Crosswind Landing Gear-

In the video at this post
we discussed, in the comments, 
the fact that the gear on one airplane looks as if
it is canted in order to absorb the stresses 
of landing in a strong crosswind.

One of the neat things about Blogging is how our
blog-family comes up with answers to questions. 

ThirdWaveDave
sent me the addresses of a couple of his friends
that flew Boeings for the airlines.
Both responded to my notes....
Both are Viet Nam Vets,
so I've added new members to my "family". (Thanks TWD!)

"I flew B727's for UPS and B727's /B757's for Northwest
and  have several thousand hours in Boeing products.
The video of the cross wind landings of
Boeings was made at an airport in South America,
can't remember where,
where they have high sustained cross winds during
certain parts of the year.
This is where Boeing takes their aircraft to test the max
sustainable cross wind component allowable so they
can validate the engineer's estimates for the
aircraft manuuals.  The aircraft are all rigged with
sensors and instrumentation to measure stress
on various parts of the airframe.
And no, the gear geometry doesn't adjust for wind component
like the C5 does.
What you see on the video is distortion due to heat
and debris in the wind.
Every time I see that video I have new respect for
Boeing machines.
They build a tank, Airbus builds a Humvee."

So there ya have it-
Tough gear, but it doesn't really do anything out of the 
ordinary in order to land in strong crosswinds.