Questions tagged [wind]
The flow of air with respect to the ground. This will affect the performance and handling of aircraft and can be a limiting factor.
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How is calculated the Vertical wind? [closed]
I have the following formula to calculate the vertical wind component, but I don’t understand when it refers to “moy”, maybe graph polinomial relation as “moy” in this formula is not a parameter or ...
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Why does a sudden tailwind/headwind change IAS?
I read the following statement: “tailwind quickly changing to a headwind causes an increase in airspeed and performance.
Conversely, a headwind changing to a tailwind causes a decrease in airspeed and ...
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What are the wind speed limits for skydiving?
Obviously, there is the crosswind and steady wind speed limit of the aircraft you are jumping from, but that aside, what are the wind speed (including gusts) limits for the average tandem skydive?
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How to Calculate Required True Airspeed to maintain desired ground speed?
Working on programming my own E6B and am stuck trying to calculate the following problem from Sporty's E6B:
Given wind info and desired speed/course, what airspeed/heading should I have in order to ...
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Helicopter total power required: zero wind speed while climbing --vs-- down wind speed while hovering
I've been stumped on this for a while. Let's say you have a helicopter in climb mode (i.e., 100 ft/min) with zero wind speed present. Would the total power requirement be the same as if the helicopter ...
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Calculate/Measure Sideslip Angle from Heading Track and Drift Angle
Is there a way to measure the sideslip angle during flight through the relationship of heading, track and drift angle? For example if you turn the aircraft into head or tailwind - does the sideslip ...
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What wind speed should I adhere to (gusts or not)?
I live in the UK, and as such frequently have flight plans cancelled in Microlights (Ikarus C42). Anyway, one of the reasons is it has a low crosswind limit (15 kts). When I look at the weather, I ...
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Which runway should I have used, and how can I properly choose it in later flights?
Today I wanted to fly and could take off from the runway of my choosing. I have wind from 040 at 13KT and the one runway is 09/27.
Which runway should I use?
I would use runway 09 because an aeroplane ...
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Difference between Mountain Breeze/Katabatic Winds and Valley Breeze/Anabatic Winds
I am studying Meteorology for my CPL exams, and taking EASA's 2020 Learning Objectives as a guideline for the topics I have to study.
In the topic of local winds, there are subtopics for Anabatic &...
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How can an ultralight be slowed down for landing in a tailwind?
When flying an ultra light and I have a tail wind, and, with the engine at idle how do I slow down to land ?
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What are the wake turbulence characteristics at ground level near landing aircraft?
I'm a structural engineer and I need to understand the additional forces that wake turbulence may cause on a building near a runway.
I can determine the natural wind speed and associated forces on the ...
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What does a pilot do when there is crosswind?
In an aircraft, headwind slows it down, and tailwind speeds it up. But it does not steer the flight off course.
But when there is extreme crosswind, how does the pilot handle the situation? And what ...
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What is the explanation for the appearance of airplanes hovering? [duplicate]
A few weeks ago, I saw a plane that appeared to be hovering in the air. It was a large commercial airliner. It was not a windy day, land speeds of 24km/h max that day, about 5km/h at the time I saw it ...
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Variables of Dryden Wind Model
How to determine the turbulence intensities (σu, σv, σw), scale lengths (Lu, Lv, Lw) & Angular frequency (ω0) in the given Dryden wind model to generate wind speeds (u_w, v_w, w_w) of civil jet ...
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Is there a name for the fast decline + pull to climb pattern?
I'm a hobby photographer and I've noticed some patterns in the bird flights, so I tried to poke a bit into the aviation terminology for it. Phalacrocorax carbo does this movement similar to the ...
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What is inflated wind speed?
According to NOAA, inflated wind speed is "the true wind speed (in knots) adjusted to improve forecasts of higher wind speeds. Wind speeds greater than the mean wind speed observed are increased, ...
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How are shear winds studied experimentally?
I've played extensively with wind shear Math models, but I wonder how the aerospace researchers study it experimentally: Do they generate shear flows in a water tunnel? Or do they use a wind tunnel? ...
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Why is it safe flying in a tailwind when taking off is not? [duplicate]
If taking off in q tailwind is unsafe (due to loss of lift from reduced air speed), then why is it safe flying in tailwind, such as in jet stream?
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What is the red barb for in the NOAA weather briefing?
Wind barbs are well-defined symbols, but I noticed in my WX briefing that there are now occasional red barbs in the chart.
The red appears on both the 5kt and 10kt barbs, and sometimes for largest ...
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How does it feel like to be outside a flying airplane?
Riding a motorcycle on a freeway at over 200 kph you surely feel the rush of air around you. A typical commercial jet airliner travels at approximately 3-5 times that speed at cruise altitude. ...
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Can a slow small plane, flying at a few meters above the ground, drop to the ground if the headwind abruptly stops? [duplicate]
Why do I ask this question? Because Wilbur Wright sent a letter to Georges Spratt (an aviation enthusiast he personally knew) saying that his plane, Flyer II, once in flight, accelerated easily to 45 ...
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Can I derive the wind speed and direction? [duplicate]
If I know the IAS and GS (with directional components) of an aircraft, can I derive the wind speed and direction?
