, is NOT the way it is travelling in a Xwind!!! There are 2 ways to make the airplane track straight ahead. One is to fly the aiplane with the nose pointed in a way that makes the airplane track across the ground the way you want. Second is to use the rudder of the airplane to hold the nose straight forward and to bank the wings into the wind to conteract the sidewards motion caused by the wind. #1 is called crabbing, while #2 is called side slipping!!

The best way to fly in Xwind is to fly an approach that is coming in at the same airspeed as normal, with the airplane "crabbing" into the wind making it track right down the runway. At the last minute, you use rudder to turn the nose straight and conteract the sideways motion with a side slip! You should ideally touch down with the windward side wheel touching down first with no sidewards motion.

This is easier said than done!! The key to doing this is PRACTICE!!!

Now that I have said, if your are using a grass or soft runway of some sort, generally "crabbing" the model all the way to landing may not be too bad! The thing you have to remember is that when the wheels hit 2 things could happen! 1 as soon as the wheels touch down, they cold grab and immediately "steer" the airplane in the direction of the tires! 2 the airplane could bounce, or skipp due to the fact that the wheel are not aligned with the direction of travel. NOW this should ONLY be tried from soft runways! If you are using a concrete are other hard surface, that little bit of whel deflection could be VERY dangerous to your airplane!! Normally grass will grab the wheel and try to straighten it out (turning the airplane down the runway.) Concrete on the other hand could just let the airplane start to bounce and not aid it to straightening! As you might imagine, this could be risky! But on grass for most accounts, it is a little more forgiving than concrete or asphalt.

Just my lttle bit of thoughts. Again, sorry for the loss! Keep practicing and having fun!


Reg