"Gary" wrote in message
oups.com...
[...]
So I guess I'm curious as to what some of you might have done under the
circumstances - would you have asked for 27? Even though it was an
adventure, I never felt I was not in control... so maybe if you're
flying into a busy class b or c, they assume a certain level of skill?

I probably would've asked for 27. That said, who knows for sure. I wasn't
there, and if I had been, I might have done what you did for all I know.

It's good to explore your limits, especially in a reasonably safe situation.
Every landing is a potential go-around anyway, and you had lots of runway to
play with, both with respect to length (7000 feet) and width (150 feet).
Heck, in that situation, you might even consider landing a bit diagonally,
to take a few degrees out of the crosswind. The important thing is to be
ready and willing to recognize things aren't working out, to not push a
situation too far, and to go-around and take the easier way out if
necessary.

As far as ATC goes, I don't think they assume a certain level of skill so
much as they are usually happy to keep things convenient for themselves as
long as the pilots aren't complaining. I don't blame them...why offer a
disruption in their sequence if the pilot (who is responsible for the safety
of their aircraft) isn't asking for one?

That said, I've never had ATC complain about a request for an alternate
runway. Occasionally it results in a delay for me, but that's no big deal.
Five or ten minutes holding over some point while I wait for a break in
traffic, rather than wrestling with the airplane and possibly having to go
for the alternate runway anway? Seems like a small price to pay.

Sounds like you got yourself an honest-to-goodness learning experience. You
know now you can handle that kind of crosswind if you have to, but you also
know that if you have an alternative you probably want to take it.

Pete

p.s. By the way, as far as fitting into the traffic on the longer runway
goes, I don't know how the controllers there deal with things, but here in
Seattle at Boeing Field, they use a "mid-field base" for a couple of
purposes. One is to land two small airplanes at once (one uses the first
half of the runway, the other uses the second half after flying the
mid-field base leg). Another is to allow a small airplane to fit into the
traffic pattern even if a larger airplane is on final. The small airplane
can fly a downwind, mid-field base and land on the second half of the runway
without interfering with a larger airplane a few miles out.