bnicolette Posted November 15, 2011 Report Posted November 15, 2011 I had to share this. Today we got a call @ 5am for a trip to Ft. Worth leaving @ 7am. Yesterday we battled 30kt crosswinds coming back into Pittsburgh to drop pax then back to our little home airport AFJ. This morning I got to the airport and checked the radar to find this line of weather almost the entire route of the flight. We called it: IFW (I follow Wx). It was really a lot of fun and quite smooth. If it wasn't I would have just blasted to the west for a bit. We flew down at FL400 till the tops started rising then climbed to FL420 (had a block altitude 410-430 as there is not FL420) The highest cell we saw was approx FL450 and most of the cells on the way down were FL350 and below. I just couldn't believe that this line of weather was directly beneath us the whole route. Also to add to the fun, we had 150kts of wind right on the nose for the first hour which turned a 2:25 flight into 3:10. We were doing an organ donor flight today so flew as a Lifegaurd and one nice thing about that is we always get direct routing and priority handling. We always file direct and get cleared as filed. Good stuff. However, these flights are 90% of the time in the middle of the night and always seem to be in the worst weather. Quote
201er Posted November 15, 2011 Report Posted November 15, 2011 Wow, a 150kt wind in the Mooney would put you at a dead stand still! Funny how you just shrug it off in what you're flying. Thanks for sharing. Quote
bnicolette Posted November 16, 2011 Author Report Posted November 16, 2011 I wish I could say that I shrugged it off. If it weren't for having to keep a close eye on the weather, that headwind would have been driving me absolutely crazy, but at least we had something to keep us occupied!! According to my "fltplan.com" navigation sheet the headwind component was supposed to average 111 knots over the whole trip. The sad part is that on the way home they would only average 77 knots???? Quote
Hank Posted November 16, 2011 Report Posted November 16, 2011 Ain't it neat how headwinds are always stronger than tailwinds?? Quote
Jeff_S Posted November 16, 2011 Report Posted November 16, 2011 Quote: Hank Ain't it neat how headwinds are always stronger than tailwinds?? Quote
xftrplt Posted November 16, 2011 Report Posted November 16, 2011 at the speeds we fly, winds have to be ~45° off either side of the tail to give us a push... True, but it is true for all airspeeds--from J3 to Sr-71...and of the same magnitude, just not the same percent of TAS. If in doubt, play with it on an E6B. Quote
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