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Normal and Crosswind Approach and Landing

A landing is not made in the flare. It is made on downwind, on base, and on a final approach that was stable long before the runway got close.

Takeoffs, Landings and Go-Arounds — FI.VII.B

Why this one gets its own lesson

The approach and landing phase produces more general aviation accidents than any other part of the flight, and it is the hardest thing most new pilots learn. Almost everything that goes wrong at touchdown was set up a mile earlier, which is why this lesson spends most of its time well before the runway.

The stabilized approach

Stabilized means a constant descent angle, a constant airspeed, and the airplane on the centerline, held with small corrections rather than large ones. Full landing configuration and on speed by 500 feet AGL is the visual standard most training operations use. If you are not stabilized by then, you go around.

Final approach speed comes from the POH, often as a function of weight, so you interpolate rather than guess. Where none is published, 1.3 times the landing-configuration stall speed is the conventional figure. Fly it within a few knots, and add half the gust factor in gusty wind: 18 gusting 30 is a factor of 12, so add 6. Fast costs you runway, slow costs you options; low and slow is the bad combination.

Before any of it, settle whether you can land there: POH landing distance, adjusted for a wet or grass surface, a slope, a tailwind that stretches the rollout, and density altitude.

Downwind, base, and final

The descent begins on downwind. Abeam your touchdown point, reduce power and take the first stage of flaps, having confirmed you are below the flap extension speed. Have the before-landing checklist done and the go-around briefed before base, and turn when the touchdown point sits about 45 degrees behind the wing — timing that turn well is what buys you a good final.

Roll out on final aligned with the extended centerline, on speed and trimmed, flying the glidepath with pitch and power together. How much power you carry down final, and when it comes off, is an airplane-specific matter: fly the approach speed and configuration your POH gives you and let the glidepath set the throttle. There is no universal height at which the power comes back, and reaching for one tends to undo the stability you just spent the whole pattern building.

What you avoid in the pattern is abrupt maneuvering near the ground. The classic accident is the base-to-final overshoot: drift left uncorrected, the turn comes out wide, and the temptation is bottom rudder to pull the nose around. That is a skidding turn, low and slow, and it is where the stall-spin accidents come from. Overshoot the centerline and the answer is a coordinated correction — or a go-around.

Roundout, touchdown, rollout

The roundout, or flare, is the transition from a descent to a level attitude just above the runway. The throttle comes to idle as you round out; then raise the nose gradually, holding the airplane off as it slows so it settles onto the mains in the landing attitude. Ground effect cuts your drag just as you are trying to stop flying, so extra speed becomes float. Look far enough down the runway: too close and you round out high, too far and you round out low. Both are eye problems, not hand problems.

Pick your touchdown point in advance and touch down at or within 400 feet beyond it, which is the private ACS standard and a good habit whether or not anyone is grading it. Keep holding back pressure, and do not let the nosewheel drop — lower it as elevator authority fades. Keep straight with rudder, hold aileron into the wind and increase it as you slow, and brake gently, only once the nosewheel is down. The after-landing checklist waits until you are clear of the runway; runway incursions catch pilots who have mentally finished the flight.

Crosswinds

Wind is rarely straight down the runway, and two methods solve the same problem: the wheels must touch down pointed the way they are rolling, ground track on the centerline.

The crab holds a heading into the wind so the ground track stays on the centerline, coordinated throughout. It is easy to hold, which is why jets use it, but it must be taken out with rudder the instant before touchdown, and that timing is the hard part. Miss it and you land sideways — sideloading, the tires scrubbing across the runway and feeding the gear a load it was never designed to take.

The wing-low or sideslip method keeps the ground track and the longitudinal axis aligned with the centerline through the whole approach, roundout, touchdown and rollout, so there is nothing left to undo at the end. The two controls go in together, not one and then the other:

• Aileron into the wind — bank enough that the drift stops and the airplane tracks the centerline.
• Opposite rudder, at the same time — enough to hold the nose pointed down the runway against the turn the bank wants to make.

Applying rudder first, out of a crab with the wings still level, only yaws the airplane into a skid and lets the drift grow for a moment — the same condition the base-to-final accident is made of. The bank is what stops the drift; the rudder is what keeps the nose straight while it does. Hold both and adjust each as the drift changes, all the way to the ground.

You are cross-controlled on purpose, low and slow, so learn the feel of it with an instructor before you take it to a strong crosswind on your own, and keep the airspeed discipline exactly where it was: fly the same approach speed, do not let the nose come up as the slip adds drag, and hold the glidepath with power rather than by trading away speed. Check the POH before you slip with the flaps out — some airplanes carry a caution against slips with full flaps, the Cessna 172 being the familiar example. As you slow, the controls lose effectiveness, so the inputs grow rather than relax. You touch down on the upwind main wheel first, then the other, then the nose, correction still in and increasing through the rollout.

Most POHs publish a maximum demonstrated crosswind component — not a certification limit, but the strongest a test pilot demonstrated. Some do not publish one at all, older Cessna and Piper models in particular; where the number is missing, you and your instructor set a personal limit and raise it only as skill and currency justify. Where it is published, treat it as a limit until your skill is well established. Either way, work the component out before you go, not on short final: crosswind calculator.

What goes wrong

Most errors happen early: the checklist done too late, drift uncorrected on base, an unstable approach nobody chose to abandon, poor trim so you fight the airplane instead of flying it. Then the late ones — stretching the glide with elevator alone, touching down before the landing attitude is there or while still drifting, releasing back pressure after touchdown, braking hard and early.

Underneath all of it: you can always go around. The three errors that spoil a go-around are not stick-and-rudder failures — they are failing to recognize that the landing should be rejected, indecision, and delay. Decide early, power smoothly to the maximum allowable, pitch for the climb, and clean up in stages while compensating for the torque and P-factor that arrive with it.

Where you meet it next

On the checkride this is one task with two names, and the examiner watches the approach more than the touchdown: configuration and speed by the standard, centerline discipline, and touchdown at or within 400 feet beyond your specified point with no drift and no side load. It is also the base for the short-field, soft-field and power-off 180 landings elsewhere in the maneuvers track, each of which takes this approach and makes one variable harder, and for the go-around you briefed before base. The wing-low landing is a sideslip: the same controls as the forward slip, but used to keep the airplane aligned with the runway rather than deliberately misaligned to lose altitude. Rudder for where the nose points, aileron for where the airplane goes — once that separation is real to you, most of landing becomes bookkeeping.