ORIGINAL: p51Dpony
Seriously, explain to me this scenario:
.40 size trainer flying into the wind and you pull up, with all that available airflow it loops easily. ok.
Now fly with the wind in say 20mph, pull up for a loop, notice how the plane has trouble, slows down and has troubles at the top of the loop, on occasion not even making it to inverted but hanging on the prop and then nosing forward either with the wind or towards gravity. The issues at play again are drag and the airplanes non symmetrical design comparing front to back and how the machine behaves when the wind hits it from either the front or back. The described situation plays out in slope soarers often too as I recall.
I thot I was done for the night, but i can't leave this one alone.
I'm going to shock everyone, not the least of which will be P51Dpony, and cover his back for one observation.
What u are seeing there in the highlighted scenario, Pony, is this:
In an effort to make a VISUALLY (as opposed to aerodynamically) round loop you are forced to spend much
longer in the 2nd quarter of the loop as you fight a headwind , and during that time the
under-powered 40 sized trainer's energy is played out, to the extent that it "flops out" before it can recoup some energy in the 3rd quarter. And yes, the flat-bottom trainer wing which flies so ineffeciently inverted is a major factor. U would see the very same flop if in a zero wind condition you flew a very ugly out of round loop that spent the same protacted
time in the second quarter and "leaned" well into the 3rd quarter. The protracted AERODYNAMIC flight path of the 2nd quarter in the case you mentioned is where your energy is being spent to exhaustion.
What you are NOT witnessing, however, is the headwind or tailwind affecting the airspeed of the airplane...which is the subject of this thread.