Yesterday I did a flight and tried landing at EGHJ Bembridge - in reality this would have been a time to stay at home I think.
Live weather wInds were 327@25 and the runway options were 12 or 30.
After several attempts, I got down on 30 but originally requested 12 based on MET reports.
The flight planner gave me 12.
Later I calculated the winds and if i did it right, rwy 12 had 22kt tailwind and 12kt crosswind, rwy 30 had 22kt headwind and 12kt crosswind.
12 knots cross is the max on my little 152 and that would be a skilled/tough landing I think, not for beginners.
But why would the planner opt for a high tailwind approach?
The alternate airfield only had rwy 05 & 23 - these calculate as 25kt crosswinds so that was totally out of the question, I guess it was a very bad day to fly to the Isle of Wight
I total ignore ingame ATC, its useless… If I want to listen and follow ATC, I use VatSim else wise I follow all procedures as if it was an uncontrolled airport…
As most have said, landing into wind is the norm for most airports. However there are many places that operate a ‘preferential runway’ system.
This is where local geography, noise restrictions or complex approaches cause a heavy preference to use one runway end vs the other, unless a strong enough tailwind prevents their use.
Examples could be Pisa 04L/R. Nice easy ILS approaches take you to 04, but terrain forces a circling to 22. 04 will be in use up to a 10kt tailwind in most cases.
Also, preferences exist between L and R runways. Manchester 23R is used for landing as the lack of taxiways to vacate 23L make that best suited for departures, despite the need to cross 23R to get there.
Airport ops are described in the airfield information (AOI) charts, where available.
