Dudley Henriques wrote in
:




You're right. Those crosswind landings in fast jets are pretty much
crab um right into the concrete...a lot like the old Ercoupe really.
You touch down in the crab, and the impetus straightens you out
(hopefully) in the right direction :-))


Yep, that's what they do. A lot of screeching and lurching. It's not the
way to do it, but....
Another thing I've noticed about them is they tend to be quite coarse in
the way they handle the airplane. A smooth roll inot a 25 deg bank doesn't
seem to be an option with a lot of them. The roll has to be made as crisply
as possible. likewise with pitch changes. I imagine this comes form a lot
of formation flying and refueling and what not, but I don't know. I'm not
knocking them, but it's interesting to see there's more than one way to
skin a cat. Mine;s better, though.
I used to get a lot of ex military guys coming to fly cubs and Stearmans
and gliders. Most of them had forgotten what their feet were for and I
would have to point at the ball regularly. I noticed that ex-navy guys
never stepped on the ball, they moved the stick in the direction the ball
needed to go. I asked one about this and he told me that's what you do to
co-ordinate! Interesting. It works just as well and unless you're making a
gross correction you'd never notice the difference. I guess it comes from a
naval notion of the rudder being the primary control or something..


Bertie