Originally Posted by
JPerrone
Just as in sailing, there is the "apparent wind" which is the wind direction that the aircraft experiences. This would be the resultant vector that is the summation of the wind vector, and the aircraft vector. This tends to make the apparent wind somewhere between the true wind and the aircraft vector. The nature of vector summation is that it is difficult for apparent wind to equal true wind.
Or is there something I'm missing?
Regards
It's that vector thing you spoke of. If a wind of 20 kn is coming from the north (say 0deg) while you want to fly east (say 90deg) with a groundspeed of 100kn then you'd need an airspeed of 101.98kn and your nose would be pointing 11.3 deg north of east (say 78.7deg).
Your plane would be flying straight and level and happy to stay that way and you'd still be pointing north by 11.3 degrees as you fly directly over the target tracking due east over the ground.
IF you started out pointing due east with 100kn airspeed, your ground track would be 101.98kn @11.3 deg south of east so you be leaning on the rudder all the way to not only fix the initital 11.3 deg error from the start but also to make up the lost ground from flying slightly south for a while..