200 mile an hour tailwind!

[PHXPhlyer]

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New Year's Day 2013

Why were you stooging around at .73 in Selected Mr Phlyer? What was wrong with Managed? The guy ahead was 40 miles passing your level. Was the boss too scared the wind would suddenly drop off? I would've beefed it up to a selected .81 and gone for the personal record!

Don't recall why we wern't BTTW Slash, but 200 on the tail is pretty good no matter what you're doing.

[Sisemen]

Presumably the opposite effect would hold true in establishing the veracity of the rumours of Tiger Moths (insert name of favourite low airspeed machine here) taking off into a strong headwind and completing a circuit backwards.

[Cacophonix]

Presumably the opposite effect would hold true in establishing the veracity of the rumours of Tiger Moths (insert name of favourite low airspeed machine here) taking off into a strong headwind and completing a circuit backwards.

09 or 27

There was a young Puss Moth from Hull
Which flew like the proverbial gull,
Taking off in the breeze
It thought it a wheeze
To glide backwards to tease.
That retrograde aircraft from Hull.

Caco

[Slasher]

There was a Seth Effrikan bloke
Of Airbus and Boeing he spoke.
And he knew system-wise
Each plane - he would reprise
But if 320s fell groundwards...he broke!

[Cacophonix]

There was a Seth Effrikan bloke
Of Airbus and Boeing he spoke.
And he knew system-wise
Each plane - he would reprise
But if 320s fell groundwards...he broke!

Move on over Ogden Nash, Slash is in town!

Man that A320 certainly knows how to drop a wing!

Caco

[Boac]

taking off into a strong headwind and completing a circuit backwards.

- happened more than once with a Chipmunk. Obviously you need to fly at a low airspeed (lots of power and some flap) on the 'downwind' leg but most light singles stall below 45kts (Auster J1N around 18mph I recall!!) so anything over that is bonzer!

'Rolling out on finals' involves just a side-step............. and then accelerating for landing:YMPARTY: Very short take-off roll and landing being the only really difficult part in persuading the beast to stop aviating. I'm sure Slasher's Cub would be more than able.

[421dog]

Best increase I ever saw was a groundspeed of 345 kt in a C340 (tas 180 or so) at FL 210 over Pennsylvania. Pissed it all away waiting to get into TEB though...

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Then there's the vertical.

I did my IF2, climbing and descending, in the Bulldog over the Pennines. My Sqn Boss, an A1 QFI, obviously found it quite amusing to have me at max climb power and attitude, but descending, and 3 minutes later gliding upwards. After he'd told me about mountain wave activity and I'd got the hang of it, I must admit I found it funny too.

[Pontius Navigator]

There was a Neville Shute book about this pilot's old instructor VSI in a remote part of Tasmania and unreachable in the time except by air but landing conditions were impossible.

IIRC he fell the Auster to a low hover and the doctor jumped.

[Ex-Ascot]

Then there's the vertical.

I did my IF2, climbing and descending, in the Bulldog over the Pennines. My Sqn Boss, an A1 QFI, obviously found it quite amusing to have me at max climb power and attitude, but descending, and 3 minutes later gliding upwards. After he'd told me about mountain wave activity and I'd got the hang of it, I must admit I found it funny too.

I didn't find it very funny going out of Samedan Airport going down towards granite with full power on (Andover). It was horrendous going in. Capt said to our principle passenger, pick you up in five days. Not from here thank you, she said, I will go to Geneva by train. Pick me up there. We were quite happy with that.

[CharlieOneSix]

Then there's the vertical....

In the 70's we had a contract to supply a Bolkow 105 helicopter to carry out tasks for the Army base on HIrta in the St Kilda archipelago, about 50 miles west of the Hebrides. One day I was asked to take technicians from the sea level base up to the top of the highest point (1400 feet) on the island where they had a radar station in connection with the missile range. It was like hillsoaring in a glider - collective lever fully down and just no way could I get a descent going in order to land.

The opposite happened another day. I had collected a Brigadier and two others from Benbecula. Because of severe downdrafts from the aforementioned hill behind the helipad the Ops Manual limit for landing at the St Kilda base helipad if the wind was north westerly was 30 kts. It was right on limits and with full power I couldn't stop the descent and we ended up gently landing in the rough ground about 20 yards short of the pad. The Brigadier was not amused!

Incidentally St Kilda is a fascinating place if you get a chance to visit. Just watch for attacking Terns if you go walking! One of the croft buildings has been turned into a small museum. The remaining islanders were evacuated in 1930 - there's a silent film of life on the island and the evacuation here: https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/0793 . This is unique footage of the preparations for evacuation, the existence of which was kept secret until 1979. For some reason at the time of the evacuation, Scottish Office regulations prohibited any photos or newsreel recordings of the event.

