Question from a new flight student (whopping 7 hours!)

Paul Sengupta wrote:

What if the wind is between two runways? Of course you're entitled
to use either, or neither, but if there's a temporary lull in the radio, or
non radio aircraft using one particular runway then surely it's better to
be given a heads up on which is the current preferred runway?

For example, at Winter Haven there's a 04-22 and a 11-29. 04-22 is
longer. So if the wind is between the two, usually 04-22 is the one used.
It's not written anywhere, but it's just local knowledge.

This is also the case for airports with single runways. In the event of a direct
crosswind (and sometimes even with a bit of a tailwind) one direction is considered
the preferred runway. In most untowered New Jersey airports, this is whatever runway
points in a westerly direction, but, again, it's mainly local knowledge.

It's always fun when the wind is out of the northeasterly quadrant and somebody
decides to land on 24 instead of 06 just because they've "always" used 24.

George Patterson
If a man gets into a fight 3,000 miles away from home, he *had* to have
been looking for it.