Lesson #20 The Circuit (Solo)

Crosswind Landings (Solo)

I was finally able to get up and complete the solo aspect of this lesson. Three of my bookings were cancelled due to weather, but the the forth was a charm. As usual the wind just would not cooperate at all, it would alternate bewtween 2 kts one day and then 20 kts the next.

I had booked my solo for Sat afternoon, I checked the weather a couple of times in the morning and the wind was gusting about 20 kts, which is way too high for me. My flight instructor wanted me practise in 5 - 9 kts of crosswind, without any gusts. I was hoping the wind would calm down and that these 20 kt gusts would stop as the TAF forcasted.

Lesson time came and I went out to the airport expecting another cancelled flight, I checked the METAR and surprise, surprise, the wind was now 320 at 10 kts, no gusts. This latest forcast put the wind at 340 (magnetic) which would be 60 degrees off of runway 28, my crosswind solo was a go! I spoke with my flight instrutor and he agreed.

I hauled the aircraft out of the hanger and preflighted her, made the call to tower and a couple of minutes later I was on the active (runway 03) doing my takeoff. I figured that I'd save some time by doing my takeoff on 03, then switch over to 28 rather then taxiing about mile and a half to takeoff position on 28.

I did my takeoff, winds were now 350 @ 12 kts, I switched runways at circuit height and then did my downwind checks. My first landing was a handful but everything quickly came back, it was starting to get gusty again though. It's nice having the windsock at the end of the runway to confirm what I'm feeling in the aircraft. Since my first landing went so well I figured that I go for another one, wind gusts be damned.

I made my downwind call and was reminded to make my call on final, which I had totally forgotten to do the first time. The only thing I can offer in my defense is that there was no other traffic in the pattern and that I had my hands full on my first approach... yes I know how feable that sounds.

This time I made my call on final and was rewarded with "winds now 350 12G16". While technically I was exceeding my limits on the crosswind runway (I did do my dual lesson with 16 kts of crosswind) I decided to continue and if things started to go bad I'd do an overshoot and switch back over to 03 and complete my solo lesson on the active, which was still within my instructor imposed wind limits. The landing thankfully went well, but I really had to work the rudder and ailerons to get her down. I touched down softly on the right wheel and then a few seconds later the left wheel touched down, I kept her nice and straight which took alot of rudder. I actually surprised myself with how well the landing went, considering the amount of control inputs I was using to compensate for the gusty conditions.

I decided to do another circuit and give it another try, hopefully the winds would calm down again. I made my call on final late since there was chatter on the radio, the winds were now 350 12 g18, so much for the winds calming down. My approach went well but I was starting to get a little low so I fed in some power to bring me back up to a proper glideslope.

I was about 100 ft AGL in a sideslipe as I crossed the threshold and reduced power, the rudder refused to hold her straight with the runway, I quickly added a couple hundred RPMs and she straighten back out for me. I really had her leaned over with the ailerons to maintain centerline. The gusts were playing havoc with me. At 50 ft AGL, one big gust hit me and threathened to blow me off centerline, after about 6 seconds I was able to wrestle her nearly all the way back. I was now at about 20 ft AGL and things were not looking great. I just got back over the centerline when another big gust hit me. Even with a faster than normal approach speed and a couple of hundred rpms of power, the rudder gave up and refused to hold her straight any longer, and to make matters worse she started to dive for the runway!

I believe that I actually said "nope" out loud as I made my decision to abort. I quickly but smoothly went to full power, released the rudder and levelled my wings, all at nearly the same time. Fern responded immediately with more than 1,000 ft/min climb rate. I called tower to let them know that I was overshooting.

I had "bottomed" out about ten feet above the runway. I did everything I could to salvage a tough landing, but it was not to be. I wanted to test the limit of my abilities, not how strong the landing gear was on the aircraft. As I climbed back up to circuit height I asked tower to confirm that the winds were 350 @ 12 gusting 18, they came back that their wind instruments were down and that they we reading the windsock like me..... "That's just lovely," I thought to myself. I informed them that I was switching over to runway 03 and staying in the circuit.

My next landing was good, as I had less crosswind to deal with but the gusts were still a big pain in the ass though. I was slow turning base and the winds blew me farther downwind then I would have liked, and as such I had a longer than normal final.

My next landing I over compensated for the wind on my turn to base and found myself way high on final. I quickly went into a forward slip and scrubbed off about 400 ft in no time. I made my call on final and tower replied back with the winds 350 @ 12 gusting to 18. I looked at the windsock and she was as straight as a board, which put the winds in excess of 15 kts continuous, 40 degrees to my left. I came in slighter faster than normal, the winds were still gusting pretty good and they were keeping me very busy. I got blown off the centreline so I added a bit of power and "flew" her back over to the middle of the runway again. I then reduced power again and got her settled down.

I was really working the controls to compensate for the wind gusts. I touched down lightly with my left wheel, then the right. She started turning left (into the wind) but I brought her back with the rudder. I pulled the throttle all the way off, then as the front wheel touched down she wanted to turn left again, this time I held full right rudder and I also had to add some right brakes as well to hold her, the ailerons were turned fully left all the way into the wind. The front wheel then started to shimmy, not surprisingly, so I tried to take some extra weight off of it by feeding in even more back elevator, then another gust hit and I could actually feel the right wing reduce the weight on the right wheel which immediately started to lock up. It was one thing after another. Eventually she settled down, I found myself about twenty feet left of centerline rolling along at about 20 mph. The actual landing itself was pretty good, keeping her straight and slowing her down proved to be a handful.

All this probably only took about 20 seconds or so, but I felt like ten minutes. I then decided that the winds were too high to continue in a safe manner. I called tower and told them I was going to do a full stop.

Looking back as I write this has given me time to reflect, I know now that I should have called it a day earlier. I held out hopes that the winds would come back down and I did four more circuits after my first one hoping things would pan out, which they didn't. Although each of my landings were actually pretty good, I really had to work very hard on each of them to make it happen. I had previously done some decent crosswind landings with my instructor in 16 kts of crosswind, and I have to say they were easy compared to what I was dealing with today. It wasn't so much the wind that was the problem, but the on and off again nature of the gusts that kept me busy all the way down, I'm not sure what they really topped out at.

My next lesson with my instructor will be precautionary landings. I intend to continue practising crosswind landings until I'm completely comfortable with using the sideslip method.