Crosswind Component Chart – Extended Reference
This crosswind component chart extends the homepage table down to 5° increments for pilots who need finer resolution than the quick lookup.
Full Component Table at Five-Degree Increments
Each cell gives the crosswind component in bold and the along-runway component beneath, for wind angles from 5° to 90° and speeds from 5 to 50 knots.
| Angle | 5 kt | 10 kt | 15 kt | 20 kt | 25 kt | 30 kt | 35 kt | 40 kt | 45 kt | 50 kt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5° | 0.4 5.0 | 0.9 10.0 | 1.3 14.9 | 1.7 19.9 | 2.2 24.9 | 2.6 29.9 | 3.1 34.9 | 3.5 39.8 | 3.9 44.8 | 4.4 49.8 |
| 10° | 0.9 4.9 | 1.7 9.8 | 2.6 14.8 | 3.5 19.7 | 4.3 24.6 | 5.2 29.5 | 6.1 34.5 | 6.9 39.4 | 7.8 44.3 | 8.7 49.2 |
| 15° | 1.3 4.8 | 2.6 9.7 | 3.9 14.5 | 5.2 19.3 | 6.5 24.1 | 7.8 29.0 | 9.1 33.8 | 10.4 38.6 | 11.6 43.5 | 12.9 48.3 |
| 20° | 1.7 4.7 | 3.4 9.4 | 5.1 14.1 | 6.8 18.8 | 8.6 23.5 | 10.3 28.2 | 12.0 32.9 | 13.7 37.6 | 15.4 42.3 | 17.1 47.0 |
| 25° | 2.1 4.5 | 4.2 9.1 | 6.3 13.6 | 8.5 18.1 | 10.6 22.7 | 12.7 27.2 | 14.8 31.7 | 16.9 36.3 | 19.0 40.8 | 21.1 45.3 |
| 30° | 2.5 4.3 | 5.0 8.7 | 7.5 13.0 | 10.0 17.3 | 12.5 21.7 | 15.0 26.0 | 17.5 30.3 | 20.0 34.6 | 22.5 39.0 | 25.0 43.3 |
| 35° | 2.9 4.1 | 5.7 8.2 | 8.6 12.3 | 11.5 16.4 | 14.3 20.5 | 17.2 24.6 | 20.1 28.7 | 22.9 32.8 | 25.8 36.9 | 28.7 41.0 |
| 40° | 3.2 3.8 | 6.4 7.7 | 9.6 11.5 | 12.9 15.3 | 16.1 19.2 | 19.3 23.0 | 22.5 26.8 | 25.7 30.6 | 28.9 34.5 | 32.1 38.3 |
| 45° | 3.5 3.5 | 7.1 7.1 | 10.6 10.6 | 14.1 14.1 | 17.7 17.7 | 21.2 21.2 | 24.7 24.7 | 28.3 28.3 | 31.8 31.8 | 35.4 35.4 |
| 50° | 3.8 3.2 | 7.7 6.4 | 11.5 9.6 | 15.3 12.9 | 19.2 16.1 | 23.0 19.3 | 26.8 22.5 | 30.6 25.7 | 34.5 28.9 | 38.3 32.1 |
| 55° | 4.1 2.9 | 8.2 5.7 | 12.3 8.6 | 16.4 11.5 | 20.5 14.3 | 24.6 17.2 | 28.7 20.1 | 32.8 22.9 | 36.9 25.8 | 41.0 28.7 |
| 60° | 4.3 2.5 | 8.7 5.0 | 13.0 7.5 | 17.3 10.0 | 21.7 12.5 | 26.0 15.0 | 30.3 17.5 | 34.6 20.0 | 39.0 22.5 | 43.3 25.0 |
| 65° | 4.5 2.1 | 9.1 4.2 | 13.6 6.3 | 18.1 8.5 | 22.7 10.6 | 27.2 12.7 | 31.7 14.8 | 36.3 16.9 | 40.8 19.0 | 45.3 21.1 |
| 70° | 4.7 1.7 | 9.4 3.4 | 14.1 5.1 | 18.8 6.8 | 23.5 8.6 | 28.2 10.3 | 32.9 12.0 | 37.6 13.7 | 42.3 15.4 | 47.0 17.1 |
| 75° | 4.8 1.3 | 9.7 2.6 | 14.5 3.9 | 19.3 5.2 | 24.1 6.5 | 29.0 7.8 | 33.8 9.1 | 38.6 10.4 | 43.5 11.6 | 48.3 12.9 |
| 80° | 4.9 0.9 | 9.8 1.7 | 14.8 2.6 | 19.7 3.5 | 24.6 4.3 | 29.5 5.2 | 34.5 6.1 | 39.4 6.9 | 44.3 7.8 | 49.2 8.7 |
| 85° | 5.0 0.4 | 10.0 0.9 | 14.9 1.3 | 19.9 1.7 | 24.9 2.2 | 29.9 2.6 | 34.9 3.1 | 39.8 3.5 | 44.8 3.9 | 49.8 4.4 |
| 90° | 5.0 0.0 | 10.0 0.0 | 15.0 0.0 | 20.0 0.0 | 25.0 0.0 | 30.0 0.0 | 35.0 0.0 | 40.0 0.0 | 45.0 0.0 | 50.0 0.0 |
- Crosswind 15 kt or less
- Crosswind above 15 kt
- Crosswind above 25 kt
How Examiners Use This Table in the Oral Exam
Examiners use a component table to test whether a candidate can turn a raw weather report into a go or no-go decision, rather than to test arithmetic for its own sake.
