Wind - How to judge on off airport landings?

[TahoeTim]

My tailwheel instructor was big on checking the sock at each airport approach. I am wondering how you guys judge the wind during off airport landings.

It seems like I could learn something that would apply even at airport landings.

Thanks

[kitfoxnick]

A trick I use is to fly square to the place you intend to land. (90 deg off your runway heading) concentrate on drift. If the plane drifts to the left then the wind is coming from the right. Many backcountry strips are one way in and one way out no matter wich way the the wind blows.

[DanB]

Here in the desert SW we have lots of dust. I look for signs of dust being blown and a farmer out plowing a field gives a great visual. In areas with lakes, look at the shorelines for the most white water. The thing I'm interested in testing out and using now is my Dynon 100 has a wind direction arrow that is said to show up when the OAT, magnetometer, and GPS signals converge. Has anyone found this to work well? Is it accurate enough? I just set up the parameters and was curious.
Dan

[SkySteve]

Like Dan mentioned, look at the natural surroundings. Things like which way are trees, grass, clouds, cloud shadows, horses tails, (horses and cattle tend to stand with their butts into the wind) blowing? Notice land formations where air would flow over, up or down (remember air tends to flow uphill in the morning and downhill in the afternoon), etc. If your GPS shows ground speed, compare that to your Indicated Airspeed. Do you have to add left or right rudder or flaperons to hold a straight course due to wind? When you fly downwind, upwind, crosswind, base or final does the plane tend to float left, right, slow down or speed up? Our planes are light enough and respnsive enough that they will tell you a lot when you get familiar enough with yours to feel what it is doing while you fly.

[Dorsal]

Here in the desert SW we have lots of dust. I look for signs of dust being blown and a farmer out plowing a field gives a great visual. In areas with lakes, look at the shorelines for the most white water. The thing I'm interested in testing out and using now is my Dynon 100 has a wind direction arrow that is said to show up when the OAT, magnetometer, and GPS signals converge. Has anyone found this to work well? Is it accurate enough? I just set up the parameters and was curious.
Dan
I find it works quite well and very handy. My son and I are in the middle of a flying adventure from MA to Nemacolin resort in SW PA, hit a new record with a 55 mph headwind :eek: really slows down a Kitfox.

[SkySteve]

Dorsal,
Just think of the cool vertical landing you could do!:D:eek:

[Dorsal]

Dorsal,
Just think of the cool vertical landing you could do!:D:eek:

I thought about going to minimum controllable airspeed to do the whole fly backwards thing but as the wind was projet to increase I wanted to be on the ground:)
Great trip so far, will write a trip report when we get home.

[jrevens]

Hey Steve, are you sure? I always thought that cows & horses generally faced into the wind.


"... horses tails, (horses and cattle tend to stand with their butts into the wind)..."

[kitfoxnick]

I don't know if I would trust cows and horses at least I wouldn't trust mine for wind direction. But most birds face into the wind.

[kmach]

My horses definitely put butts to wind , not a light breeze but 20-30 kt wind.

[Peteohms]

I usually start by tuning in the nearest AWOS. Then look for the other clues as I get closer to the field.

[SkySteve]

"Hey Steve, are you sure? I always thought that cows & horses generally faced into the wind.", John.


John,
Horses and cows generally stand with butts to the wind, but always stand facing the wind during take-offs and landings!;)

[GWright6970]

When Dorsal landed, he reduced throttle and "backed into Runway 2!":)

[SkySteve]

When in doubt look at their tails. That's always a dead give-a-way. Not gonna comment on Dorsal's tail. :o

[Dorsal]

The 55 was only at altitude, was only 15-20 on the ground. Even at altitude it would have been fun to get a picture of the GPS showing a speed and track 180 off from the indicated heading :D

[TahoeTim]

Thanks for the input. I usually just do a long final and fly the plane down the center line, adjusting accordingly. I guess I should do a downwind, base, final as if I was doing an airport landing.

[Slyfox]

when I fly into an unknown area I always set either airplane up on my slow speed cruise. The kitfox is 84kts with so much throttle opening and set the prop at 5200rpm. Now I look at the ground speed of the gps and go from there if I have a tail wind or head wind, pretty effective. This is also my set up just before landing anywhere, this is my speed when playing in a canyon, so I can get there pretty quick. Of course I also watch my wind in the trees, grass on the ground, water on the ground if any, birds, smoke, to have as a final decision maker. Last ditch is if you have to land with the wind, expect a longer roll out. I did one in the rv the other day and landed with a 20kts tail wind and the landing was almost right at twice as long as a normal calm wind. I guess you can always count on an extra room of twice as long to be on the safe side.

[akflyer]

Back to basics. Remember turns about a point? If you cant figure out which way the wind is blowing with one turn, then you either dont have any wind blowing, or you probably should get some additional flight time with an instructor.

As has been stated above, you can fly a box, look at the grass, trees, nearby water etc. You should be over flying the runway if it is off airport at LOW level to make sure there are no big gotcha's on the strip anyway. If you can't figure out the wind on that first pass (are you crabbing to the left or right to maintain the center line, or is the ground whizzing by at a much higher rate than it should be) then you need to get some more dual.

When I first started my flight training (officially, with an actual instructor) I only got one take off and landing at the airport per lesson, all the rest were on the beach or back bountry strips (or just open areas with no "strip". My instructor knew me from way back it was his mission to teach me what he knew I would be out doing the second he was not in the plane with me. Old crusty instructors that actually use real world knowledge and care more about keeping thier students alive, than teaching word for word out of a book are getting VERY hard to come by these days.

[DanB]

When I first started my flight training (officially, with an actual instructor) I only got one take off and landing at the airport per lesson, all the rest were on the beach or back bountry strips (or just open areas with no "strip". My instructor knew me from way back it was his mission to teach me what he knew I would be out doing the second he was not in the plane with me. Old crusty instructors that actually use real world knowledge and care more about keeping thier students alive, than teaching word for word out of a book are getting VERY hard to come by these days.

AK,
What you just described made me think of the type of training Paul Ledabrand of (Stick and Rudder http://stick-rudder.com/Training.htm)
does. ( not sure he fits the old and crusty part :D) I have heard several testimonies of how complete his training is and hitting as many off-field landings as possible. My conventional trainig fell through with him a while back (my bad) but I plan to pick it up with him as soon as I can. I drool every time I think about going to many of the remote air strips outside of the Boise area.
Dan