ORIGINAL: Gray Beard
ORIGINAL: Mr67Stang
Guvar, put a wind sock out in the area you want to put your runway and watch it for a while (weeks, months) and cut your runway in the same direction as the prevailing winds in your area.
That's exactly what one of my clubs in Calif. did. The runway was perfect for the prevailing wind directions. Then during the turn of the season the wind would come in from the opposite direction. I was both shocked and amazed at how many people couldn't land from right to left. You do tend to get into a habit. One day I took a pilot that couldn't take off or land in what he thought of as the wrong direction across to the other side of the runway, problem solved.
You are so right. At first, I had difficulty making right turns, of all things. But doing repeated figure eights cured me of that problem. BUT, what I DID do one day was somewhat embarassing... I started out flying my good old trusty Skylark 70. I took off, the take off seemed long, but what the heck.. I flew around and then set up for a landing. The darned landing was long too, but I managed to get it on the ground.
My answer to that was it was because I hadn't been out at the field in a couple months and I was just getting back into the groove so my timing was off and my approach was a tad rusty.
I did this a few times and noted that I just had to reduce throttle a bit sooner.
Well, after I landed for the, oh, 5th time, I was discussing something with one of the instuctors when he said "Hey.. good deal practicing downwind landings.. you never know when you will really need to do that".
Well, I believe he was being nice.. rather than saying "Hey idiot, why don't you land into the wind?"
So, I smiled, thanked him for his astute observation, and turned the thing around and began to take off and land INTO THE DARNED WIND!!!!
What was more embarassing was that I was staring right at the darned wind sock!!! [X(]
CGr.