Wind Component Chart – Crosswind & Headwind Reference

A wind component chart is a graphical or tabular reference that converts any wind direction and speed into a crosswind component and a headwind component, without asking a pilot to work out sine and cosine by hand. The FAA publishes the standard version in the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (PHAK), and Jeppesen reprints a nearly identical layout in the commercial flight manuals used by airline and corporate crews worldwide. ICAO does not mandate a specific chart design, but it does standardize how wind direction and speed are reported in a METAR, and the chart depends on that standard to work. Wind speed on the chart is always in knots, matching how METARs and ATIS report it.

Every flight school hands a copy of this chart to new students during ground school, usually in the first week. The chart turns two pieces of information, wind angle from the runway and total wind speed, into two answers: how much wind pushes sideways across the runway (crosswind) and how much pushes along the runway (headwind or tailwind). Student pilots use it to decide whether a crosswind exceeds their personal limit. Dispatchers use it to release a flight to an airport with borderline crosswind conditions. Both groups compare the chart's answer against the aircraft's published crosswind limit before committing to a runway.

Read the chart by finding your wind speed first, then your wind angle, then the cell or intersection where the two meet. On a printed FAA or Jeppesen chart, wind speed appears as curved arc lines fanning out from the center, one arc for each speed in 5- or 10-knot steps. Wind angle appears as straight radial lines spreading from that same center point, one line for each angle in 10-degree steps.

Trace the arc for your reported wind speed until it crosses the radial line for your wind angle from the runway heading. That intersection point is your answer. Drop straight down from it to read the crosswind component on the horizontal axis, and look straight across to read the headwind component on the vertical axis. On a table like the one above, the same lookup happens in one step: find the row for the angle, find the column for the speed, and read both numbers from the cell.

For example, a 20-kt wind at 30° off the runway gives a 10-kt crosswind and a 17.3-kt headwind, read directly off the chart with no calculator. Runway heading, wind direction, and wind speed are the only three numbers you need before opening the chart.

A nomograph is a graphical calculator: a single diagram that replaces a formula with a line you can trace by eye. The crosswind nomograph plots wind speed as concentric arcs and wind angle as radial lines on one chart, so the intersection of the two gives both the crosswind and headwind component by simple projection, with no multiplication required.

Tabular charts and nomographs solve the same problem two different ways. A table gives an exact number in a cell; a nomograph gives a visual intersection point read off an axis. Pilots rarely reach for either one during normal flying today, since ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, and panel-mounted avionics compute the exact crosswind instantly from live wind data. The nomograph survives anyway, because FAA and EASA checkrides still test whether a candidate can read one cold, without a phone, and because the graphical method builds a clearer mental picture of how wind splits into a crosswind and headwind component.

Preflight planning starts with pulling the current wind from the METAR or ATIS, then running it through the chart before the engine ever starts. Extract the wind direction and speed from the METAR wind group; the METAR decoder does this automatically if you paste in the raw text.

Next, find the angle between the wind direction and your planned runway heading. Subtract the smaller number from the larger and, if the result is over 180°, subtract it from 360° to get the shortest angle. Look up that angle and the reported wind speed on the chart to get the crosswind component. Compare that number against your aircraft's maximum demonstrated crosswind limit from the POH, and against any personal or school limit that's lower. If the METAR reports a gust factor, look up the crosswind again using the higher gust speed, since a gust can push a comfortable wind past the aircraft's crosswind limit within seconds. If the crosswind is too high, check whether a different runway lowers the angle, or whether the flight should wait for the wind to shift or ease.

The rule of sixths estimates crosswind in your head using the clock position of the wind instead of a chart. Picture the wind angle as an hour position on a clock face, with 12 o'clock straight down the runway and 3 or 9 o'clock exactly abeam. Each hour past 12 represents roughly one-sixth of the total wind speed as crosswind, so multiply the hour position by the wind speed, then divide by 6.

At 30° off the nose, close to 1 o'clock, the crosswind is about 3/6, or half the wind speed. At 60°, near 2 o'clock, it's about 5/6, or 83%. At 90°, 3 o'clock, it's the full 6/6, the entire wind speed. Military pilots developed the shortcut for cockpits without a chart handy, and general aviation instructors still teach it as a fast sanity check before committing to a runway.

The clock code maps wind direction onto an imaginary clock face centered on the aircraft's nose, the method the UK CAA teaches student pilots as an alternative to the rule of sixths. Twelve o'clock is straight ahead, a pure headwind. Six o'clock is directly behind, a pure tailwind. Three and nine o'clock mark the wingtips, where the wind produces full crosswind and no headwind at all.

To estimate crosswind, count how many hour positions the wind sits from 12 o'clock, convert that offset to degrees (each hour equals 30°), and apply the same sine relationship the chart uses. A wind at 2 o'clock sits 60° off the nose, giving a crosswind near 87% of total speed. Pilots favor the clock code for radio calls too: ATC and other pilots describe traffic and hazards by clock position, so thinking in clock terms keeps the mental model consistent across the cockpit. See our rules of thumb guide for more shortcuts like this one.

The chart grid has two axes: one reads the crosswind component, the other reads the headwind or tailwind component, and every wind you plot lands somewhere between the two. Moving along the crosswind axis means the wind pushes more sideways across the runway; moving along the headwind axis means it pushes more along the runway centerline. A wind exactly on the runway heading sits entirely on the headwind axis, with zero crosswind.

At 90°, the wind sits entirely on the crosswind axis: the crosswind reading equals the total wind speed, and the headwind reading drops to zero, since sin(90°) = 1 and cos(90°) = 0. That's what a full crosswind looks like on the grid. Airline and charter dispatchers read the same grid the same way pilots do during preflight release planning, checking that the crosswind stays under the aircraft type's crosswind limit before they sign off on a departure from a given runway, especially at airports with only one usable runway.