Ok, with all the knowledgeable people weighing in and confirming that cross wind exerts no force or acceleration on the aircraft, I'll accept that as fact.

This original post was regarding making turns, and the reason, partially, for that was to improve landings. The next question/observation is related to that, so we aren't off topic.

I'll present two cases
Case A: Aircraft is lined up with strip, wind is on the nose, straight on. The airplane heading is aligned with the strip and it lands nicely (with practice of course)
Case B. Aircraft is lined up on the strip, wind is off to the side a bit. Just for this case, lets say its 30 degrees off, coming from right to left. Observation of a real model airplane is that, holding rudder straight and ailerons flat, the airplane will tend to drift a bit to the left, away from the wind..

There is no sideways force from the cross wind, no acceleration, the wind is coming straight on the nose even though the true wind is coming 30 degrees off the nose.


So why does it drift like that? The plane should continue going straight.

There's 3 elements in there: the plane, the wind, the ground. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the ground is not moving any differently than it is moving in case A. So it has something to do with either the plane or the wind.



Regards