i thought it was better tonight but may not be after all. i'm doing some more testing and i use boston logan for my test area, my area 51. anyway i had some saved flights with real weather and one is in turkey, {which by the way is fantastic VFR country!} along with some saved boston flights and i may NOT have gotten the present boston weather. But since you mentioned 60 mph winds, guess i'll have to go up and have a look see. thanks, william

EEEK!!! and i was always sitting fat,dumb and happy in my seat assured you guys always had it under control and never got stressed out! that surely must have been a hair raising experience and you certainly earned the big bucks that day! i saw on discovery wings a few days back, a big jet, don't remember exaclty what but a heavy anyway, coming in for a landing and as he was about to touch down and just a few feet from the ground, a BIG gust of wind hit it. he was so close to the ground i thought he'd already touched down but he hadn't. he made a beautiful and fantastic recovery, you could all of a sudden see the big jet pitch up and turn sideways and it seemed to fly sort of straight and sideways at the same time but he eventually got it under control. it was almost graceful to see it maneuver like that. it was a split second timing thing, it all happened in only a few seconds and i know that pilot was paying attention during the approach because if he was distracted for even a second he would have hit the runway and not make the go around. that guy knew what he was doing. it was SO close. i was amazed. my hat is off to you and him! william

hehehe. i bet! now that's windy. william

hehehe!!!!!!!! william

Hi Alex,While these winds may appear a little strong, they are not atypical of winds that most of us have arrived back to face at our home airports. While I wouldn't put a student pilot in these conditions, most experienced pilots should be able to handle this stuff. Just makes for an interesting landing sometimes :)Bruce.

> I flew into Chicago last week (real world Delta MD88) and I>was at the controls for landing on 22L with winds at 35>Gusting to 50 and the direction was variable from about>240-270 degrees. It was actually very close to our crosswind>limits most of the time. The real fun was below 1500 feet on>final where it took all my skill and concentration to ride out>the moderate turbulence and plus or minus twenty knot wind>gusts and safely land. I dare say I was working rather hard.>> Since the wind was so high they could only use a few of the>runways to land and takeoff, luckily the weather was basically>good VFR so the lines for takeoff were not too long. I asked>for 27L on approach just before vectors on downwind as we came>in from the south. I wanted to lessen the wind risk as it was>more down the runway instead of a crosswind. Normally you can>do this and it may cuase a slight delay for traffic but this>day approach just shot right back with "Negative, if you have>to go around, then you have to go around">> I looked at my copilot with some surpirse and just smiled. I>figured that there was too much traffic for just us to get out>of the sequence so we presed on towards 22L. While on>downwind, base, and final at least three aircraft (big ones)>went around down close to the runway due to the crosswind. We>got lucky and it remained within our limits but I have to say>it was one of the top two or three most difficult landings I>have done in a large aircraft in 15 years. I was almost full>throw with the controls and throttle and even then I wasn't>stabilized the whole time but it was safe and ended in a>rather smooth touchdown.>> We taxied off the runway and the grass was being whipped flat>and the aircraft was being buffeted significantly. We even saw>something strange on taxi out later. The elevator is normally>not hydraulically powered, you move a tab that displaces the>elevator for control. It can be hydraulically powered if you>need it past a cetain threshold for nose down pitch at very>high angles of attack, I.E. if you are stalling. Then the>elevator powered light comes on on the overhead annunciator>panel (OAP) showing you have this hydraulic help. Well the>wind was so strong, it was pushing our control tab up very>hard and then causing the elevator powered light to come on>sgnaling full throw on the Stabilizer against 3000 PSI!!>Havent seen that in over 3,000 hours on the Mad Dog and later>called maintenance to see if it was a problem. They said its>ok as long as we could still move it and we could with no>problem.>> A definite extraordinary day that will stick with me for a>long time, Windy City? Oh yeah! Hows that for a wind story....>:)>>HornitIf you fly the -88, then thats what we get here in Daytona for DAL. If you ever fly into here and have some time, dinner is on me. Always enjoy picking the brain of a rw pilot. Send me a pvt msg via the forum if you know your coming here and will be able too. Oh, and disregard that little "Fly Jetblue" thing under my name.;-)