Enter the runway heading and wind to see the crosswind, headwind or tailwind, and the gust case clearly, then switch to the live decoder when you want the airport report in the same workflow.
Standalone wind tool
Enter the runway heading, wind direction, steady wind, and optional gust. If you only have a runway designator such as 08, SkyStudy treats it as 080 degrees.
SkyStudy will show the steady headwind or tailwind component, the crosswind side, and the gust case so you can judge the full picture quickly.
Positive headwind numbers help. Negative headwind numbers mean a tailwind component. Crosswind is shown with the direction it reaches you from, because left-versus-right matters when you brief the landing.
If the runway designator is all you have, use the runway number rather than guessing the exact magnetic heading. Entering 08 is usually enough to get a practical answer fast.
Use the METAR and TAF decoder when you want the live airport picture first, then come back here if you want to work a manual scenario or a different runway option.
Wind component questions are a fixture of ATPL Flight Planning (subject 033) and Performance (032). Performance frames them as limits: given a wind, is the crosswind inside the aircraft's demonstrated maximum, or which runway keeps the tailwind legal. Flight Planning and General Navigation use the same trigonometry to build drift and groundspeed. The arithmetic is easy; the marks are lost in the setup, reading the angle off the wrong reference or swapping sine and cosine.
You are landing on runway 24 (heading 240°) and the tower passes a wind of 300° at 20 kt. What are the components?
10 kt headwind and about 17 kt of crosswind from the right.
Common trap: Swapping sine and cosine. Measured from the runway axis, the crosswind takes the sine and the head or tailwind takes the cosine, so at 60° off most of the wind is across the runway, not down it. The swapped pair (17 kt headwind, 10 kt crosswind) is almost always offered as a distractor.
First find the wind angle: the difference between the wind direction and the runway heading. Then split the wind: crosswind component = wind speed × sin(wind angle), and headwind component = wind speed × cos(wind angle). A negative headwind result is a tailwind. The crosswind is what limits you against the aircraft demonstrated crosswind, while the head or tailwind drives your take-off and landing distance.
In the flight deck you rarely reach for a calculator. The clock code treats the wind angle as minutes on a clock face: 15° is about a quarter of the wind as crosswind, 30° is a half, 45° is about two-thirds, 60° is about 90%, and 90° or more is the full wind across. So a 20 kt wind 30° off the runway gives roughly 10 kt of crosswind in your head.
Runway 09 (heading 090°), wind reported 120° at 20 kt. The wind angle is 120 − 90 = 30°. Crosswind = 20 × sin 30° = 20 × 0.5 = 10 kt from the right. Headwind = 20 × cos 30° = 20 × 0.866 ≈ 17 kt. If the gust were 30 kt, the gust crosswind would be 30 × 0.5 = 15 kt, which is the figure you brief against the aircraft limit.
Wind components run through ATPL Flight Planning, Performance and General Navigation, and the same maths sets your groundspeed and drift in the navigation problems. Practise the clock code until it is instant, then use this calculator to check your manual answer.
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Wind components show up in Flight Planning, Performance and General Navigation. SkyStudy turns them into exam-style question practice across every subject. Free to start, no card needed.
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