On Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:08:25 -0400, "Jim Jones"
wrote in :


This scared me pretty good. I was complacent at my home airport because I
am used to landing there, the runway is long, and the wind was basically
down the runway. I fully expected variable gusty wind at Sky Manor and
expected to go around resulting in me making a good early decision to go
around when necessary, while I tried to recover from a poor approach at my
home airport when I should have gone around earlier.

In retrospect, I made some poor decisions, but ultimately had a safe outcome
by making the right decision at the last second.


Thanks for sharing your honest introspection.

You seem to blame your decisions for your difficulty, but because I
didn't see you mention the word 'slip', I would guess your training
lacked sufficient emphasis on the productive use of that maneuver.
Applied vigorously, a forward slip will shed altitude rapidly, and it
provides the pilot with authoritative control in terminating the
descent almost immediately. In a cross wind approach, it's a natural.
A truth I have discovered about gusty crosswind landings is, that
there is a brief window of vulnerability during the flair and roundout
whose duration needs to be minimized by a reduction in the approach
speed within the limits of practicality. When the aircraft's attitude
is nose-high, after the slip into the cross wind on approach must
necessarily be terminated for fear of dragging a wing on the ground,
the pilot has no good means of controlling lateral drift. If the
wheels can be planted on the runway before sufficient lateral velocity
and its inertia mount to unacceptable magnitude, all is well. But
putting the wheels on the runway requires the aircraft to be stalled
and no longer flying.