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Crushed by winds.... what was your worst?


wcb

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one time when I first got my plane, I went to practice touch-and-gos….winds were about 25 knots right down the runway....once I took off, I got to altitude and I turned crosswind....before I completed by 90 turn to crosswind, I was most of the way downwind of a 5,000 ft runway....I figured that at 1,000' agl, wind was likely 60 knots.  I quickly landed and once was enough.

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1 hour ago, Dreamlifter said:

Thankful we didn't fly back into this wind!

701KTS ...... YeeHaw!!!

700kts.thumb.JPG.b3ea5840d542170648ecd0117f137477.JPG

I know what you fly and I bet I know for whom.  So, the only question is when do we both fly at the same time.  TAS 494 is awesome, what is that .885?   :lol:    At E170 when was this?  The flying from the “east” as fallen off recently.   

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Maybe closer to our Acclaim performance and concerns... higher and the headwinds got much stronger.  Lower and the icing got much worse (FL200 was -22c).  

Foreflight had the average headwinds at 62kts.  I never saw less than 80kts above 10,000’.  Fuel and alternate fuel become a concern.

Ive noticed Foreflight has a tendency to underestimate headwinds.

588ECACC-4960-4D04-AC42-007B364D2B32.jpeg

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On 2/3/2020 at 11:54 AM, Ragsf15e said:

There’s a reason Minden is a worldwide destination for gliders in the winter and it’s not the cuisine or the sandy beaches!

You can take gliders into the 30s or higher in the wave along the Sierras there.  I got my ppl at Minden and have flown gliders there although not in wave... the summer thermals are real strong too!

Its also were I’m doing hot air balloon training ....winds in the valley at early morning hours are quite predictable 

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Early morning trip to Chattanooga in the Bo with forecast winds of 80 knots from the west at 9000.  Stayed low(4000) from Charlotte to just west of Greenville when ATC sent me to 6 and then 8.  I had enjoyed a 40 knot headwind until then.  Yep, about 80 knots.  Then some big bumps south of Asheville, at one point I saw a 48 knot groundspeed, an all time low.  That was from a 160 knot true airspeed. Speed increased from that point but it was a slow trip.

I did see 264 knots one night coming home from Milwaukee.  And a smooth ride.  Some days are nice, some not so much.

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On 2/5/2020 at 5:17 AM, carusoam said:

Flying over the ground at the speed of sound.... without breaking the sound barrier!

Looks like flying in tailwinds is the elegant solution to Quiet Supersonic Technology ;) probably more smarter than what has been tried in the X-59 QueSST (millions of research and load of Lockheed/NASA/ONERA scientists to "just" put the engine on top of the aircraft :lol:, well more complicated than that, the sonic boom is whole air-frame...)

Edited by Ibra
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This is one clear advantage I had with my Rocket (and all turbo Mooney’s) over my current ride.   I could fly in the Flight Levels for maximum tailwind benefit and keep her down in the breathable altitudes in the headwinds.  

Can’t do that with a turbine.  The fuel burn will kick your hinder down in the breathable altitudes   

Tom

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11 minutes ago, Yooper Rocketman said:

This is one clear advantage I had with my Rocket (and all turbo Mooney’s) over my current ride.   I could fly in the Flight Levels for maximum tailwind benefit and keep her down in the breathable altitudes in the headwinds.  

Can’t do that with a turbine.  The fuel burn will kick your hinder down in the breathable altitudes   

Tom

I would take hurricane force winds to slow you appreciably, Tom.

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My worst in my Mooney was coming back from Orlando to the U.P. about 15 years ago. Had decent tailwinds going down, knocked the trip out in 5 hours.  Coming back I even delayed one day waiting for more friendly winds but they didn’t come.  Saw 80 knots on the nose most the trip at 12k.  What little we could gain going lower I would have lost in TAS anyway.   Stopped for our SECOND fuel stop (never had to that before or after again) and the line guy asked how was your flight?  I said it sucked with the headwinds.  He says “what you complaining about, I was watching you on Flight Aware and you had 10 knots on the Pilatus that just stopped before you “.   Took us well over 10 hours to get home.  

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So here's a question for the group - when flying through strong headwinds (50+ knots), have you noticed an impact on INDICATED airspeed?  I know the theory, but here's what happened to me just this last Monday:

I was flying back from LNS to JYO after having my comm 2 repaired. I was at 6000ft with 60-70 knot winds coming at me from a ~20-30 degree angle, so not too bad. IAS was showing 155 knots, TAS about 165 kn (a little faster than I expected that low, but paid no attention to it, was busy talking to ATC and testing the repaired radio). Then, I had to turn ~10-15 degrees into the wind to stay on course (had the AP in HDG mode and got blown off course a little bit). As soon as I turned into the wind I saw GS decrease by about 10 knots (expected) but I also saw IAS decrease by a good 10-15  knots (now indicating the ~155 knots TAS I expected). 

I wasn't too fazed by it - I imagine strong winds at an angle hitting the pitot tube might mess with the flow a bit and affect the reading - but I had never seen it like that. I immediately started checking everything else (MP, RPM, all switches and knobs) but it was all normal. Got home, did a little math and GS was what it should've been - so there it is. 

