XWinds w/ Tres @ Crp .. it's the rudder baby!

Tres and I went up at lunch to do some XWind T&G's .. squeezed in 3. Wind was 340 @ 12 17G. We used Rwy 31 to get 40 degrees .. so maybe 6 to 9 kts of Xwind.

Overall pretty good .. one revelation was my use of the rudder in XWind landings. Here's what I was doing ...

Crab in until preflare and go to slid slip .. i.e. ... left rudder to align the plane .. right ailereon to hold center .. so far so good ...

Flare .. right wheel touches .. then left .. then the nose .. this is where I've been screwing up ...

I've been leaving left rudder in ( so naturally plane goes left ) .. instead I need to go to neutral rudder after the mains touch and let the nose down .. neutral.

Then as soon as the nose touches .. ease in right rudder to hold the plane against the Xwind on the ground ..

Aileron's should be full right as soon as wheels touch .. I have been doing this but not enough and not consistently ...

The Big Insight today was the rudder thing .. ! Left .. then Neutral ... then Right ( at least for a right cross wind).