More Crosswinds than I bargained for

I had a plane all booked for Saturday to go up with an instructor. We were going to go to a field that is oriented roughly North-South so as to guarantee crosswinds for practice.

As luck would have it, it was just a little windy. Things were OK in the early morning but the wind had picked up, so that by the time my reservation came around the steady wind was already at the maximum demonstrated crosswind limit of my plane. Gusts were another 50 percent greater than that (winds were at 30 Knots, gusts at 45 at about 40 degrees off of my home runway heading).

Today was perfect, but I already had plans and couldn’t take advantage of the clear, moderately breezy weather! Ah well, that’s the way of all things that depend on the weather!

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