On Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:06:40 -0500, brian whatcott
wrote:

Gilbert Smith wrote:

On the crosswind, all aviation videos (other than those taken standing
on the centre line) appear to show massive drift angles.

What sort of crosswind would require 10 deg of crab on an a/c of this
size ?

Ahem...
for an aircraft of ANY size, a 10 degree crab is required by an 18 kt
crosswind, for every 100 kts of approach sppeed.


This may be a little misleading. The crab angle decreases with
increasing TAS for a given crosswind strength. This may suggest that
the crab angle increases with increasing TAS.

As for the calculation of crab angle:

crab angle is the arcsin of (crosswind strength / true airspeed)


But approaching aircraft are photographed by telephoto lenses - which
greatly exaggerate visual crab angle.

Brian W