Same here 
With a slight adaptation, there was no wind before I bought an aeroplane :)
I got curious to hear what are your personal crosswind limits?
Cirrus has a “calculator” that takes into consideration six different factors. It’s advising me 10kt max, which means cancelling the weekend I had planned for Cornwall (forecast 12kt right across)
I wish I was better at crosswind landings, but I find it challenging to practice as a) the conditions need to be there and b) you should have a instructor on board.
Fernando wrote:
I got curious to hear what are your personal crosswind limits?
I’m not sure it’s helpful to hear other people’s limits, as it doesn’t really help you. It will just make you feel bad, and there is no point in that!
10kt crosswind limit will be really limiting to your flying.
The best thing that I ever did in flying was work on my cross wind technique. One day when the wind was 24 kts directly down my home runway, but 90 degrees across another local airfield. So I went to the other airfield and practiced with 24 kts cross wind, knowing that if I couldn’t get down safely, I could always come back to base and just have a strong head wind.
Needless to say, I had that other airfield to myself
It gave me time to try out and practice a wing down approach (I’d been using crab up to that), and finally got really comfortable with it.
I’ve never looked back, and almost never had to cancel a flight due to cross wind since (well….until I stopped flying the arrow!).
Take time (with or without an instructor – as you feel appropriate) to work on your cross wind landings.
10kts can be down without much technique
15kts can usually be done with some bad technique (I appreciate this is aircraft type dependent)
But ideally you want to get comfortable with much stronger cross winds.
Get comfortable with high 20’s and your flying will be liberated (I’m assuming a Cirrus can handle this….but I’ve no experience with a Cirrus).
Some day you’ll be faced with landing with an unexpectedly strong cross wind, so you might as well be ready!
dublinpilot wrote:
I’m not sure it’s helpful to hear other people’s limits
It makes sense, I agree.
dublinpilot wrote:
The best thing that I ever did in flying was work on my cross wind technique
That’s the way to go. Just finding it challenging to get the right conditions, but it’s only a matter of time. It’s great to hear about your experience! Gives me hope :)
dublinpilot wrote:
10kt crosswind limit will be really limiting to your flying.
Yes! :) I’m quite conservative, so, most likely, I could do more with my current skills. I blame my lawyer wife :)
dublinpilot wrote:
Get comfortable with high 20’s and your flying will be liberated (I’m assuming a Cirrus can handle this….but I’ve no experience with a Cirrus).
Cirrus max demonstrated crosswind is 20kt.
I got curious to hear what are your personal crosswind limits?
At the risk of turning this thread into yet another popcorn 🍿 one…
Seldom does one encounter 90° crosswinds upon landing. The majority of the runways are still more or less aligned, and the winds can veer too. Which brings me to the next remark, a say 20 knots (90°) crosswind can be a piece of cake in laminar conditions, or very interesting when accompanied with gusts.
Flying the line AMS quite often offered a smooth 20-30 knots xwind, easypeasy, whilst the same value at say JMK, rendered the flying way more challenging.
Back to private flying, my first aircraft, a S.I.P.A. 903 (HB-SPT), was pretty short coupled and narrow based, and 10kts probably the limit. On a ILAFFT event I landed on a pretty short concrete runway, had a good touchdown, but then completely lost directional control for some, then regained authority over that wild bronco ages later, and barely managed to stay within the runway’s confines. Phew 😅
Crosswind landings usually form a major part of both PPL and ULM training here.
I think this comes from the fact that unlike many airfields in other countries which have more than one runway at different orientations, here there just tends to be one runway so 2 approaches. Where there is more than one runway, they tend to be parallel.
It is hard to overcome contemporary mind biases in times of political and media hyping towards alarmists … I tend to make my own mind and do keep detail records of i.e. the weather station at my grandfathers home at the local airfield starting from 1993 and there is no significant trend visible.
