The International Cessna^® 170 Association

KDFW 241953Z 24037G47KT 10SM FEW100 21/M13 A2952 RMK AO2 PK WND 23047/1952 SLP991 T02111133

Where's my taildragger when I need it!

No time like the present to practice.

A RC instructor friend of mine was famous for saying: "Wind is a state of mind. If you don't mind it doesn't matter."

His point was many people crashed their (RC) planes simply because it was windy and that's what they where thinking about, not whether or not the wind was exceeding their abilities or limitations.

Another saying that an Army instructor drilled into my head is simple: "Do want needs to be done." This would come up when as a student we would deviate from our intended flight path because we would not apply sufficient control for the situation "because it didn't feel right". Didn't feel right meaning we'd never moved the stick or pedal that far of that fast.

Not many flights go by in the EMS world that I fly that I'm not faced with some less than ideal situation. Part of the evaluation process I go through silently when face with these situations after a silent review of aircraft limitations in my mind the last thing I think of is: "Wind (or what ever) is a state of mind. If you don't mind it doesn't matter." and "Do want needs to be done."

The trick of course is realizing before the fact that "Do want needs to be done" means do something else which could mean continue watching TV when the call came in.

gahorn wrote:KDFW 241953Z 24037G47KT 10SM FEW100 21/M13 A2952 RMK AO2 PK WND 23047/1952 SLP991 T02111133

Where's my taildragger when I need it!

Going to DFW? No problem, the wind is right down the width of the runway! Do you think they'd approve an intersection landing?

Bruce Funny you should talk about RC flying and the wind. Earlier this week when the local awos was reporting gusts to 28Kts I decided to fly an RC model for the first time in about 8 years since the ice covered fields presented some great runway options. Needless to say the flight did not last long. After about 3 circles the Dura plane went out of control and hit the ground at a 45 degree angle. After a few repairs next day thing went a lot better. I am trying to get a little practice in because I am about done a quarter scale Monocoupe and figured I better practice a little before I try to fly it. RC flying is great because you can practice all the things you would like to do in a full scale plane and your better judgement says "Hey that might not be good for the longevity of the pilot" Bill K

I once landed a 747 at London Heathrow when the steady state wind was 82 knots from 230 degrees with gust to some higher numbers. Sounds heroic, it wasn't, this was the one and only time I landed on runway 23 at Heathrow, so the wind was right down the runway. A couple of interesting notes: first during the landing roll a taxiway intersection was coming up and I thought we have this one made as visually we were slowed to taxi speed however our indicated airspeed was still over 100 knots, second the crew bus driver parked his bus near the aircraft in such a way that when he opened the door the wind blew the windshield out of the bus.

George-
It wasn't much better in the hill country, it would haver been a looooong flight from DFW. A good day to drive home.

Or another way to look at it; Whatever your pocketbook can bear.

On a trip from Houston back to Atchison Kansas we had a wonderfully helpful tail wind. Our ground speeds were showing in excess of 180 mph. As we neared Pittsburg Kansas we decided that a pit stop was in order. Wind reported to us by the attendant on unicom was around 60 or so out of the south. Pittsburg has the old triangle runnways of a former military training field so the cross wind wasn't a big problem but getting from the runway of choice to the tiedowns was going to be a problem.

With a 50 - 60 mph head wind on final I could almost stand still in the air so I flew right up and landed in the grass triangle then powered onto the apron stopped at the first tiedowns! The line boy came out and tied the right wing down and chocked the right main. He tied a strong rope to the tailwheel spring and held on to the left wing strut till I got out. It took us both pulling the rope to pivot around where we could tie the other wing and tailwheel down. I had worked in that town for a couple of years and was really familiar with that airport. I would never have tried landing in those conditions otherwise.

We took the courtesy car down town and had lunch. We stayed there for a couple of hours before the wind died enough to get going again. So all that fantastic speed we had ridden north on, went up in dust.