One year we had wind almost every night for weeks on end. What do you do? You wanna sit at home and whine? Nah..... grab a plane that you're comfortable with and go fly. It helps if it's one you're totally emotionally attached to.

Me and this guy Pete were taking trainers (my Balsa USA Stik with hotted up control surfaces and a weak engine and his generic Tower Trainer or something like that - with a GOOD engine) and flying every night! Nobody else was flying - they were afraid of the wind or something. We had the field to ourselves 90% of the time - and flew our butts off.

My limit was when the planes would blow away on the ground. Plane to my left, kneeling on the starting pad, reach for the chicken stick - and the plane blows over on its back...time to call it quits since I had already been flying for an hour or so. If I had just gotten there, I would've had a firm hold on the plane and gone up anyway

Hovering
Flights the length of the runway - but the plane is sideways. (Point it into the crosswind and get it steady - then give it some turning moment to get it flying sideways
Backwards landings
The world's fastest trainer competition...full-throttle downwind
Weird looking stall-turns where the plane gets blown backwards 40-50 feet.....

RIGHT ON!!!! This is why I love to fly in wind. The plane looks more like magic.

Oatmeal - Wind is irrelevant

Huevos Rancheros - Any wind at all is unacceptable!!!

Beans - you can make your own wind!

DBCherry very accurately said:
Yeah, this bit of visual trickery kills a lot of airplanes, that's for sure. A lot of guys will be flying downwind with way too little airspeed, then bank in to a turn and fall out of the sky.

This is why I try to teach people to "feel" the plane. Meaning pay attention to where your sticks are. If you know that a certain thottle stick possition is required for level flight, then regardless of what your eyes are telling you about your plane's speed, you better have the throttle in that location if you are trying to maintain level flight.

Same kind of thing goes for elevator and other controls. You can get information about what is really going on with your plane though the sticks, so pay attention to your fingers.

(yes, there is some variation due to the air density on a given day or whatever, but it should be close)

Man! You guys are a lot more informed than that other thread I was beating my head against. I was trying to tell them the same thing, but almost everyone was against me!

Here is my calculations for wind flying:

0-10 mph wind.....any plane is fine

11-20 mph .......low wing or midwing to cut thru the wind

21 or above......bring a shotgun....that is about the only way you can get your plane down.

Most of the places I have flown, guys would say "bring a brick and a bigger motor, it'll fly".

I went back and read your other posts in the other section. What they were failing to see was the difference between airspeed and ground speed. Lots of people do that. They are "Positive" that the airspeed increases.

I fly the West Wind at 430 knots. One day I had a 286 knot ground speed. on the return leg, the ground speed was over 600 knots. Was really cool. They kept saying I would break the sound barrier. I couldn't make them understand that the plane was moving the same speed through the air.

Most of the problems people have when they turn from upwind to downwind with a model is they keep it at the ref speed they were seeing going into the wind and across the ground, and then they stall the plane.

Naw,
21 or above... Tie a streamer on, it's time for combat .

We few some A class combat (2.5lb max weight, .15 size max engine) in winds that were gusting (according to the weather station at BWI) in the 40s, sustained winds were well over 30. It wasn't smooth either, it was some of the most turbulent wind I've seen at my field.

But that's us combat pilots, everyone says we're crazy,

That's when it just starts to get interesting!

Jetts

At 15-20mph try flying a foamy . That's when it's interesting! [>:]

It's only too windy when you can honestly say the wheels rolled backwards on touchdown. (let's see you top that one)

I fly 1/2a, and the other morning it was "too windy" I went anyway, the 1st flight was hairy, the 2nd went into the ground from my hand, the 3rd was too scarey,,the engine cut out after about a minute of battling my plane around, man was I glad to hear that motor die...its a 1/2a .049 engine no throttle, rudder ,elevator only plane...the tank only lasts for about 4 minutes(ie I can only bring it in when it runs out of fuel),,,,I could only hover forward,,I actually had to dive to move forward at full throttle....Foam wing, blow molded fuse (much the same as a kids plastic ball bat) simple stick type, I guess you'd call it......... you couldnt have flown a .40 trainer in that wind...I use a 16oz fuel bottle to fill my tank, it was about 1/2 full and it blew off the table when I was starting my engine...Rog

A sure way to teach people the principle of airspeed (fluid) vs ground speed(land) is to throw them into a fast flowing river and tell them they don't have to swim when going downstream. They will either learn to swim, or drown. Either way, the discussion will be over

When the airplane is moving back wards at full throttle! Now THAT's too windy!

We used to have a 1:1 fly-in here in Oklahoma where the point was to slow fly your plane back wards across the city. Fastest time (slowest flyer) won.

tom

[

21 or above......bring a shotgun....that is about the only way you can get your plane down.
[/quote]


You can always get your plane to come down, just a matter of if you want to fly it again...

Andy

I love to fly in high wind, the only problem is after my landing the bird is still not safe[]. I had landed one of my birds a few years back, to have the wind sweep it up and damage it on me[:@]

Flyboy,

People tend to confuse TAS ( True-Air-Speed) and IAS (Indicated-Air-Speed). What really matters is to keep TAS to a point that your plane will not stall whether downwind, upwind or turning to base etc....IAS is how viewers from the GROUND perceive an aircraft's "speed".