Nice crosswind landing technique article

This is well written article (no surprise - AW&ST is the industry leader for well done news in my opinion). It examines some of the ins and outs of crosswind landing techniques, specifically looking at larger aircraft limitations. I found the part about the G-V very interesting because of the radical amount of wing-sweep that further reduces the margin of a wingtip strike as deck angle is increased during the flare. I’d love to see a similar mathematical analysis done on the Citation X, which has a phenomenal amount of wing sweep.

BeachAV8R

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Using this highly detailed drawing, and my mad powerpoint drafting skillz, I come up with the following dimensions:

180.25 inches back from wheel to wingtip.
317.5 inches out from wheel to wingtip.
70.5 inches up from ground to wingtip, when level.

Doing maths, I get a 12.5 degree clearance from wheel to wingtip, when level on ground. that gives lots of additional clearance over the 7 degrees shown for the GS 5.

With a 5 degree flare (do you have a better pitch angle to use for a CitX at touchdown?), I get a 54.75 inch clearance to the wingtip, which is still a nice 9.8 degrees bank angle before it strikes, compared to the 5 degrees on the GS 5.

The wings on that Cit X sure have quite a sweep, but the wingtips are actually further forward towards the gear in the CitX ( 180.25 inches) compared to the GS 5 (202 inches), which helps. The biggest factor is the lateral distance, though - the distance out from the wheels to the wingtip is much larger on the GS 5 (470 inches) than the Cit X (317.5 inches).

Einstein has a grasp on the maths. :smiley: See, that is what separates an engineer from a non-engineer. I didn’t recognize that the root of the X wing sits so much further forward of that wheel rotation point. Nicely explained!

Pretty amazing that the 737-800 only has 18" of nacelle clearance when sitting on the ramp!