Until they resurfaced and reopened runway 10-28 at KSAF last year,
crosswinds were a fact of life, as when things kick up the prevailing
winds are usually out of the west and the other runways form a narrow
"X" (15-33 and 2-20). We usually lost a couple of planes a year to
runway lights and flips.
My hairiest landings were one winter day a few years back when the
winds started at 260@20G28, then 260@28G34, then I decided to do one
more for the heck of it but had to do a long downwind because neither
I nor the tower could see the incoming Lear making opposite traffic;
by the time I got back it was 260@38G44. I did manage to get the nose
cranked over with rudder and sort of hover-taxied down about half of
the 8000' of pavement waiting for a lull, then plunked it down.
I also landed in Amarillo into a gust front leading a huge storm, with
winds 34 gusting 44, 30 degrees off runway heading. The landing
wasn't too bad; the hard part was the taxi to get fuel (and get out of
there as quickly as possible before the storm hit.) The takeoff was
easy; taxi to the right side of the runway and point into the wind.
The runway was 300 feet wide and the stall horn was blaring while I
was sitting still. ;-)
Both were in a Cirrus, which in addition to its other qualities turns
out to be a wonderful airplane for crosswinds. (The demonstrated
crosswind component is 20 knots; I called a friend at the company to
mention that it was a tad conservative, and his response was "yeah, we
know, but we didn't want to print the real number in case some idiot
tried it.")
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