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Old 04-21-2011, 03:41 PM
Viper2000 Viper2000 is offline
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67 knot crosswind is no problem in a Cessna 172 or similar because it's above the stall speed. Therefore it's not a crosswind anymore because you effectively have a VTOL capability and so you can always takeoff & land directly into wind.

However, you obviously would have to be very careful about wind gradients & gusts.

Best approach technique would probably be to come in at 80-90 knots with flaps retracted so that your approach angle relative to the ground was shallow enough that you could keep the touchdown point in view.

There therefore a very definite worst crosswind speed for any given aircraft type, such that the wind is strong enough to cause trouble, but weak enough to prevent you from taking off or landing across the runway etc.

The biggest challenge in really strong winds (i.e. those similar to the stall speed of the aeroplane) is moving the aeroplane around on the ground, because the weathercocking tendency and roll due to sideslip forces can be very large.

As a rule of thumb, if you can taxi the aeroplane then you can fly it.
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