Comments? Below is the flight aware track - the arrow shows where I turned to correct course.

image.png.86e1c90692cc9307919d0534a6fbec7f.png

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Don’t be phased, Ricky...

The theory still holds...

The plane is flying at IAS in a moving mass of air...

But, everything affects the IAS each time you adjust the flight controls...

It should all settle out over a few minutes...  

Unless... the airmass keeps changing... :)

Where IAS gets beat up, is... When you are fighting a descending air current.....

Things like mountains and and weather fronts can cause some pretty smooth down drafts on some days....

 

Review your FA charts, add geographical features and weather maps to see if anything stands out...

Trust the theory...  :)

PP thoughts only, not a CFI...

Best regards,

-a-

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28 minutes ago, Ricky_231 said:

Comments? Below is the flight aware track - the arrow shows where I turned to correct course.

For IAS indication,

First one: was the ball centered no matter which heading? Does your AP rely on Yaw Damper Axis or just a Yaw Trim when in HDG mode? does it feel like wing down or crab in HDG mode? and how much it can take on crosswind correction? at 30kts wind on one side will impact the pitot tube and left/right static intakes differential/average 

Second one: is surrounding air turbulent in one heading than other? in theory it should not but sheer turbulence/friction happens when winds are higher than 30kts as air-mass even away from terrain/fronts, the wind can't stay like a moving silk at 50kts and starts to slice up/down by itself (e.g. you can fly forever with no engine when the wind is 50kts if you fly along the sheer wave updraft, you don't even need mountains for that, so I expect your AP was lowering the nose to trade-off some of vertical air movements for IAS), also as far as aerodynamics are concerned any up/down variations with zero average tend to mean less in the long run :lol:

 

Edited by Ibra
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25 minutes ago, Ibra said:

For IAS indication,

First one: was the ball centered no matter which heading? Does your AP rely on Yaw Damper Axis or just a Yaw Trim when in HDG mode? does it feel like wing down or crab in HDG mode? and how much it can take on crosswind correction? at 30kts wind on one side will impact the pitot tube and left/right static intakes differential/average 

Second one: is surrounding air turbulent in one heading than other? in theory it should not but sheer turbulence/friction happens when winds are higher than 30kts as air-mass even away from terrain/fronts, the wind can't stay like a moving silk at 50kts and starts to slice up/down by itself (e.g. you can fly forever with no engine when the wind is 50kts if you fly along the sheer wave updraft, you don't even need mountains for that, so I expect your AP was lowering the nose to trade-off some of vertical air movements for IAS), also as far as aerodynamics are concerned any up/down variations with zero average tend to mean less in the long run :lol:

 

1. Ball was centered. Yaw trim = my foot. I was on HDG mode precisely because NAV wasn't handling the crosswind too well -  it started dancing around the magenta line, so I switched to HDG, crabbed it where it needed to be and went on my merry way, which is why after a little while I had to correct.

2. Ah, I saw something like that happen a long time ago, trying to land on a mountain top in a 172 - huge updraft right before the threshold, pointed the nose down, IAS shot up way more than I was expecting but VS didn't budge (yep, I went around and tried again now taking that into account)

 

 

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39 minutes ago, carusoam said:

Don’t be phased, Ricky...

The theory still holds...

The plane is flying at IAS in a moving mass of air...

But, everything affects the IAS each time you adjust the flight controls...

It should all settle out over a few minutes...  

Unless... the airmass keeps changing... :)

Where IAS gets beat up, is... When you are fighting a descending air current.....

Things like mountains and and weather fronts can cause some pretty smooth down drafts on some days....

 

Review your FA charts, add geographical features and weather maps to see if anything stands out...

Trust the theory...  :)

PP thoughts only, not a CFI...

Best regards,

-a-

yeah - it hadn't occurred to me that I could be flying level in an updraft - that'd explain the faster than expected airspeed. As for geographical features, that stretch of land is fairly flat - couple of hills here and there but the main ridge was way off to my right. But I guess when winds are strong enough even slight terrain effects will be amplified at lower altitudes. 

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1 hour ago, Ricky_231 said:

I was on HDG mode precisely because NAV wasn't handling the crosswind too well -  it started dancing around the magenta line, so I switched to HDG

Yes, HDG mode and foot trim all the way for comfort (and efficiency?)

I found NAV behavior on VOR/LOC modes to be very exciting and non-intuitive on high crosswinds especially when near the source (the only time I did a proper read of the AP manual, got few ideas on max specs but I still have no clues on how it end up with that flight path, that could have been far more fun with low clouds but I would have released early rather than sitting there and watch it S-circling :lol:)

I don't have AP NAV on GPS but I guess on huge crosswinds it wiggles widely (as more constrained that HDG)? and will end up heavy on fuel than HDG :D?

Edited by Ibra
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On 2/7/2020 at 11:23 AM, Ricky_231 said:

yeah - it hadn't occurred to me that I could be flying level in an updraft - that'd explain the faster than expected airspeed. As for geographical features, that stretch of land is fairly flat - couple of hills here and there but the main ridge was way off to my right. But I guess when winds are strong enough even slight terrain effects will be amplified at lower altitudes. 

Plus you can still get a fair degree of Mtn wave action flying along the blue ridge or up where were are from the hills west of OKV or MRB. 

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