What might cause your left wing to touch the ground in a crosswind?
Answer: To your right is coming a 20 mph wind which then hits your right wing. It has the first effect of lifting the right wing and trying to turn the whole plane over so it crashes in takeoff. Since this was my first time at the controls no one told me this could happen and my instructor was a World war II Fighter pilot who had more balls than brains still at that time like in 1968 or so when I was about 20 years old.By this time I had flown many planes in the air and even a glider that detached from a tow plane when I was younger but I had never flown a plane during takeoff before that was under it's own power. So, when the cross wind hit us on takeoff in a gust of 20 mph wind from the right I saw my left wing come within a foot or two of the ground and I was terrified for a second that this could make us crash (which it could have). At least the wing didn't touch the ground and send off sparks or set off the fuel in the wing on fire from the sparks which is where the fuel for the plane is usually stored (inside both the left and the right wings of the plane.
The instructor didn't say anything when I grabbed the Yoke (steering wheel) with both my hands either. This isn't what you are supposed to do by the way. (I found out later) What you are supposed to do is only fly the plane with the yoke with ONLY your left hand in order to keep your right hand free to operate the hand throttle and wing flaps and other controls you need to stay on top of like switching flight fuel tanks from left to right or vice versa depending upon the controls in that particular model plane.
One of the only times (at least during takeoff and landing) that you put both hands on the yoke is if your plane is crashing or losing altitude too quickly to have enough strength to pull yourself out of a dive.
The only really serious dive I have seen in a plane was when my father's friend flew into the takeoff pattern for LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) when I pointed out to him that a jet plane was coming right at us. So, he went into a dive so the jet wash of the plane coming at us wouldn't rip the wings off our then 1949 Stinson plane. This was between 1956 and 1958 and my father let me sit beside the pilot his friend because my Dad knew I wanted to be a pilot when I grew up. I was 8 or 9 years old at the time.
I think this had to be at least 1958 simply because I don't think they flew jet passenger planes much until at least 1957. I was wrong first jet passenger flights was 1954 in Seattle Where the Boeing jet plant is.
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