Just as in full-scale birds, the skill of the pilot is where it's at. With the AMA rudder rule, basically all the jets, including deltas, have enough rudder and aileron/elevon to correct for drift and crab at touchdown.

Particularly windy conditions were present at the Lake Wales meet last year due to an off-shore hurricane with a 20-25MPH wind blowing at 90 degrees to the runway. It was amazing to watch BV, Larry Kramer, Jason Somes, Torrey Ward, Nick Smith from the U.K., and many other hot thumbs grease on one after the other with planes that included Roo's, HS's, Bandits, BobCat, Phantom, and F-100.

Similarly at Mississippi Jets this year, with nasty 20-25 MPH x-winds, David Reid, Vern Montgomery, and others put on quite a show during the spot landing challenge. When pilot skills were lacking, BobCats, HS's, Roo's, F-16's and others were trashed.

I have found that keeping the nose straight is fairly easy. It's correcting for constantly changing drift and sink rate as you settle to the runway that separates me from the pros.

Practicing on a high-wing, tail-dragger, prop plane till you get the right hand talking to the left hand during the cross-controlled, cross-wind situation, will save allot of expensive mistakes with a turbine bird.


Tom