Boeing 777X Pushes Its Limits

Aerospace giant’s crosswind testing in Lubbock, Texas, literally goes sideways.

Thursday, May 01, 2025 at 06:30 AM ET

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A Boeing 777X at the Dubai Airshow [Credit: AirlineGeeks/William Derrickson]

Key Takeaways:

The crosswind component is a critical aviation performance metric indicating the wind speed at which an aircraft might lose rudder authority during landing.
Aircraft manufacturers, such as Boeing with its 777X, conduct rigorous testing using both flight simulators and real-world extreme wind conditions (e.g., 40-60 knots) to determine and demonstrate maximum crosswind capabilities.
This extensive testing process, involving meteorologists and test pilots, aims to establish precise performance parameters and best practice procedures for pilots flying in challenging crosswind conditions, particularly noting the power lag in turbine aircraft during go-arounds.

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There are a lot of performance metrics in aviation, and one of them is crosswind component. In short, it’s the speed of the wind that, when exceeded, means to run out of rudder authority.

In training airplanes such as the Cessna 172, you will find a notation of the “demonstrated crosswind” with the caveat “not a limitation.” To get this information the aircraft manufacturers put their airplanes into crosswind conditions to see that it can handle them.

Meg Godlewski has been an aviation journalist for more than 24 years and a CFI for more than 20 years. If she is not flying or teaching aviation, she is writing about it. Meg is a founding member of the Pilot Proficiency Center at EAA AirVenture and excels at the application of simulation technology to flatten the learning curve. Follow Meg on Twitter @2Lewski.