Crosswind Landings, Forward Slips And The Crosswind Component

What A Crosswind Does To A Landing

Any wind that is not straight down the runway has two parts. The headwind part slows your groundspeed. The crosswind part pushes the airplane sideways across the ground. Left alone, it drifts you off the centerline on final, and if you touch down while still drifting, the landing gear takes a side load. The Airplane Flying Handbook (FAA-H-8083-3C, chapter 9) calls those loads damaging, and every landing task in the ACS asks for a touchdown with no side drift and the airplane's longitudinal axis aligned with the runway.

The fix is to bank or point the airplane into the wind just enough to cancel the drift, then hold that correction to the ground and through the rollout. Takeoffs need it too: the AFH has you start the roll with full aileron into the wind and hold the upwind wing down just after liftoff, so the airplane does not skip sideways.

You feel a crosswind in the seat before you see it on any instrument. A $229 discovery flight gives you 60 minutes at the controls from the left seat at Van Nuys, with an instructor beside you. It is credited in full toward training if you enroll within 24 hours.

How To Work Out The Crosswind Component

The FAA prints a chart for this in the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (FAA-H-8083-25C, chapter 11). Its worked example is runway 17 with the wind from 140 degrees at 25 knots: a 30-degree angle, a 22-knot headwind and a 13-knot crosswind. The chart is doing trigonometry, and you can do the same sum in four steps. The wind side of an E6B flight computer works it the long way.

The Wing-Low (Sideslip) Method

The AFH recommends this method in most cases, and it is the "side slip" the ACS asks you to change to before touchdown at the end of a forward slip. On final, use rudder to line the nose up with the runway. Lower the upwind wing with aileron until the drift stops. The ground track and the longitudinal axis now both run straight down the centerline. If the wind picks up, you need more bank and more opposite rudder; if it eases, take some out.

Keep the upwind wing down through the round out, so the first touchdown is on the upwind main wheel. During the rollout, keep feeding in aileron toward the wind; the handbook has it held fully toward the wind as the airplane stops. Our page on airplane controls explains what the ailerons and rudder are doing.

The handbook also sets the limit of the method. If the bank you need is so steep that full opposite rudder will not stop the airplane turning, the wind is too strong to land safely on that runway in those conditions.

It takes repetition with an instructor beside you. If you have not started training, a two-hour first lesson is $349, airplane and instructor included, from our ramp at Van Nuys.

The Crab Method And Why The Handbook Prefers Wing-Low

In a crab, you turn the nose into the wind with the wings level, so the airplane tracks the centerline while pointing slightly off it. It is the same wind correction you practice at altitude in ground reference maneuvers, and it is easy to hold on final. The trouble comes at the end. The crab has to come out the instant before touchdown, with rudder, and the AFH says that "requires judgment and precise timing." Take it out early and the airplane starts to drift. Take it out late and it lands pointing one way while moving another.

The wing-low correction is set up early on final and needs no heading change in the last second before touchdown, which is why the handbook recommends it in most cases. It still says "pilots should learn to do both," and it allows a combination of the two. The ACS wording is "appropriate crosswind correction" and a touchdown with no side drift. It does not name a method. And if checkride day is calm, a note in the normal takeoff and landing tasks has the evaluator test your crosswind knowledge orally instead.

The Forward Slip To A Landing

In the AFH's words, a forward slip "is used to dissipate altitude and increase descent rate without increasing airspeed." It is the answer to arriving on final too high, when pushing the nose down would only add speed you then have to lose.

To enter it, lower one wing with aileron and apply opposite rudder, so the airplane keeps its original path while the nose swings off to one side. It now moves slightly sideways through the air, drag rises, and it comes down steeply without gaining speed. To recover, level the wings and release the rudder together, then set the normal glide attitude. On a landing, take the slip out as the round out begins.

One caution from the handbook: airspeed indicators in some airplanes show considerable error in a slip, so fly the attitude and do not chase the needle.

