Crosswind Component Chart

How the chart works

Any wind that is not straight down the runway splits into two parts: the crosswind component pushes the airplane sideways, and the headwind component slows it along the runway. The chart draws both at once. Each arc is a wind speed, each straight line an angle between the wind and the runway, and where the two meet you read the crosswind along the bottom and the headwind up the side.

The worked example is the FAA Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge's sample problem: runway 17 with the wind from 140° at 25 knots. Runway 17 is 170°, so the wind is 30° off the runway; the 30° line meets the 25-knot arc above a crosswind of 12.5 knots and beside a headwind of 21.7 knots. The crosswind calculator does the same arithmetic from a runway number and a METAR wind, adds the gust component and checks it against your limit.

Reading it quickly

• The angle is the difference between the runway heading and the wind direction, whichever side the wind is on. Runway numbers are magnetic; METAR winds are true, ATIS and tower winds magnetic. Convert a METAR wind before you compare.
• Beyond 90°, the wind is behind you. Use 180° minus the angle: the crosswind reads the same and the headwind becomes a tailwind.
• Gusts: read the chart again at the gust speed. The steady wind is what you hold most of the time; the gust is the worst case.
• Shortcut for the table below: the headwind at any angle equals the crosswind at 90° minus that angle, so one table gives both.

Rules of thumb

Pilots often estimate the crosswind with the clock method: at 15° off the runway the crosswind is about a quarter of the wind, at 30° about half, at 45° about three quarters, and from 60° on almost all of it. The chart shows why: the sine of 30° is exactly one half, and the sine of 60° is already 0.87.

Your crosswind limit

The Pilot's Handbook explains that airplanes are tested before certification in 90° crosswinds of up to 0.2 VS0, two tenths of the power-off stalling speed with gear and flaps down: an airplane that stalls at 45 knots must be capable of landing in a 9-knot, 90° crosswind. The maximum demonstrated crosswind component for your airplane is in its AFM or POH. Compare the chart's crosswind, and the gust value, with that number and with your own experience before you commit to the runway.

Print it

The chart is a white sheet that prints on letter or A4 paper: download the PDF for a kneeboard or a lesson, the SVG to scale it without blurring, or the PNG for slides. Every line is drawn from the same formulas as the calculators on this site.