Will Kumley
Line Up and Wait
Decided to get some gusty and crosswind landing practice in today. The original intent was just standard traffic pattern practice with an emphasis on my touchdown point. As I left work and called in for the weather brief it was 16 gusting to 24 shifting from 10-30 degrees off the runway. The CFI asked if it would be within my normal minimums and I promptly said, Nope! However, if he was good with us going up I'd like to practice with him in case I inadvertently get into a windy situation in the future and he kindly agreed.
AWOS prior to runup was 19 gusting to 27. Bumpy is an understatement and crab angles were interesting to say the least. Crosswind heading was 45 degrees off intended course facing away from the runway. Happy I got some practice with a CFI next to me for it and confident it would not be ideal for a family flight or checkride day so hopefully I don't have the same conditions next Monday. All in all though it wasn't a bad day. Another CFI stated that after he saw me do my first takeoff he checked the AWOS and the winds were gusting to 33 which sounds right considering how everything went.
Afterward I checked my garmin app as I keep it running on my watch as a timer to switch tanks and saw that all three landings were done with a significantly slower groundspeed than normal. We were using 80 as our final approach speed and the groundspeed shows closer to 55 with 50 on the final landing. Kinda felt like we were hovering a few times in the air today.
AWOS prior to runup was 19 gusting to 27. Bumpy is an understatement and crab angles were interesting to say the least. Crosswind heading was 45 degrees off intended course facing away from the runway. Happy I got some practice with a CFI next to me for it and confident it would not be ideal for a family flight or checkride day so hopefully I don't have the same conditions next Monday. All in all though it wasn't a bad day. Another CFI stated that after he saw me do my first takeoff he checked the AWOS and the winds were gusting to 33 which sounds right considering how everything went.
Afterward I checked my garmin app as I keep it running on my watch as a timer to switch tanks and saw that all three landings were done with a significantly slower groundspeed than normal. We were using 80 as our final approach speed and the groundspeed shows closer to 55 with 50 on the final landing. Kinda felt like we were hovering a few times in the air today.