[Boac]

Cessna 310 northbound over the Highlands of Scotland, full power and descending very close to the stall and then throttles closed climbing to avoid exceeding VNE.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I have to admit that the IF2 lesson I got was the perfect way of getting me to correctly do Selective Radial Scan, and to constantly cross-check to establish whether individual instruments had failed, and to just fly the aeroplane above all else. The benefits of getting the best possible instruction.

[CremeEgg]

Surprised no one has posted this link - some interesting comments

https://groundspeedrecords.com/

Can't claim any great tailwinds apart from maybe 30 knots as I cocked up my circuit in a K13 at Lasham. Downwind leg went rather quickly and on base it became rapidly apparent that any chance of reaching the field was long gone. The garden centre under finals to 09 was far more likely. Somewhat surprised that the instructor in the back remained silent I made an executive decision than a big dash downwind and a 180 baseleg would see us safely on the ground at RAF Odiham rather than trying my luck at a field landing. Perfect circuit and landing but we got a complete bollocking from the RAF for landing at the home of the Wokka. Expensive aerotow retrieve for me behind a Tiger Cub - not exactly a high performance glider tug.

[bob2s]

Tailwind NO,headwinds YES. This is the way of life in a Bell 47,no matter which point on the compass you were heading, you could be assured that you would battle a head wind ,so much so, that a horse could beat you from one end of a paddock to the other. Best was a 46 hour ferry flight from Sydney to Perth,8 hours flying per day!

[Slasher]

Sydney to Perth back in my day was a sh!t of a leg in the 727 in the Winter. Always a full pax load and never enough to get to Perth with an alternate at the planning stage. 100kt H/W average and one could find oneself at FL220 on esp bad days of 150kt+ headwinds above FL260. We had "Howgozit" charts based on return to ADL and a redispatch point at or abeam Kalgoorlie to recalculate our 15% variable. On top of that Perth was notorious for sudden advection fog. Past ADL one kept an eye on its wet bulb depression and local wind.

Three time during my tenure we had to jump into the 'goolie enroute to refuel, usual because of said fog.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

On my long ferry trip in a Cessna 152 with a 25% overweight permit for the extra fuel tank, I was in the position of having to fly with a max headwind of 10 kts or so on the very long legs, due to the very low cruise speed. However, if stronger headwinds showed up, my point of no return was almost to the destination, as the endurance was about 14 hours and said headwind would be the tailwind to blow me all the way back to the departure airfield.

[Slasher]

Point of no return. Strewth that's something I haven't seen in yonks.

Can't remember the formula but I think it was: fuel avail/GSO, and above GSO+H read TPNR on your whizzwheel. This was good for all engs and eng out PNRs as well as DPNR.

[Boac]

Ah! PNR. The dear Met office forced me into an exciting 'PNR' flight many years back. I was positiong an Aztec into Vagar (Faroes) from Glasgow to collect a pax. For those who do not know Vagar, it had an ILS on the SE runway with a DA of 900', down a Fjord between the land cliffs and a rocky peninsular, with extreme wind conditions which sometimes renedered the ILS unflyable for the Scandi DC9 schedules.

Anyway, reasonable met forecast, broken at 1500' wind 'ok' and a front arriving 6 hours after my ETA.

You probably know the story? As I passed PNR (nearest alternate at Vagar was KEF, and not reachable fuel-wise) - yes - the front was 6 hours early. By the time I got to descent point it was blowing a hooley and solid at 500' in heavy rain. Without any real instrument arrival I could practically fly I let down to 500' over the og to stay 'VMC' and positioned myself using the weather radar in the mouth of the Fjord on the localiser. The run in was horrendous with extreme turbulence, and the airport (officially 'shut' for arriavals due weather) was a little surprised to see me appear out of the murk, by now down to about 200'. I parked the cab and sat contemplating what I thought of met men....................and then the shaking stopped

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

It's exciting stuff, isn't it?
When you look at the number of met stations from Labrador to the Faroes, forecasts are just highly inspired guesswork. I had a similar experience with a recalcitrant front in Greenland. ATC informed me the Greenland Air flight had just diverted (and those boys are used to this kind of thing). I asked about "vmc" up the fjord. He said he would call his mate who lived at the mouth of the fjord. "50 foot cloudbase, half a mile vis, getting worse". I said thanks, announced my diversion, and started the long climb to creep over the icecap.