B-52 Makes High Crosswind Landing, But Not Like You’d Expect

Crosswind landings are a pretty standard maneuver (unless you’re facing hurricane winds of course), and military, commercial and private pilots must know what they’re doing when approaching a runway in such conditions. For a layman however, it could look and feel pretty scary if you’re onboard, especially if you’re looking out the widow and all you see is grass and no asphalt.

A lot of you folks who follow us have some military background and if not they’re just fanatical about military planes. Because of this, this might not come to you as much a surprise, but we actually had no idea that B-52 can land the way you’ll see in this video.

Let’s go over the three main landing techniques really quickly.

 A “de-crab” is pointing the nose into the wind on approach and correcting it just before touching down. Alternatively the “crab” is best done on slippery runways and consists of touching down while still pointing towards the crosswind and correcting once on the ground. Lastly, a “sideslip” utilizes the crab technique but points the nose down the centerline on final approach and banks the wings to touch down the upwind gear first before settling down the downwind gear.

What this means is that B-52s don’t have to straighten out when they land. While crabbing, they can simply land in that position and taxi while not parallel to the runway.

The more you know.