The windy day evil dead air zone
 

During my first flight of the day, my .45 size pattern plane had the engine's muffler come loose and when I flew low over the tree line to line up for the landing, the plane went through a dead air zone or a wind shear effect or turbulence that shoved the plane into the ground. The day was quite windy with 20mph winds gusting over 25mph. The wind is out of the south and the plane was coming in for a cross wind landing at the time. The take off was a bit hairy too as the wind got under the wing and then I wound up heading down wind for the turn around too. But once up to speed it was doing fine then.

The crash isn't as bad as it looked at first. Mainly the nose gear got pulled out of the plane and the wing hold downs broke off. So I only need to get a new steering arm for the Fults nose gear and I can have it going for next weekend maybe. It did manage to dig a good divot there in the runway though.

Here is the short video for your crash enjoyment.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY5vagQJtcA[/youtube]

RE: The windy day evil dead air zone
 

I cant see the video right now but, 25 MPH winds?

Thanks, I will fly my workbench and a Bud Light today.

RE: The windy day evil dead air zone
 

well i give you credit for even trying to fly in that much wind i would never fly in that

RE: The windy day evil dead air zone
 

Yeah it wasn't a good day.
But it was different for sure.

RE: The windy day evil dead air zone
 

15 MPH tops for me, flew on an 18 MPH day, which wasnt bad, until the wind switched from the west to the north, when I was 10 feet off the ground lined up to land.  Caught the right wing, and FLIP, smash.

RE: The windy day evil dead air zone
 

You failed to mention that after this crash which I got there too late to see you flew another plane two or 3 times and had good luck.

Some times you just got to fly wind or not.

RE: The windy day evil dead air zone
 

Thanks I did forget to mention that.
Yeah some days you just have to fly whether the weather cooperates or not.
:D

But I did make a point of trying to stay away from that end of the field for landing after that.

RE: The windy day evil dead air zone
 

The title of this thread is a tongue twister ! No wonder you ran into some turbulence... :)

I have flown in too much wind a few times. But the craziest thing I have ever seen was a local multiple engine fly where the wind was a howling 30 mph down the runway. One guy I know finally says screw it, there are people here to watch.

He puts up a 100 inch B-17!, so then My friend Bill says crud "He is gonna make me look bad" so he puts up a 10 foot wing Bud Nosen 310 ! He did a roll in the roughest of air, and won best acrobatics of the day, hahaha. By the time it was over , around 10 multi engine plains flew.. Including a 120 inch P-38 ..... Not a single broke airplane ! We all agreed it was a miracle.

Sorry you crashed yours, you have one of those miracle days coming..Hang in there !

RE: The windy day evil dead air zone
 

Strong winds and cross wind landings offer potential danger. If the wind is in your face... there is danger of getting too slow of air speed on the base leg with a wind on the tail of the plane. Rule of thumb in such conditions is to fly a higher circuit and make the base leg a greater descent rate so as to keep adequate air speed.

This will seem and is counter productive to the need to bleed speed without a headwind on landing but it is a necessity to preventing a stall on base leg.

When facing the runway, and a strong wind is in your face... remember the danger.

RE: The windy day evil dead air zone
 

Yeah I still remember how the wind shear caused a Delta L1011 airliner to crash here at DFW Airport way back in 1985. When your plane gets into a wind shear or dead air effect all of a sudden, there isn't any lift on the wing all of a sudden. Really bad for a landing approach with the throttle at low.

Our club field has a overhead cover and the high wind causes a horizontal swirl like turbulence off of it. Plus the tree line causes the air to go over it too. So you wind with with a calm air spot near the tree line and the the swirl of air off the overhead cover is actually pushing down too. So the plane came into a calm spot out of the wind and then hit a wicked downdraft, which caused it to pancake into the ground.

Thanks guys, when you forget to watch out for something, that is when it rears its ugly head to bite you on the behind.