Crosswind landings at night

[Jwscud]

I have only a limited amount of night experience (around 12 hours at the moment, so 7 on my own after the NQ), and have not landed much in strong crosswinds at night until last week. Landing at home base with only runway edge lighting with about a 14 knot crosswind I found getting the aircraft on centreline and pointing straight much more of a challenge than I expected. Are there any suggestions for things I could be doing differently compared to daytime technique, or where I should look for visual references?

[Ben Twings]

You don't say what technique you are using.
I would do a crabbed approach, but transition to wing down at around 100' and stabilise it all the way through the flare, touching down on the into wind wheel first. Wheel it on and keep the tailwheel up as long as possible to keep your view of the runway.
I guess nosewheel technique would be similar.

[Paul_Sengupta]

I was flying a student back from Tampa one night in central Florida, and had to make about 3 attempts to land. If I hadn't made it on the third attempt I was going to go to the airport in the next town which had a more into wind runway! It was a blustery night.

Not sure I ever really got the hang of crosswinds at night!

[Dave Phillips]

Wing down tends to work a little better with the reduced visual references. However, the best thing to do is set yourself a lower cross wind limit, espcially when using narrow runways. When I was a CFI we used 10kts for the 172s.

[Jwscud]

This particular case was coming off the ILS, with a significant crab due to upper winds, coming visual at about 800 feet and transitioning to wing down at about 50-100ft to line up and land. Thankfully not a tailwheel aircraft - I really would have given up and gone somewhere with an into-wind runway if that were the case!

I think Dave's suggestion of a self-imposed lower limit is a good one for the moment until I get a bit more practice - I don't fly much at night; it's normally arriving back in the dark after a day trip elsewhere at this time of year.

[Timothy]

The strongest crosswind I have landed in - 42 kts - was at night. I am not convinced that it needs to make a difference.

Dave is quite right, IMO, that a night crosswind landing would have to be wingdown, because you don't have the peripheral cues you need for kicking of drift at just the right moment (but I speak as one who never really embraced or learned the kick-off method anyway.)

I think that if you use wing down properly, night should make no difference, as you are always pointing down the runway anyway.

[Jwscud]

It was more the lack of centreline reference that left me stumped to be honest - one just has the landing light showing the runway centreline markings to determine whether you were central. I ended up straight but firmly downwind of the centreline. My issues I suspect are more indicative of not a huge amount of experience at night in poor/marginal conditions.

I have settled on transitioning to wing down at around 100ft in crosswinds, and have no trouble with them in daylight, but I think I have become reliant on certain visual clues that aren't so apparent at night and I am trying to figure out how best to adjust to compensate (obviously an hour bashing the circuit in the dark with a nice crosswind is ideal, but hard to find/arrange at the moment).

[Timothy]

May I suggest losing drift earlier? Say 200'. That gives you some time to get your eye in and your brain in gear.

[Paul_Sengupta]

I don't fly much at night; it's normally arriving back in the dark after a day trip elsewhere at this time of year.

Make sure you're passenger current if you're taking passengers - under the silly* JAA rules, you have to do a take off as well at night for it to count, even if you'd done 30 night landings in all conditions in the past 90 days.

*IMHO

It was more the lack of centreline reference that left me stumped to be honest

Indeed, I found landing at Cardiff at night a doddle, crosswind or not. It amazed me that some very big international airports didn't have centreline lights. Off the top of my head, I think Bombay and Calcutta were such airports. Perhaps Orlando Sanford too...can't remember about Orlando International. Tampa didn't have them on the cross runway, can't recall about the mains off the top of my head.

(obviously an hour bashing the circuit in the dark with a nice crosswind is ideal, but hard to find/arrange at the moment).

Cardiff! Rent off the club there and there's no more to pay for lights or landing fees. And it's a nice city to have a beer in afterwards. Cardiff is H24, though it might appease the good residents of Barry (not to mention the controllers ) if you did your circuits before midnight.

[Jwscud]

Are you on commission at Cardiff Paul

Thankfully a valid IR removes the night restrictions but I am pax current at night. Logtenpro very helpfully keeps track of these sorts of things for me.

[Paul_Sengupta]

Hmm, haven't approached them...

But it's there to be used, and has a standing crosswind...!

[Timothy]

I think that Aberdeen scores highest for a runway impishly placed at 90° to the prevailing wind.