You will always get those sensitive flyers that will freak out at first sight of turbulence. The question is if high winds really affect your flight enough to make it dangerous. When it comes to landings, the pilot will need many years of practice to deliver the perfect landing. In an ideal world, you want to land your plane into the wind, which aids as an additional braking force.
Landings
You should also not be alarmed when it looks like the plane is going a bit “wonky” when it comes to landing the aircraft. The pilots actually receive training to land the plain in such an angle should they have any high winds. A perfect landing in a pilot’s world is known as landing slightly sideways with one set of tires landing on the tar before the other.
Maximum Flying Winds
Each manufacturer issues limits when it comes to maximum speeds in the wind. Usually, maximum wind speeds are calculated limits for airspeeds, ground speeds, and cross speeds in which an aircraft can operate.
These maximum speeds are calculated by analytical flight simulations, as no one would actually take the risk of flying a plane to its maximum and put lives at risk. However, the pilot still decides when it is safe to land the aircraft, not the algorithms. This is great news, as no one wants to put their lives in the “hands” of a robot.
Which airports are unable to handle high winds?
One would think that in today’s modern society all the airports will be geared to face high wind speeds. Unfortunately, there are still a few that are not very receptive to heavy winds. Leeds Bradford is one of those airports in Britain that towers at the height of 208m and seen its fair share of wobbles.
This year a flight heading to Madeira was held at 14 000 feet, unable to land because of powerful winds making it unsafe. A good pilot usually advises the crew and passengers if they will be experiencing. Doing this puts the passengers at ease that they are in good hands. This is also very important to do for those screamers that throw the whole plane into a frenzy.
