I was reading the latest issue of Aviation Safety and it published an article by Rick Durden aviation attorney and atp/cfi. This may be understood by many taildraggers but it's news to me.

"There is one other technique for handling very strong crosswinds that is perfectly legal but rarely considered. It has prevented accidents, yet airport managers sometimes get distressed about it, and a number of pilots and air traffic controllers don't fully understand it is legal am may be the absolute safest way of dealing with strong crosswinds.
If the airport has a long taxiway that is oriented into the wind, isn't near buildings or obstructions and there is no one on it, you land on the taxiway.
As long as there aren't any people or things to hit, it's certainly much safer to land into the wind on a taxiway than to try landing in a crosswind so strong you are concerned about making it safely. Importantly, the FAR's contain no prohibition against taxiway landings. So long as the landing does not conflict with any other airplanes in the traffic pattern and there are no people, vehicles or buildings in the immediate vicinity of the touchdown and rollout area, the operation is not careless or reckless, and is far, far safer than losing control of an airplane while landing on a runway."

At my home field there used to be a long narrow abandoned taxiway that I would use for landing practice. I never had anyone tell me not to use it but I did pick my days when there was no other traffic.
I think it was "X" marked, maybe that could have caused me some problems?

It's common to launch and land gliders from taxiways. It's common to land gliders anywhere that you can safely, dry lakes roads, fields, ect. I can see doing this at an uncontrolled field but maybe getting ATC to clear you to land on a crosswind taxiway might be a little difficult.

I guess the real question is does the ATC have the right (other than opposing traffic) to say no? Can you kindly insist on a taxiway landing if at first he says no? 15 gusting to 25 xwind in a taildragger with low fuel would make me bold.

The choppers at F45 land just about anywhere. I figure if I talk to traffic I have the same rights to land as they do. That includes taxiways. Have not had too, but reserve the option

GR

Just remember those little blue lights

-DP

Baddog

You might want to re-read 91.3 paragraph (b)

The towers job is to keep planes from running into each other, not require that you land under unsafe conditions.

Taxiway take off landings are not uncommon operations at Windyschmucka Nevada.

Chris C.

I was going heading to my favorite refueling airports last summer and the runway was closed since they had some vehicals doing something on it. It wasn't Notam'd closed. Anyway, when I got there, the airport manager was on the radio and advised me that the taxiway was available for landing and takeoff. At Ogden, UT, you will occassionally hear the tower clear aircraft to land on the grass/dirt area parralleling one of the runways. Of course, the clearance always contains "at your own risk".

I had permission from our local airport manager to land in the dirt between the taxi way and runway for short field practice. It was nice and flat, dirt, no lights unless one got close to the runway, between to runway turnoffs but it was nice and wide so I stayed close to the taxiway, it was good for short field landing practice. I also made sure no one was in the way.

I just did it at Carson City a while back. Tried to land on the runway but was sideways with full controls so went around and landed on the diagonal taxiway no problem. Sometimes taxiing is harder than the landing part. If anyone said anything I would first point out PIC authority and then hand them the keys and tell them to go out and try landing on the runway while I videotape the event and if they wrap it up in a ball, they buy the plane.

Another good option for landing in a stiff crosswind that many dont take advantage of works good if you have a wide runway. If the runway is wide simply angle your aproach in a favorable way that aligns you more into the wind taking advantage of the entire width of the runway. It may appear that you are making a really lousy approach but can allow you to really cut down on the crosswind component.
And when the guy behind you groundloops it coming in nice and straight, the angled landing you made going from one side of the runway to the other will look mighty fine indeed.

reminds me of the old joke about the Irish pilot...

Pilot: "that's the shortest runway I've ever seen, Paddy!"
Co-pilot: "yeah, but look how %#$* wide it is!"

whynotfly wrote:Another good option for landing in a stiff crosswind that many dont take advantage of works good if you have a wide runway.

A friend of mine did this at the Spokane airport, with permission from the tower. He was flying a Zenith 701, the winds were blowing 35, so he landed sideways. I wasn't smart enough to ask him how the taxi was.
tom