Question for the DPEs...

[Henning]

Given a Private Pilot checkride C-172: you ask ask the candidate to land at KXYZ. He gets the ATIS and hears that there is a 15 kt crosswind. On hearing that he looks at his chart and finds KABC with a perpendicular runway and states, "I will not attempt landing at KXYZ as 15 knots crosswind is beyond my comfort factor. I have found KABC only 40 miles away with a runway aligned into the wind, I will take you there for landing."

Pass or fail?

 

[Jim Logajan]

Think of it this way...imagine the DPE says "Land there or fail," and the applicant tries and rolls the plane up in a ball. And with the situation as stated in the post at the top and nothing more said, it might just be a test of the applicant's judgement, not his/her skill.

In any event, I cannot find anything in the PP PTS setting a minimum crosswind component in which a landing must be demonstrated. Quite the contrary, you might want to read what it says in Area IV, Task A, item 4 to which R&W was no doubt alluding, and with which any CFI is no doubt familiar.

There is an important difference on this subject between the 2002 and 2012 issues of the PTS; and that latter has only been operative for all of 25 days.

If there is an equivalent clause to "Calculates/determines if crosswind component is above his or her ability or that of the aircraft’s capability" in the PTS that was operative for the previous ten years, I'm not seeing it.