DenverJayhawk

Wind was 33-36mph and guesting up to 44mph at the club yesterday according to weather.com. I wasn't going to get a chance to fly again for at least another week if I didn't go yesterday, so I said "what the hell" and packed up the Big Stik 60 in the SUV after work. I wasn't surprised that I was the only person there.

Each time I fly the Stik, I fall in love with it even more. On landing I would do a high speed down wind and base. Then on final I kept about 1/4 throttle and crabbed it in to the beginning of the runway. At about 3 feet above the runway I cut throttle and it straighted out perfectly from the crab approach, harriered like a kite for about 3 seconds, then touched down more gently than any other landing I've ever done. When I kept airspeed up on final, it was much less affected by the diagnal cross wind and basically cut through the wind like hot knife. Plus it makes this great howling sound on approach. I'm really glad I went with a .91 sized engine as it pulled through 30mph head wind without missing a beat.

High wind flying is GREAT! More people should do it and more people should own STIKS! I think a Stik will always be a permanent stay in my collection.

DenverJayhawk

Mods - I meant to post this in the Beginners forum. Sorry. Can it be moved?

CGRetired

My Feedback: (1)

It IS in the Beginners Forum.

Good to hear you had good luck with those high-wind landings. Some just don't brave it. I'm one of those. I guess we get enough nice weather days here that I don't have to sweat losing a day to wind.

Good stuff!!

CGr.

goirish

Well I don't fly in the 30mph range but have in the mid-20's several times. In fact, if you don't fly in the wind, you don't fly in Michigan. Our big problem is the runway is north and south so you most generally have a west prevailing wind to cope with. Certainly helps to improve your cross wind landings.

BTWHi CG

opjose

DenverJayhawk CONGRATS!

That is exactly why I love my Big Stik.

I'm typically the only person flying when the winds are high.

I stop flying if the winds are so high that I have a lot of trouble HOLDING ON to the plane while I'm carrying it!

It takes a mighty high wind to get to that point.


Isn't it a blast to have your Stik "dancing in the wind"?

( there's a strange and obscure metaphor in there somewhere.. )

Lnewqban

Well done DG!!

It is not fair that slope soarers get all the fun the wind can provide!

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

I always look to see what the wind is forcast for the day I want to fly. If it says 5-10 that's pretty good, I know it will be light in the morning and more like 15 by noon. If it says 10-15 I don't bother going out at all because I know it's going to be in the 20s with heavy gusts. If I happen to be at the field and we get one of our freak heavy winds that just come up like magic I'm not about to leave no mater how high it is, I just grab my old Kaos or a trainer and fly. Some planes like the Sticks are just too much fun to fly in heavy winds, seems we all have our go to planes. When my flying partner was leaving for Texas it was going to be the last time we got to fly together, the wind was already in the high 30s but we went up anyway. Other guys would pull in, watch us then leave. My 12 year old student asked why they weren't sticking around and flying, we made up some other reason, we didn't tell him you couldn't fly in high winds. Flying in the wind can be fun, up to a point.

DenverJayhawk

I originally posted it to the ARF/RTF forum by mistake and asked the mods to move it to Beginners.

Charlie P.

Good on you. I enjoy some wind, but I gotta say 30 mph with gusts to 44 mph would ground me!

And, as you point out, a Stik is a good choice in wind - symmetrical airfoil, gobs of power (usually), plenty of control authority.

I have flown my Hot Stik (a low-wing Goldberg interpretation of the Stik) backwards on windy days and I love to do STOL touch-and-goes when it is down the runway. I can get airborne in a 10 foot roll out and land the same way. It can Harrier like nobody's business in 15 mph winds.

A bunch of us were out in 15 to 20 mph winds across the ruunway last week and a fellow with a Chinese Tiger II type clone followed me down but did not compensate for the crosswind. The wind got under his wing and flipped it while still a foot off the ground. The wing was OK but the fuselage was torn in two. Mind that upwind wingtip.

My instructor told me years ago "The model doesn't know the wind is blowing". That's true at times, but it WILL make things happen that must be compensated for. On windy days he'd take us up and make us do horizontal figure eights and critique us if they weren't even and symmetrical. Try it sometime!

Like a dead-stick while far downwind of the runway - avoid getting too far downwind.

Maneuvers you could get away with in any direction should be done into the wind - watched a guy do a perfect downwind figure "9" and smush a brand new Tiger Moth biplane.

Landings - use a little extra throttle.

Landings crosswind - keep some speed up and be ready with the rudder for corrections.

Watch the first downwind turn at low level. You'll suddenly loose lift and height, worse with some models than others, unless you feed rudder and keep the nose up.

speedy72vega

Where are you flying at DenverJayHawk? I always fly at Chatfield, there's a North/South runway as well as an East/West, nice when there's a crosswind.

DenverJayhawk

I fly out of Cherry Creek state park. We have a North/South and West/East runway, but yesterday, the wind was out of the Southwest.

I've been to the club at Chatfield and I know it's very nice. But it's too far from where I live.

Skyhigh Bev

[color=#FF0099]Gentlemen,

For those of you who know me and my thread, you've already seen this photo.... Last year during hurricane season, my good friend and former Flight Instructor David Storer invited me to go "Extreme Flying" in the wind courtesy of Hurricane Ike... this is a shot of us during "mid-air refueling".... David held the wing tip of my SkyRaider and the plane would lift off the table into the wind on it's own.... A great day.... we did extreme downwind highspeed low passes over the runway, incredible negative snaps and when not fighting to "park" the planes in the air....flew "backwards" in the wind with our SkyRaiders to the delight of the small handful of pilots who wouldn't go up in it! I'm certainly glad the Hurricane season has been quiet this year, but I'd love to repeat a day like that again.

