Lownverted

My Feedback: (4)

I don't fly when the wind is more than 1/2 of my planes stall speed, otherwise you crash when you turn downwind.

wjvail

My Feedback: (3)

What?

Rob2160

I'm pretty sure that was a joke. Did you read the "downwind turn" thread?

hookedonrc

If you don't learn to fly in the wind in Oklahoma you won't fly much.

My instructor always told me the plane doesn't know there is any wind. My response was yeah, just like a car not knowing there is a cliff ahead.

abufletcher

By the way, I heard there was a politician down in Texas who declared (seriously) that wind was a limited resource and that if we started putting up wind generator farms, well, pretty soon the wind would get used up...and then we'd be in real trouble.

abufletcher

It's not the cliff you have to worry about. It's that valley floor at the bottom.

SrTelemaster150

He said the winds would slow down & it would lead to global warming.

abufletcher

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17871300

SrTelemaster150

Interesting but it still doesn't lead to higher overall temperatures.

It's just like using your ceiling fan in winter to keep warm air from collecting near the ceiling.

The politician you cited was in the oil industry's pocket & trying to cast negativity on the reneable energy movement. I saw the quotes on FaceBook a while back.

abufletcher

Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you, just found this interesting. Speaking of wind turbines and RC...there's always somebody...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4St_Ht9JpQo

GallopingGhostler

You're right about that in this region that stretches from New Mexico through Panhandle Texas into western and middle Oklahoma. With experience, one learns to fly when winds are above 15 mph. I usually pack it in when they start approaching 25 mph, don't mind the occasional gusts but when the wind is steadily above 25 mph is my practical limit.

I think what the instructor was referring to is that the wind is a continuum. In reference to the wind, if one doesn't mind location drift, he is right. But we are fixed in location to the wind, so that flight is in reference to our location, not to the wind's location. So, flight is relative to us. In a 25 mph situation, One landing at 35 mph is do 10 mph into the wind. Flying 65 mph with the wind equates to 90 mph. It's kind of fun to watch sport / cabin planes at full or near full throttle zoom past with the wind and poke along into the wind.

What makes it a challenge that becomes a learned response is to keep airspeed up when flying with the wind. I've dumped planes by stalling them because I did not keep up their airspeed, especially on dead stick with the wind.

paladin

My Feedback: (9)

i lost my P-39 on a windy day. first time in real wind i lifted off and immediately turned down wind. spent the entire rest of the flight trying to get back to the field. i got to te tall grass of the down wind edge of the runway before the engine quite. it was under powered.


leason learned was------ do not turn off the runway till you see you can penetrate into it.


for ever i would bring several good planes flown in wind with gusts that do not top 20mph. and one everyday flyer, this has been a p-51 for 30 years, 3 p-51's over that time. i still have the two i built, they are in need of a teardown and reglue athen recover plus other mechanical things i would like to change on them. the last everyday flier was a ARF, it had to be reglued twice and recovered once. this last time on a dead stick on takeoff on a windy day the top main spar broke, well the d section sheeting would not move but everything under it would.


we used to have the nut club here for flying 12 months a year. we took it one step further and did it in cubs, every year we did not have a faitality we reduced the engine size. i was flying a GP cub with a saito 50 4 stroke. we would walk the planes out point them into the wind and had to have other nuts hold the tips untill the pilot advanced the throttle. we actuall all had the experience of landing backwards, tought us that AOA is the key! and wind delta (gusts).


then came flying life perservers. i had hoped they could takeover some of these dueties. but they are just not robust enough yet, and im not going to take the time to make them (silk purse from a sow's ear).

GerKonig

Still remember years back (over 20 years back) I used to fly in all conditions. Snow, ice, rain wind. One day I arrived to the field and my oldest brought the wing to the flight line (the field was empty). As soon as he left the wing on the floor, it flew across the field rolling. It was the only time I went home right way... That was too much. Also, I remember the day I wanted to fly my electric Olympic 200 (can motor on 7 ni-cads). I hand launched, facing the wind it went up, 3 minutes later the batteries died, and still w/o turning It came down. It might have penetrated a total of 10 feet. Also, only flight of that day.

Some people do not fly with a strong breeze. Others say that the the model does not know what wind is they will fly anyway. My electric Telemaster was great in the wind. Maybe because I had flown it so many hundered of times, that I was getting good at it:-)

I would not mix my biplanes with wind:-)

Gerry

abufletcher

Why are biplanes, in particular, so susceptible to wind? Is it just that they are typically lightly loaded?

Rv7garage

My Feedback: (10)

It's just more wings to repair

SrTelemaster150

Light wing loading, more air resistance. Both make them more susceptible to wind.

Neverlost1

My Feedback: (1)

Most everyone at my club will fly in 10-15MPH winds. Most call it quits above 15. I, on the other hand, enjoy a windy day in the 20-25MPH range, but I don't enjoy being alone at the field.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-0-nKH6KUI

abufletcher

Whoa! Those transitions in the video really had be worried. It looked like the model got caught in a blender!

Neat wind meter. Actually, I was just wondering how everyone judges the wind speeds we've been talking about.

bogbeagle

High drag + low inertia can be a tricky combination.

GerKonig

You beat me to it. High drag is one, big wing area, low inertia, a lot more air resistance, particularly the WWI variety... Besides more work to fix. Said that, I fly my foam tiger moth any day wind or not. Why? I could care less if it breaks. So, since the TM knows this, it does not crash:-) On very breezy days, it does not land. It does the famous plop-flip. Plops put of the air, and flips immediately. Since it happens basically a 0 forward speed, it keeps surviving...

Gerry

Gerry

SrTelemaster150

Looks just like my Sr Telemaster ARF when I 1st got it. (except for little of\r no dihedrel in the clip) I had a Saito FA150 in the nose so it would "penetrate" quite well.

I soloed W/O a trainer cord & W/O crashing it. I just had the instruter take it "2 mistakes high" & hand me the Tx.

After a few bruises I recovered it, removed most, but not all of the dihedrel & reduced the wing incidence to 0° to the thrust line.

GallopingGhostler

Besides the other answers which are true, relatively speaking compared with monoplanes, elevator is closely coupled due to the short moment given the additional wing area.

Rob2160

All the reasons mentioned are good.

Also, concave high camber aero foils, generally short fuselage moments, two wings with dihedral.

As mentioned the biggest factors are light wing loading so the effect of turbulence will be more pronounced and slower airspeeds which results in a greater drift angle for a given crosswind than a faster aircraft would experience.

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

I gave buddy box lessons with two different students today in 13mph+ winds and two different planes. Neither student wanted to tackle trying to land today, so I did all the landings, which was at least 4 with each plane. One student flew my Hobbico Superstar with OS la .40. (Flat bottom wing) . It flew fine in the air, but was a hand full to get down. The approach requires dropping in over some tall trees about 100' from the runway and crosswind gusts kept ballooning it up and throwing it around on final. Some strong crosswind gusts hit just as the plane was about 3ft high and caused me to do a couple "go arounds".

The other student flew my Avistar with Magnum .46 xls (semi symetrical wing). Besides being faster and having a larger engine, It definitely handles the wind better. Gusts and crosswinds did not bother it as much and I looked like a pro getting it down on the 100' x 300' concrete pad we were flying from.

Wish I had brought my Spad Demon or my Venus to show out with.

abufletcher

This video really captures what RC flying is all about for me. The calm, the grace, the beauty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNoMtwFP2B0