Contaminated Runway Takeoff Gate
Give it a runway condition and it resolves the way the FCOM does: contaminated or not, whether FLEX is off the table, and the maximum recommended crosswind that rides with the reported braking action. Move the depth or the temperature and watch the answer move. The gate tells you what. Knowing why is the work.
Set the surface
Contaminated classification assumes > 25% of the surface is covered.
Gate result
The crosswind ladder
Maximum recommended takeoff crosswind, gust included, keyed to the reported braking action and runway condition code. These are recommended values, based on computations - not demonstrated or certified maximums.
| AIREP / braking action | RWYCC | Representative condition | Max rec. XW |
|---|---|---|---|
| GOOD | 5 | Damp, wet, or fluid to 3 mm; frost | 38 kt |
| GOOD TO MEDIUM | 4 | Compacted snow at −15 °C or below | 29 kt |
| MEDIUM | 3 | Dry snow >3–100 mm; wet snow >3–30 mm; compacted snow above −15 °C; slippery wet | 25 kt |
| MEDIUM TO POOR | 2 | Standing water or slush >3–13 mm | 20 kt |
| POOR | 1 | Cold-and-dry ice | 15 kt |
How to study with this
The gate is a drill partner, not a checklist. It rewards prediction. Use it to build the reflex that separates a confident oral from a hopeful one.
Predict, then reveal
Before you touch a control, say the answer out loud: contaminated or wet? FLEX or no FLEX? what crosswind? Set the surface and check yourself. The gap between your guess and the gate is your study list.
Walk the 3 mm gate
Pick a fluid - slush, wet snow - and drag the depth across 3 mm. Watch the runway flip from wet-equivalent to contaminated, and FLEX vanish. That boundary is a favorite examiner probe. Own it.
Find the −15 °C hinge
Select compacted snow and slide the temperature through −15 °C. The recommended crosswind steps between 29 and 25 kt. Most crews never notice the hinge exists. You will.
Chair-fly the runway change
Set a benign surface, note the numbers, then change the condition mid-session - as ATC would at the hold. The point is the recompute reflex: a new answer beats a nudged old one, every time.
Meet the hard stop
Select wet ice. There is no clever number waiting - dispatch is barred without an approved method. Learn to recognize the condition that is a stop, not a calculation.
Notice what it won't tell you
The gate gives you what. It will not explain why FLEX is prohibited, how derate buys back weight on a VMCG-limited runway, or why braking action sizes your wind and not your distance. That reasoning is the oral.
Interrogate the box, don't memorize it.
The A320 Oral Exam Prepper is an interactive study partner that walks you through the reasoning behind every one of these answers - the FCOM logic, the traps, the operator-specific nuance - and cites the exact passage as it goes. First week is free.
Meet your A320 study partner[Nikki: set href to the Pretty Link UTM slug for this magnet]