Lnewqban

Just an amazing picture!!

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

One day I had a young student that wouldn't fly with me because of the wind, I showed him this photo of Bev filling up and he decided it looked like fun so we went out. His first reaction was that his engine went dead stick because his plane came to a halt after his turn. He got it figured out and had a ball. He will wind fly with his old trainer but still leaves his nice Extra at home. I still think if everyone had a live feed like our weather bug so they could see the true wind speed then these high winds I keep seeing posted would get back down into the 20s.

Skyhigh Bev

[color=#FF0099]Greybeard...that is just fabulous to hear about your student!!!! I also remember my first turns into a wicked headwind...pretty cool stuff!!!! I agree about the wind speeds... we all chipped in and bought a "weather channel" system for our field last year... we get wind speed, temp, wind chill factor(as if we need that here!) and precipitation... As practice, we would guess the speed and then check the base unit to see what it "really" was... after a while, those field "estimates" got more in line with reality!!!

Side note: the evening news says Tropical Storm Henri has formed in the eastern Caribbean...good news is they say it will fall apart before it gets to Hispanola.

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

Hi Bev, glad to see you here again. The same kid was only 12 when my partner and I took him out for the first time. It was the last day my flying partner and I could fly together before he moved to Texas so we flew in wind that was blowing a constant 28. We didn't tell him you couldn't fly in high winds and we had no buddy box that day, did the old trade off of the TX for him. At the end of the day he wanted to know why other guys were pulling up with planes in there vans but not getting out to fly, they would just park and watch us? We just told him some people didn't want to risk there planes flying in the wind. He was never afraid of the wind until he started to fly his own planes!! If I tell him to fly one of mine he is all for it! Go figure? He liked the Fun 51 a lot better then my Kaos.
Gene

billd76

My Feedback: (3)

I draw the line today.
"Latest forecast guidance continues to put APG on the fence for seeing wind gusts up to 45 MPH, or 39 knots from 0900 through 1800. A strong cold front whips past us around 0800 with strong cold air advection and winds at 5000' mixing down to the surface behind during the morning and not relaxing until the early evening. Please secure or bring in light objects that are prone to "blow" around and become projectiles prior to when the winds pick up starting after 0800"

Gets fairly dark @ 1900 these days, so will have to wait. 45 mph is a bit much I think.

Villa

High wind flying is a lot of fun. The average member will not try it. They don't know how much fun they are missing. I have a Canard, a Biplane, a Twin Tail, and a J3-Cub, all with OS46FX or AX engines. Only the J3-Cub is grounded in high winds. It does help that they are all SPADS. A horrible landing (in a downdraft) is no problem.

edmoor

My Feedback: (1)

you will change your mind one of these days.......them are marginable winds for a full scale trainer.....it will bust your plane soon.

jimmyjames213

My Feedback: (2)

their are only two problems with flying in high winds
1. if the wind is gusting/random near the ground it can really through a plane around, if you arnt quick on the controls (or have enough control throw) its only a matter of time before a bad gust cartwheels a plane (unless your landing into the wind, then its not a problem)
2. if theirs a 35 mhp wind, your planes stall speed is 20 mph, than that means going downwind you plane has to travel at least 55mph to not loose lift (aka altitude)

a lot of people are scared of the wind when their is no reason to be, i fly planes that if for some reason they were to bite the dust, i wouldnt cry over them .
my windy day planes are,
spad trainer
old th voyager (someone was going to chuck it, but i said i would take it)
th fun-51 (i would cry if i lost that one , its a awsome plane)
spad hor (combat plane)

da Rock

One thing that does happen on many a high wind day............. The higher wind speed sweeps away bumpy conditions.

Nah, not every time, but often enough to make it worth while for us to study that "too high a winds to fly" day with an experienced eye. When I lived in Minnesnowta the wind was usually way speedier than down here in the Old Nawth State. But the higher speed often meant more laminar. Yeah, the turbulence was more to deal with, but often covered less area. Heck, we flew gliders off a sod farm. Not a lot of turbulence creators there. And a bunch of our slope sites were clear faces for a mile or so. But the power flied where I flew had trees along one side. No way for laminar to live if the wind was coming from that direction. But the runway had nothing much off it's Westerly end, and that's where a lot of the wind comes from up there. Westerly winds weren't a problem no matter what the speeds.

A lot of days here will be bumpy on approach when the wind speeds aren't even close to scary. Truth is, the bumps are really threatening, but they're there. I went out a couple of days ago when the forecast was 15-20. That prediction keeps most of the guys home. A buddy showed up who has flown since the 70s. We had a decent day. We both noticed how steady the wind was at home. I got a copse of trees I look at to see "which way the wind is blowing". He's got the same. Our planes didn't get rocked around on final or takeoff (about the only time the wind threatens the model) any more than they do on a bumpy "calm" or 5-10 day.

You got a grove of trees you can see from your house?

da Rock

Keep in mind that "wind makes your runway longer".

(and no wind makes it shorter)

You rather have a longer or a shorter runway?

HighPlains

My Feedback: (1)

If you are wearing a hat

It's not windy.

If there are two still flying

It's not windy.

Most of the posts

Are windy.

da Rock

And wind is almost always a good thing.

RVman

i'm still skeptical with some of these wind claims. Gusts to 40+ mph for example is extreme for a sport plane. A speed plane that is fast and clean might be able to handle it but you would need 1/2 throttle on a slower sport plane to keep it moving forwards. Thats not to mention any turbulence and such. But everywhere I've flown we have hills, trees, etc that cause shifty and bumpy winds...not many here fly in more than 10-15 mph.