<div style="text-align: center">A long time ago I took my first ride in a glider on a day the wind was blowing at about 25 MPH. I had concerns and asked the glider pilot about the effect of wind on the glider's ability to fly and he repliedthat the glider is merely moving along with this mass of air that is also moving. The onlyeffect is when the glider is trying to do something in relation to the ground. When landing intoa25 MPH wind the glider's "airspeed" as indicated by the air speed indicator is still around 40 MPH while its "groundspeed" is only 15 MPH. The reverse is true when flyingin the same direction as the wind.The glider's"airspeed"is still 40 MPHwhile its "groundspeed" is 65 MPH (40+25). The wind we feel on the ground is merelythis moving mass of air that is passing by and colliding with our bodies.</div>The Model Aviation magazine put out by AMA had an interesting article about wind about two years ago. Ibelieve you can access the article by going to the AMA website. The article explains and illustrates wind effects on an RC model very well.
Much of the confusion about wind is the ground turbulence that weencounterespecially when flying close to theground in take-offs andlandings. Turbulence is caused by the wind passing by obstacles on the groundsuch as trees and buildings and then the air swirling for a distancedownwind from that obstacle.When these swirls encounter your airplane they may be traveling up or downsideways and will causethe airplane to move around. We probably don't have a choice butif RC flying fields were onlylocatedon level ground free from ground obstacles it would probably cure a lot of our flying problems.
Like jetmech05 I have encountered many arguments from my fellow model flyersover this subject and will likely continue to do so.Hope my thoughts expressedhere stir your mind a bit.
ORIGINAL: jetmech05
ok here goes......wind speed has no effect on airspeed.......wind speed only effects ground speed....look at dead eyes post...hes flying in such a heavy wind for his aircraft that his ground speed (speed at which the airplane moves over the ground) was negative..as the gusts lessened his ground speed increased and he made to within 50 yards of himself.....however his aircraft continued to fly...it did not stall, so his airspeed was enough to fly and remain constant unless he moved the throttle.....If he had turned the aircraft tail to the wind you would have seen the airplane rocket across the ground..as his ground speed would have been 65 to 85 mph but his airspeed would have stayed the same......
Whew.....hope I didn't confuse anyone...we as RC'ers tend to think that you see the airplane rocket with the wind that airspeed increased..it didn't....I was a flight mech on 727 came out of Memphis one day with a set airspeed, made the turn from north to north east and ground speed shot up to over 600mph as a tail wind was less than 5 degrees off the tail...airspeed stayed the same....
the answer to this drawn out dribble is....you can fly in any ground wind you want...youwill have to fetch your aircraft if your max airspeed is less than the wind speed...Good Flyin to all