Task IV-M asks you to plan a path to the landing area with altitude, wind, terrain and obstructions in mind, fly the downwind parallel to the runway, and configure the airplane. In a crosswind, you match the direction of the slip to the wind, upwind wing low, and change to a sideslip before touchdown. The touchdown standard is within 400 feet beyond or on the specified point, with no side drift and the longitudinal axis aligned with and over the runway center or landing path.

Sideslip Vs Forward Slip, Side By Side

The control inputs look alike: a lowered wing and opposite rudder. What differs is where the nose ends up and what the slip is for.

The sideslip is a crosswind tool and the forward slip is a height tool. On a windy day with a high final you can use both on the same approach.

Practicing Crosswinds From Van Nuys

Van Nuys has two parallel runways, 16R/34L at 8,001 feet and 16L/34R at 4,000 feet, and they point the same way. On a day when the wind blows straight across them, there is no other runway on the field to turn to. The handbook's answer, a different runway, becomes a different airport or a different day.

A different day costs nothing. Lessons and discovery flights reschedule free up to 24 hours before, and if the weather says no, you do not pay; our weather and cancellation policy has the details. Check Van Nuys Airport weather today the evening before, and read how often you can actually fly at Van Nuys before you build a schedule around it.

Crosswind practice happens in whichever trainer you fly: the high-wing Cessna 162, the four-seat Piper Warrior, which also flies a two-hour lesson for two at $449, or the stick-flown Diamond DA20-C1, $549 for a two-hour lesson. On a day too windy for any of them, the two-hour simulator lesson in the full-motion Redbird MCX is $249.

The private pilot course is where all of this becomes routine. The FAA minimum is 40 hours under 14 CFR 61.109(a); our students who passed between 2023 and 2026 typically logged 50–60 hours, simulator included, according to our student cost study. The other Area IV landings are on our page about short-field and soft-field takeoffs and landings.

Questions About Crosswind Landings And Slips

Is Maximum Demonstrated Crosswind A Limit?

Not in the sense of a red line. The AFH treats it as a value shown during certification and tells you to know each airplane's figure and stay within what the airplane can do. In airplanes certificated after May 3, 1962, the demonstrated crosswind velocity is shown on a placard.

How Do I Estimate The Crosswind In My Head?

Use fractions of the wind: half at 30 degrees, about seven-tenths at 45, about nine-tenths at 60, and all of it at 90. A 16-knot wind 45 degrees off the runway is about 11 knots of crosswind. Some pilots use a clock face instead, where 15 degrees is a quarter of the wind and 30 is half; it reads a little high at 45 degrees, which errs on the safe side.

Can You Slip With Flaps Extended?

It depends on the airplane. The AFH says there may be recommendations or limitations on slips with flaps extended, for aerodynamic reasons, and sends you to the AFM/POH. Some POHs prohibit it or caution against it, so check the one for the exact airplane before you try it.

What Is The Forward Slip Standard On The Checkride?

ACS task IV-M wants the touchdown within 400 feet beyond or on the specified point and a ground track aligned with the runway center or landing path. The 400 feet matches the normal landing in task IV-B; the short-field landing tightens it to 200.

Which Runways Does Van Nuys Have?

Two parallel runways, 16R/34L and 16L/34R. The airport is a Class D field under the Los Angeles Class B shelf and one of the world's busiest general-aviation airports.

What Happens To My Lesson If The Wind Is Too Strong?

If the weather says no, you do not pay, and you can reschedule a lesson or discovery flight free up to 24 hours before. If you would still like to train that day, the Redbird MCX is an FAA-approved advanced aviation training device and is never canceled for weather.

Keep Reading

• Private pilot maneuvers: how to fly every checkride maneuver
• Short-field and soft-field takeoffs and landings
• Steep turns and ground reference maneuvers
• How to use an E6B flight computer
• The Private Pilot ACS, task by task
• Your first solo flight and the 61.87 requirements