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How does a pilot hold a straight ground track along a road in a crosswind during a ground reference maneuver?
Choices
✓ By angling the nose into the wind (a wind correction angle) to cancel the driftcorrect
Crabbing into the wind offsets the sideways drift so the track stays straight.
By lowering the nose to increase speed
Airspeed changes do not cancel crosswind drift over the ground.
By holding a constant heading equal to the road’s direction
Flying the road’s heading with a crosswind lets the airplane drift off the line.
By adding full rudder toward the wind
A steady crab is a coordinated heading change, not a cross-controlled rudder input.
Why
In straight flight the drift is cancelled by turning the nose into the wind just enough — a wind correction angle, or crab — with no correction needed only when the wind is on the nose or tail.
FAA source: Airplane Flying Handbook FAA-H-8083-3 Ch. 7 (Drift and Ground Track Control; Constant Radius During Turning Flight)browse the reference library →
Original study question written for this course — representative of FAA knowledge-test topics, not an actual current FAA exam question.