Originally Posted by
crusty old aviator
I was on short final into Laramie, WY with a 20 degree crosswind from the left at 25, gusting to 36, according to the AWOS. A few hundred feet from the numbers, the left wing dropped about 50 degrees. No problem, just yank the stick over full right, add a bit of rudder to keep her centered, and I'm level again. I wheel landed without bouncing her, and as the tail started to drop, I was airborne again...with the left wing down about 30 degrees. No big deal, just push the stick forward a bit and over to full right, a bit of rudder, and I'm still above stall speed and we wheel land again. Then it happened again, and I corrected again without much concern. The taxiway departs the runway at such an acute angle, it would have put my tail directly into the wind: something to avoid on pavement with heel brakes, so I rolled off onto the taxiway, staying parallel to the runway and informed the unicom crowd that I had departed the active. Then another gust hit me and dropped my left wing to the pavement. There I was in a 3 point attitude, but not the kind she was designed for. Full right aileron didn't do anything until the gust passed and the right main slowly dropped back to the ground. I shut the engine down, sprang out of the cockpit, grabbed the tail, and starting walking her toward the parking area, with her prop into the wind. Two local college students, working at the FBO, saw it all and came running out to give me a hand, which I was appreciative of. The tape on the left wingtip was scraped, but easily patched with 100mph tape to get us home, no big deal.
I realize that many pilots without the muscle memory from decades of flying in all kinds of weather in all kinds of aircraft probably would have rolled the plane into a ball well before the numbers, but I was coming from Medicine Bow, which is an all but abandoned dirt strip, where you have to keep your head out the window to watch the runway for varmint holes that have been dug out by hungry coyotes, with a density altitude of about 11,000 feet. After Medicine Bow, Laramie really did seem like no big deal! I wouldn't even begin to try to rate that landing on a scale of 1 to 10: it was strictly pass/no pass, and that 73 year old dame and I passed! What did I learn? Gusts happen...and we're all in God's hands.