The question almost always arrives as a scenario rather than a sum. You are handed a METAR, an airport diagram, and the aircraft's POH, and asked which runway you would use and whether you would go. Getting there requires four steps in order: convert the runway number to a heading, subtract to find the wind angle, look up or calculate the component, and compare it against the demonstrated figure and your own limits. Candidates who fail this question rarely fail at the trigonometry, they fail by comparing the raw reported wind against the demonstrated crosswind without resolving it into a component first.
The follow-up is usually about gusts. An examiner who has watched you look up 15 knots will ask what changes at 15 gusting 25, and the expected answer is that planning uses the gust row. A second common follow-up asks what you would do if the answer came out above the demonstrated value, where the correct response is that the figure is not a legal limit but going beyond it means leaving the range anyone has tested. That distinction is set out in full on the demonstrated crosswind reference.
Chart-Reading Mistakes That Cost Marks
Nearly every error in reading a component table comes from feeding it the wrong input rather than misreading the output.
Reading the wind angle as the wind direction
The left column is the angle between the wind and the runway, not the direction the wind is from. A wind from 270° is not a 270° entry, against runway 24 it is a 30° entry. Subtract the runway heading from the wind direction first, every time.
Forgetting that the table stops at 90°
Angles beyond 90° are not printed because the crosswind value repeats: 130° gives the same crosswind as 50°. What changes past 90° is the along-runway component, which becomes a tailwind. If your angle exceeds 90°, subtract it from 180° to find the row, then treat the headwind figure as a tailwind.
Using the reported wind instead of the gust
The table takes one speed. Feeding it the sustained wind gives the average crosswind, not the peak the aircraft must handle. For a gusty report, look the gust speed up as well and plan against that row.
Interpolating in the wrong direction
Crosswind grows with angle up to 90° but the rate of growth shrinks, the curve flattens near the top. Between 80° and 85° the change is tiny, while between 10° and 15° it is proportionally large. Interpolating linearly is fine over a 5° gap but drifts if you stretch it across 20°.
Printing This Table for the Kneeboard
Print-friendly by default
Use your browser's print command on this page. A print stylesheet strips the navigation, footer, and colour fills, tightens the table, and marks the amber and red bands with underlines so they survive a monochrome printer. The whole table fits one side of A4 or US Letter turned sideways.
No JavaScript is involved, the layout is plain CSS, so it prints identically from any browser and works from a saved copy of the page offline.
A printed table earns its place when the device is stowed or the battery is flat, which is precisely when a mental method also helps. The full set of shortcuts is on the mental estimation page, the underlying equations are collected on the wind formula sheet, and the interactive crosswind calculator handles the cases where you want an exact answer rather than a lookup.
Component Table Questions
Why do some crosswind charts stop at 60 knots?
Printed charts stop where the numbers stop being useful. No civil aircraft has a demonstrated crosswind anywhere near 60 knots, and surface winds that strong close airports rather than presenting a technique problem. Manufacturers size the axis to cover the aircraft plus a margin, so a trainer chart may stop at 30 knots while an airliner chart runs to 50.
Is a crosswind chart as accurate as calculating it directly?
No, but the gap is smaller than the error in the wind report. A chart quantises to whatever increment it is printed at, so a 5° table can be off by a knot or so between rows, while direct trigonometry is exact. Since the reported wind is itself rounded to ten degrees and averaged over two minutes, the chart sits comfortably inside the uncertainty already present.
Do military and civilian crosswind charts differ?
The mathematics is identical, sine and cosine do not change uniform. What differs is presentation and limits. Military charts frequently use a nomograph with a single diagonal read line rather than a grid, cover higher wind speeds, and often incorporate runway condition reading directly into the same figure. Civilian POH charts tend to be simpler grids covering a narrower range.
What's the difference between a crosswind chart and a nomograph?
A chart is a lookup grid: find the row, find the column, read the cell. A nomograph is a graphical calculator where you lay a straight edge across two known scales and read the answer where it crosses a third. The nomograph handles continuous values without interpolation and fits more variables into less space, at the cost of being harder to read quickly and impossible to use on a bouncing kneeboard.
Can I use this chart for helicopter operations?
The arithmetic applies, but the limits do not. A helicopter still faces a crosswind component equal to wind speed times the sine of the angle, so the table gives a correct number. Helicopter wind limits are published differently though, usually as an azimuth diagram covering the full 360° around the aircraft, because tail rotor authority varies with wind direction in a way fixed-wing directional control does not.