What's a quick way to determine which runway to use? Let's say I call up Wx and have the wind direction and I know the runway headings from my charts and the pattern is empty. I can do the math, but it's tedious and slow and even worse when there are multiple runways. This is what I usually do:


Runways are 13 and 31
Wind is 253° which rounds to 25
$25-13=12$
$31-25=6$
I'm going to use Runway 31


Is there a trick to determine best runway quickly without doing the math?
This might take a few seconds longer, but it's math-free: On your kneeboard, draw a quadrant (like this: +). Draw a line through it for your runway(s). Draw an arrow to represent the wind. The answer will be apparent. Do it enough times, and you'll be able to visualize the drawing without actually doing it.

It's also a great technique for calculating holds.