Well,

I'm sitting in a REALLY nice beach hotel in Southern CA (Company sponsored, of course...I woulda stayed at Motel 6). My plane is in my truck and I have all of my equipment. (I have Waaay too much time to lurk the forums). I made contact with a local club and made arrangements to fly as a guest, but its SO DANG WINDY!!!

I am fairly new as an RC flyer, (About 6 gallons through my fleet of (now only 2) .40 sized planes), and I've been practicing in light winds, but I just won't risk it in this. Gusts are close to 40 mph at the beach, and the flying field is in the hills, where it tends to be worse.

Maybe I'll go see if anyone else is out there in the morning.

When is it just too windy to fly? (if ever).

I wish I had a sim on my laptop

Well I have not flown yet ut I am scared of the wind to lol but I will get use to it if I try to go in the wind after a couple flights are in.Jim

I would say 40mph might be a little too much but if you really wanted to fly this is a good time to fly the "Trainer". My friend would tell ya, Only real pilots fly in windy days, and if you can fly on a windy day you can fly any day. Me personally I would say You made a good decision because its really not so fun to fly on a windy day (40mph winds) If it was about 20 to 25 I would say Fine but 40 is a little too much in my opinion and you will not enjoy flying that much.

Have you considered getting a plane with a higher wing loading ? Something in the mid to high twenties will be able to handle wind better than trainers (or the majority of ARFS out there ).

The higher wingloading means the plane has better wind penetration, but also means faster takoff/landing speeds.

In the mean time jack the wind up, have it changing direction and increase the gusts in your sim (I know Realflight will let you do this ). Practice on the sim, then have a stiff shot to calm the nerves and go fly. The worst you can do is get some repair time in.

agexpert,

As long as your plane is capable of making forward progress, the wind isn't too strong to fly in. Wind actually isn't a big problem. Turbulence is. And strong wind does not necessarily mean strong turbulence, light wind does not necessarily mean light turbulence. I find trainers and typical sport planes fly quite well in very strong wind and turbulent conditions. Flying in wind is the best practice. Slope soaring gliders is great too, no motor to cheat with. It's all about airspeed recognition and control, not ground speed. Fair weather only fliers miss out on developing the most important skills, miss out on a great deal of enjoyment and sense of accomplishment, and most of all miss out on a lot of flying days.

multiflyer

Think of it this way:

If you've got a 1/4 scale (25%) Cub, and the wind is blowing 10MPH--then multiply that by 4 and that would be the same conditions as a real Cub flying in 40MPH winds.

If it's 15MPH and your Cub is 1/4 scale--then that would be a 60MPH wind for the real one. Most small planes are grounded in wind like that. Too dangerous.

20MPH? Do the math. Anyone want to hop in a Cub and go flying in hurricane force winds? Better skip breakfast...................[:'(]

If your flying a 33% Extra in 15MPH winds then it would be like flying shotgun with Patty Wagstaff in a 45MPH wind. I might just pass on that opportunity. Once in a lifetime deal--but you won't catch me in a 1500 pound plane in 45MPH winds. NOOOO WAY.[sm=spinnyeyes.gif]

Don't be scared of wind. Just have a good perspective of what it's really doing--and be prepared to loose the plane if you go out and fly in crazy conditoins. As long as your not going to cry if ya break it--then have at it.

I have flown in 20-30 mph gusts with one of my SPADs (wing loading was around 20 oz/sqft). I can take off, fly around the field, and land, but it just wasn't any fun. Trying to wind correct on loops was funny (did I mention it was cross wind to the runway?). Its good to get that mid-winter fix, since clear days seem to translate to windy this time of year. But its not nearly as much fun.

Brad

Determining how much wind is too much is a relative thing. Winds that may be too much in one part of the country may be a normal flying day in other parts of the country. I read here about people in other parts of the country that are grounded by 15 mph winds, while that is a normal flying day here in Oklahoma. We don't usually consider it too much wind until it gets up to 25-30 mph. The only way you can get comfortable flying in high winds is get out and fly in. I wouldn't start practicing in a hurricane, but start with winds of 15-20 mph. And then when you are comfortable with that fly in more wind until you are comfortable flying in high winds. If we get high winds here 25-35 mph that are straight down the runway we will go out for a "wind fly" and play around in the wind. We all have a "wind plane" that we keep in our hangers for flying in high winds. Usually planes with thicker wings make good planes for flying in the wind. One of my favorite "tricks" to do in the wind is fly into the wing about 50'-75' above the runway, slow the throttle down until the plane loses all forward progress, and then lower the plane down to do a landing on the runway with absolutely no forward progress!! Great fun!!!!

