Winds Aloft

[aerobat95]

So just got back from a trip to Columbus, MS and back.  So my question is this....why is it that heading out there the tail wind that I should have gotten was not as good as predicted and on the way home the headwind was much greater than predicted.  Going out there I was thinking I was going to get an extra 25kts...only saw about 10kts.  On the return trip my ground speed was around 110kts most of the way to KHOT.....~45kts in the face  :-(  Otherwise awesome trip. 

[flyby201]

Do you think it might have had something to do with the different altitudes? How much time lapsed between each leg of the trip? I had a trip to KTKI about a week and a half ago. The trip down there was around 125 kts, the trip back we saw 214 kts in my "J". We were on the ground about 4 hours.

[sreid]

So just got back from a trip to Columbus, MS and back.  So my question is this....why is it that heading out there the tail wind that I should have gotten was not as good as predicted and on the way home the headwind was much greater than predicted.  Going out there I was thinking I was going to get an extra 25kts...only saw about 10kts.  On the return trip my ground speed was around 110kts most of the way to KHOT.....~45kts in the face  :-(  Otherwise awesome trip. 

If you're slower than you anticipated with a tailwind and slower than you anticipated with a headwind, maybe your true airspeed isn't as high as you think it is! ;-)  Like a Piper with a built in headwind!

[aerobat95]

Yea my true typically is 155ktas, on the leg out there the night before the winds were supposed to be at my back.....however the day of the flight they were more of a quartering tailwind and I did not net nearly as much as I was planning the day before....coming home the weather was supposed to be better.  I guess the point of my post is I never seem to get lucky with the tailwinds.....only one time did I get the tail winds I was hoping for.....35kts on the tail and I was getting 185kts gs....I was pretty happy that day.  That trip out to KGTR only took about 2.5hrs.   I do know I was sure happy to be in a Mooney today though....an older guy was flying out of GTR in a 182 heading the same direction.....I could only imagine what his gs was. 

[Jerry 5TJ]

Well, I went from the San Francisco area to Salem, Oregon on the 24th and the headwinds were 75 to 80 knots the whole way.   Christmas day we came home, and the winds were...headwinds again, about 65 knots the whole way.  

I think the moral of the story is that I was going the wrong direction both days.

 

 

[Awful_Charlie]

I remember days and weekends sailing when it always seemed to be that the wind was on the nose both ways, resulting in plenty of tacking and often plenty of getting very wet.  After a while, we agreed to go with the wind on the outbound leg, as we knew we would get one easy leg!

 

I also suffered a couple of weeks ago, 70kts on the nose outbound to the north-east, but a south-westerly on the way home just put it on the side, no little net gain or loss - neither of those winds were forecast like that, it should have been 45kts on the nose outbound, and 15kts behind on the way back.  Oh well, it keeps the Avgas companies in business