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Finally a tailwind


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Way to go, McM!

Wait until you select your destination by where the big H is on the weather map...

Or your overnight stay to allow the H to go through... giving you a tail wind both directions...

Nothing like a hamburger run when the big H is stationary over your local area...

The modern equivalent of motor sailing...

Great for traversing time zones and latitudes...! :)

Best regards,

-a-

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6 hours ago, kerry said:

It seems like 80% of the time I fly I have a head wind.  It reminds me when I was a kid and my dad would tell me how he would have to walk to school up hill both ways in the snow. lol.

When I lived in Alaska as a kid we took a trail through the woods to get to the elementary school. The highest spot on the trail was right about the midway point so we actually did walk uphill both ways through the snow... :D

 

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While it's nit-picky trivia, it really is true that headwinds are (slightly) more common than tailwinds - if you define a "head" wind as something that reduces your ground speed.  The reason is that a direct cross-wind doesn't have a neutral ground speed effect, it still slows you down a hair due to wind correction angle.  At typical Mooney speeds and winds aloft, the neutral point is around 5 degrees quartering.  In other words, there are 190 degrees of winds that hurt you and only 170 degrees of winds that help.

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18 hours ago, carusoam said:

 

Way to go, McM!

Wait until you select your destination by where the big H is on the weather map...

Or your overnight stay to allow the H to go through... giving you a tail wind both directions...

Nothing like a hamburger run when the big H is stationary over your local area...

The modern equivalent of motor sailing...

Great for traversing time zones and latitudes...! :)

Best regards,

-a-

That's actually an idea, may have to try that

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19 hours ago, kerry said:

It seems like 80% of the time I fly I have a head wind.  It reminds me when I was a kid and my dad would tell me how he would have to walk to school up hill both ways in the snow. lol.

I read somewhere that the likelihood of getting a headwind is always higher than a tailwind. It was a very interesting and compelling argument, just don't ask me to explain it. But the truth is most the times flying the NE corridor you encounter a headwind with a crosswind.

May be somebody could explain it...

Oscar

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I had a good taste of a nice tailwind last week. Winds out of the north on the order of 30-50kts. I climbed out with my GS showing 117 at +700fpm. As I hit 3500, I could feel the plane stop climbing. I watched the VSI slowly trickle down....600....500..400.300.200.100.....0......-50....-100. I had a mini panic attack. Power was good, nothing had changed in the last few minutes, plane sounded normal, showing 140 indicated, but controls were mushy and VSI was stagnant. Then I looked down...150kts ground speed. I guess I had climbed into a low-level 'jet stream'. My speed was climbing by 5 knots a second. 155...160...165....170...175. It finally stabilized at 194kts ground speed at 23 squared. That was COOL!

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