So today was my first day back flying after 3 months, and I have to admit, it was a little scary at first, but by the end of the practice session I was starting to limber up enough to focus on learning and observing. What I observed brought two questions to my mind:

1) How do you correct for moderate crosswind in the pattern? I have always used a heading to keep my line, but that obviously poses complications once one starts changing attitude so today I experimented with holding the nose straight with constant rudder and opposite aileron which makes for a slightly tilted wing but a straight nose. How do the pros correct for moderate to heavy cross wind? Crab, cross control, or a combination of both?


2) I have always used a flare at touchdown to hold the plane off during landing, but today I focused less on the flare and more on adding a touch of power to arrest any unwanted decent? What do you do? Is adding power easier to use than a flare? It seemed so today.


Anyways, thanks as always for any and all input!



Joe

Unclench cheeks, let're rip<g>

I used to fly one wing low through all maneuvures when flying in a crosswind, it's a total cheat but you get by. That said, I got pinged at the last comp for not having "wings level" throughout the flight, and lost points.

Now I end up working the rudder and crabbing to get my line, but make sure when you do it, you cant the nose into wind with rudder, and then apply a little opposite rudder to stop it weathervaning.

There's been a few threads on this, a bit of searching will pull up some interesting facts.

Definitely check out one of the judging seminars. You will learn a lot of information that can help you decide on how you want to approach things like corrections and such.

2Sunny this is a great question and gaRCfield great answer. Two years ago I started monitoring the weather forecast (wind speed & direction) for the day of competition. I would then plan to anticipate blowing in or blowing out and know ahead which way to compensate in the turn around. Last year I discovered that it takes very little compesation during the turn around to set up the proper track. I allso learned that with current aircraft design you don't need to lay on the rudder from one end of the field to the other. This year I learned from the rule book, page RCA-17 and RCA-18 under D-Judging Individual Manuevers,,,"A small single change in heading is considered one defect while 2 or more are considered 2 or more defects." To me this means take the hit for one change only, set your heading as best you can and leave it alone. Also in the rule book on page RCA-18 it describes Major and Minor defects. It says " a minor over rotation or heading correction of less than 15 degrees is penalized 1/2 point." So in my opinion you rotate your wings once during the turn around and it should take less than 15 degrees to set up your track. After do not make any other adjustments to the track just leave it alone. You take the 1/2 point hit for over/under rotating and a half point hit for heading assesesd after the turn around. Every time the judges see you making a correction no matter how slight it's going to be penalized so I'll accept that I'm going to be penalized but limit the deductions to a minimum. I'm no longer woried about track so I can concentrate on geometry.

Glen

www.donshobbyshop.com

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Order a copy of Crosswind Flying

Long story short, my plane has a rudder covered with chrome monokote. It is either invisible (reflecting the sky) or binding (reflecting the sun.) Many judges have said they downgraded me because they could see the rudder moving. I asked since when is it a downgrade for using the controls? Their answer…”I was thinking you may be off line, seeing the correction confirmed it!”

Back on topic, wings level, correct track with heading. Generally aircraft will crab into the wind so you may have to actually hold opposite rudder. Roll into the wind when transitioning from horizontal flight. Flying right to left, blowing in, you’ll have to roll right (into the wind) on the pitch up to keep the wings perpendicular to the flight line. Your “heading” will still be correct leaning into the wind.

If you ask me, there is no fixed method for correcting. When flying on the low baseline, I use rudder a lot, but when high I use roll more. Bottom line is that you don't want judges to see you're correcting, so you need to choose the appropiate method for correcting depending on where in the schedule you are.