ORIGINAL: azseattle
Okay, today was my second attempt to fly in a windy day. About 25MPH S-->N i took off N--S and landed in the same direction. But i was getting scared of the abrupt turns. I dont know why that happens. I used to give it about 1/8th of the available aleron and it used to turn like i gave it full. So i had to turn with aleron and rudder working in opposite directions. Also, my plane was kind of shivering really bad. In a calm wind, it goes straight in a line but now this wasnt the case. Also,this one time my plane took off and the aleron controls werent working for a few seconds. I had to rely on the rudder. THe plane turned itself off the runway across the fence towards the tables and cabins. Good thing there wasnt anyone around or they would have shouted at me for making such a move.
My question is, how to avoid all of this? And i was wondering how much wind can these 40 size trainers take before it would be almost impossible to fly it. In other words, what was the worst wind condition when you flew a plane.
As was said before ... the plane does not know about the wind, only the pilot does.... to a point.
There are two types of "adverse" winds .... Strong, and gusty. A strong, but consistent wind will make the plane behave eratically on the ground because it's controls are realtive to the ground, but the wind-speed is relative to the wind. The biggest danger in strong, but consistent winds on the ground is of your plane simply blowing over when it is perpendicular to the wind. Planes with dihedral (trainers) are especially vulnerable to this. I have flown in these conditions in my trainer (resulting in at least 5 flip overs before I learned) and the only way to cope was to walk my plane to the start of the runway, take off directly into the wind, and land directly into the wind. On the ground, I never turned the plane out ofthe wind, so on landing, I would walk to where the plane stopped, and carry it back to the pits. Turning it on the ground is not an option.
Strong consistent winds in the air though, are not a real problem. Your plane "slows down" into the wind, even though it's airspeed is consistent. I have flown my plane backwards on windy days, because the wind was faster than the stall speed of my trainer. When gpoing down wind, the plane goes really fast (relative to the ground). This makes the turns appear to be really sharp when you transition from upwind to down-wind as the ground-speed changes so drastically. This does not mean that the turns are that much sharper in the air....
One more big concern with strong winds is the effect of ground obstacles when you fly at low altitudes.... I am thinking particularly of landins. A bush, or tree that you have to fly over when landing will cause a "wave" of rising air as the strong wind passes over it. Your plane may get really bouncy as you pass over these objects. My field is particularly prone to this as it is surrounded by big bushes. Approaching over the bushes can be intimidating, but the bounciness is pretty benign. It typically means a sudden up lift followed by an equal down drop. Keeping the plane controls steady will be fine.
Gusty winds are another problem though. Your plane has mass, and moving mass has inertia. Your plane has wings which generate lift in proportion to relative air-speed. The lift is a force that is instantaneously coupled to airspeed. You stop the air, and you immediately have no lift. Momentum is affected by drag which is relative to airspeed, but is not an immediate thing to change. If the wind drops suddenly, then your plane looses the lift it had previously, and it will immediatly start to drop, and the reduced drag will slowly make it gain grounspeed. Equally, a sudden gust will cause the plane to immediatly start rising (more lift), and to slow down relative to the gound (more drag). The effect of this is that you have less control of the groundspeed, airspeed, and altitude of your plane when it is gusty. This makes it far more difficult than a strong, but steady wind. The only way to deal with gusty wind is to not get yourself in a position where a gust (or lack thereof) will compromise the safety of your flight. If you are high up, this is never a problem, but when landing (and somewhat on take-off), your best defence is to land faster than normal (so that a sudden wind-drop will not make you stall), aim to land further along the runway (so that a sudden altitude drop will not cause you to hit early), and to always be prepared to abort if necessary. Pick your moment to land.
gus