As an FYI, even for us here Oklahoma 40 mph would be considered too much wind

Ken

If you worry a lot about damaging the plane then you will be afraid of the wind and you will miss out on some of the most fun in flying. It is a super Adrenalin rush to come in for a landing and have the plane bouncing up and down 10 to 30 feet and on occasionally rolling 90 degrees. Almost always things smooth down near the ground. When you touch down and your hands stop shaking you feel on to of the world. I swear I don't know why people use drugs for such thrills.

As stated above, the key is not to worry about the plane. It helps to fly a plane that can take a beating. All my planes are built with a little extra strength so they can do a wing tip cartwheel with little or no damage. The SPAD planes are great for the wind. The SPAD canard on the left is my plane of choice when the wind is so high no one else is flying. Check out the S.P.A.D. forum if you are interested in tough planes.

If you're at the beach, then look around for a good slope. In populated areas, the good slopes are easy for even a newbie to spot. The good slopes always have some glider guys flying on them. chuckle.....

Those guys know the trick to enjoying this model flying hobby.

I'm not kidding. You don't have a slope plane, but if you're grounding yourself because you can't handle the winds that're going to be around all day, then use that day to find out how to make use of that wind. You will have an enjoyable time even if you don't fly yourself.

I mostly fly power stuff. But I've got a couple of gliders waiting on the ceiling racks. And when the wind blows.....

The truth is that slope soaring works excellent for newbies to expand their skills. Very often the slopes sort out the winds on blustery days. They force the winds that come against them so those winds are more laminar along the face of the hills. Days that are god-awful on the flats are smooth (but powerful) on the slopes. Lots of times the slope is easier to handle than anywhere else. BTW, I've taken the prop off a highwing trainer and sloped the sucker for hours. It was a blast.... chuckle.... and so was the wind that day.... And I'm sure I'm not the only one to have ever sloped a power model.

And keep in mind that newbies to slope soaring learn to fly when the wind is blowing. They not only learn to twiddle the sticks, but they get an appreciation of just how unintimidating strong winds can be. You'd be surprised at what you don't know about the winds you fear right now. Chances are good that most days the flags standing out and scare you away from the flying field are actually "usable" days because a lot of them are fairly smooth days.

BTW..... Having flown gliders maybe more than I've flown power, I've learned from the glider guiding that most windy days are actually "wind cycle" days. Most gusty days, the gusts come at predictable intervals. I get a big kick out of my flying buddies who tell me that I'm just lucky to always miss the really strong gusts on all my landings. Truth is, I don't always. But I've learned to watch for the gust cycle and play it to my benefit. It's not always perfectly predictable, but it's almost always MOSTLY predictable. And if I miss the prediction when I'm about to take off, I hold for a couple more gusts. Or if I'm on approach and the heavy gusts start back up "a little earlier than I thought they would", I take the sucker around again.

I've recently gotten a kewl little handheld gadget made by Kestrel. It's a little weather station but one excellent function is that it can chart the wind over time. I've already used it to show a buddy how to schedule his takeoffs and landings around the wind. That day, the cycle was just about perfectly on 5 minutes. We both took off in mild headwinds and landed in mild wind. Yeah, it got blustery when we were up, but no big deal. It beat sitting at home. He used to look at me like I was nuts until I could show him the graph.

The wind is your friend. It lengthens the runway.

If you're in So Cal, I just saw on the news the Santa Ana winds are blowing with gusts to 64 mph in the hills right now. I play on the sim with gust to 50mph just because it's fun to turn that NexStar into a helicopter. I don't think I'd wanna try it for real though. I do pretty well with it most of the time, but sometimes the gusts will just grab it, flip it, & slam dunk it to the ground before I can do anything to stop it. Lol That's why I do it on the sim.

