Flying Lesson #83 - Crosswind Craziness

Today, while a nice day weather-wise, had a wind that decided to make life difficult with a gusting crosswind.

The wind was gusting from 10-16 knots from 360 degrees, so it was a direct 10 to 16 knot crosswind from Runway 27. Cessna 172Ms are rated for a 15 knot crosswind.

Henry stated we were going to work on pattern flying and mainly doing low passes over the runway to work on my coordination and confidence.

I'm lagging using the rudder and apparently not paying enough attention outside the plane for coordination and relying on the instruments too much. When I look down at the ball I'm already behind which is a problem so we worked on that, as well as where I'm looking in the traffic pattern which is actually counter-intuitive at times. In this wind everything was very noticeable and it was not easy flying by any means.

So we did the pattern with quite a crab angle in and I did some low passes and practically touching the runway and then doing a go round down the runway, with the tower occasionally having me shift from 27R to 27L but maintaining a right pattern because they were bored or something. Overall not bad but that wind sure made everything more interesting, and each go around on the low pass for some reason felt crappy compared to my typical go rounds which are (or were) quite good.

I did three full stop landings with quite the crosswind correction on each.

Overall I was doing better than last time, but that was a very challenging lesson. I'm still not sure how I feel about it as to whether I'm improving or getting worse. I know I was better than this before.

Henry said I did well in terms of the landings and that I wouldn't be flying alone in these kind of conditions so it was good. I just need to work more on coordination and to relax more. Apparently, I'm unconsciously having both feet on the rudder pedals so I'm pressing both rudder pedals at once - heavier in the direction I want the rudder and slightly on the other pedal which isn't helping.

We'll see how this goes.

That's .9 and 3 landings.