I am surprized that some flyers on here are suggesting that if its really windy "this is a good time to fly the "Trainer". < trainers are terrible to control in windy conditions. They flair like crazy when you turn across the wind and want to jump up in the air every time a gust hits the plane which makes landings very tricky. A low wing with at least a semi sym wing is much more controllable and a double taper wing works the best. Take off and landing speeds don't need to be that high either because the plane flys by the air speed over the wings, not the ground speed! If you have lots of air speed over the wing you can just add in a bit of elevator and away you go. You do require a good strong engine in order to make sure that the plane doesn't just fly back wards! A heavier plane with a higher wing loading does help as well. When its going to be really windy at our field all day I bring out my 10 lb. Hawker Sea Fury and have a blast.

It sounds like you got the wind figured out pretty good Darock! Slope gliding a Trainer, who'd a thunk it? That's down right genius!

I don't know about the winds in Southern CA, but here the winds are always calmer a few miles inland than what you see at the beach. Perhaps a trip to the field might show that it's better than you see at the beach. Of course, it could be worse too. How's the scenery at the beach? Perhaps you should just skip flying and enjoy other pursuits.

Well,

I went out to the field and it was empty. The windsock was wagging around like crazy, (more like vibrating violently), and there a no WAY I was gonna fly my little Super stick. I ordered a Zagi online to learn some slopes, (got one with a brushless motor to cheat with).

This is a fairly powerful addiction. I want to learn to fly in adverse conditions, but I will need to draw the line at these erratic Santa Ana winds.

For those of you who don't know, we get winds in So CA when there is a HP ridge to the east. The air is forced through numerous passes and canyons so it changes direction without warning and very rapidly. (It's analogous to a white-water rapids). Right now, there is a fire a couple miles west of my home, moving further west. I live in the hills and there is no wind at my house, but if you go about 12 miles North, (other side of the Chino Valley), there are gusts over 50 mph, and 2 miles west they are reporting gusts to 40.

I have been practicing in 'windy' conditions, even got my trainer to nearly stop in a headwind...was a blast, but only 15-20 mph. I have done some landing, but I still under-use my rudder. I need much more rudder practice, otherwise I'm just wasting a channel on taxiing.

My trainer now lies in repose in the garage due to another...'learning experience'. Public viewing is um... whenever I leave the garage door open. Luckily, my trainer had the foresight and generosity to have filled out it's 'organ donor' registration card. I will perform the surgery as soon as the recipient arrives via USPS, (should be the end of the week).

Winds are supposed to increase tonight and tomorrow....I don't know how you guys can stay away from the field for a month or more in harsh winters. I need to get out asap but, as I have acknowledged, I'm too chicken at this point.

Regards,

Mark

Ya did it -- good for you. Sorry to hear about the death in your family.

I suggest that you get yourself a SPAD of some description -- one with reasonably high wing loading & a ton of power. Go and play -- soon you will look forward to messing around in the wind.

No brit, I didn't fly today.

I lost the trainer a couple of weeks ago in a high speed, low, inverted turn; on a less windy day. I will learn to fly in winds though. It's been fun in light winds so far. It's a rush to harness a bit of nature and land safely. Plus the satisfaction of having flown when there were few others flying....and not driving home from the field wondering why you drove TO the field.

I think you may have found the only reason that I (personally) would ever build a spad. That's a brilliant excuse to build one. I have an engine and some old standard servos lying around...plus I have a sheet of coroplast from another project.

Great idea! (Uh oh...there's that 'I wanna build something' feeling...my wife hates it when that happens.

Thanks!

I can and have flown in windy/gusty conditions and will likely be foolish enough to do it again. However, I don't find it enjoyable! This is a hobby, and suppose to be for fun, I don't need to fly in all the different weather conditions! Gosh, does AMA have a patch for flying in terrible weather? How about doing lightning storms, blizzards, tornados?

Maybe there should be an AMA "Chicken Patch"? Agexpert, I'll buy you your'un, if'n you'll...?

Some planes fly just great in the wind. One plane that I could recommend is the Sig Kougar. Its a nice little sport ship that can easily be flown in winds up to about 30 mph. Seasoned flyers can fly it in even higher winds.
Other planes are nearly impossible to control in 15 mph, and that is not fun alt all.
So, its not just you. The plane is important. Why fly a plane in the wind if it isn't fun ? Thats what kites are for.

Flying in strong winds does not make you a better pilot. I am not stupid enough to risk my good planes. However I do have a cheap "stick" that I use only for occasions like that.