I'm working on an application that simulates the flight of an aircraft. Another ...
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What surface materials do airplanes use to reduce friction?
Full swimming body suits were banned from Olympic Games a few years ago because some materials have less friction than skin and contestants that could not afford gear to increase their performance ...
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How should I attach an aircraft model in a wind tunnel when testing wind gust/yaw stability?
Where should I attach the rod to the aircraft model when simulating wind gust /weather vane effect in wind tunnel testing? At the center of gravity, behind the CG, in front of the CG...?
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What would be the challenges for a pilot taking off into a headwind of just under the clean stall speed?
If a strong and fairly steady headwind was coming down the runway at just under the stall speed for a clean configuration/weight, what challenges would a pilot face? Or would it be fairly easy? Is ...
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Does a VNAV PTH descent need the Forecast Descent winds?
If VNAV PTH, contrary to VNAV SPD, maintains a given path angle, depending on the CI chosen, and not a given Speed, then in my mind winds shouldn't affect it, since they would only cause the Vertical ...
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Can short buildings near an airport affect runway winds?
Reddit user u/ywgflyer contends for CYYZ, Toronto International Airport,
23 is the "good" runway. The 24s are garbage in a crosswind because of the localized wind effect that all the hotels ...
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How can I estimate wind speed and direction in VFR?
I am new here, I started to do VFR navigation (no G1000) so I try to deal with the wind.
I notice that I have some problems to find the wind speed and direction during flight. I am going to try to ...
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Can airliners land with auto pilot in gusty wind conditions?
Why does the pilot make so many movements? I don't see that plane is moving all that much, but his yoke movements are strong and fast.
For someone who is not a pilot, it almost looks like panicked ...
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How do I calculate the wind angle relative to the aircraft's heading? [duplicate]
If I want to calculate the wind angle relative to the aicraft's heading, I use TAS and not IAS, right?
I want to calculate the relative wind angle to the aircraft. I have this information to work with:...
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What degree is crosswind? [closed]
I know that there are three type of wind, headwind, tailwind and crosswind.
What degree of wind direction can distinguish it? 30 or 45 degree?
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1.VRB02KT: Is it varying more or less than 180°? 2.VRB03KT: Is it surely varying more than 180°? [duplicate]
Based on the following ICAO Annex 3 criteria for the use of the abbreviation VRB (not FAA, which is different and evident):
when the total variation is 60° or more and less than 180° and the wind ...
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What determines the maximum ground speed of hot air balloons?
I am wondering how the ground speed of hot air balloons is controlled. The wind is obviously going to have a large influence upon the ground speed, but apart from wind effects, do hot air balloons ...
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What is the difference between nautical air miles and nautical ground miles?
What is a simple way to understand the difference between the nautical air mile (NAM) and the nautical ground mile (NGM)?
How does the wind affect the net displacement of the aircraft as that is the ...
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Can the "G" and "VRB" wind conditions be combined in METARs?
I have never seen the "VRB" (for wind direction variations < 60°; e.g. VRB12003KT) and "G" annotation (for gusts > 10KT wind speed difference; e.g. 12003GT30KT) being combined in a METAR.
Until ...
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What design characteristics influence helicopter wind gust spread tolerance during takeoff and landing
Not considering pilot reaction time, what factors influence a helicopter's ability to survive high wind gust spreads (from any direction) during takeoff and landing?
I have considered:
Swash plate ...
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Is it possible to determine if winds were high without groundspeed, wind speed, AoA or AoS?
I have a data set that includes TAS, IAS, GPS Lat/Lon, Inertial Lat/Lon, ENU speed, inertial speeds, attitude, and accelerations. I don't need to know the exact wind speed, and I don't think that's ...
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Are bigger and / or heavier aircraft more resistant to crosswind compared to smaller / lighter aircraft?
When watching heavy crosswind video compilations, I noticed heavy aircraft like the A380 an B747 have a more stable approach compared to the B737 or A320 where the plane banks left and right on ...
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Could we make a Hybrid Plane, But not use batteries?
What if we had wind turbines on planes. These would not power a battery but would instead power a smaller engine. Perhaps once a pilot goes to the cruising level he could activate the wind turbines to ...
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How changes in Air masses, Air flow direction and intensity affect lift?
I have a question regarding the airflow an aircraft experiences during 3 distinct scenarios:
An aircraft during landing, experiencing a sudden gust of 40 knots from the tail. What would be the ...
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Why do gusts change the airspeed during landing, but turning (which changes where the wind is coming from) does not?
As we know it, aircraft are extremely sensitive to gust during its final landing stage. They can lose airspeed if the wind changes to tail, ad thus loose lift or need to adjust their thrust in order o ...
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Why do eastbound transpacific flights fly at lower latitudes than their westbound counterparts?
I’ve seen some routes for flights from Asia (mainly Hong Kong and Shanghai) to the west coast of North America, which fly at lower latitudes than flights in the other direction (which they fly closer ...
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Does the coriolis force have an effect on the direction in which an aircraft travels?
Suppose an aircraft is flying from Kenya (which lies on the equator) to UK (which lies in the northern hemisphere). Does the Coriolis force veer the aircraft to the right? Do pilots have to correct ...
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How does gust affect a swept wing
I have a basic question that I cannot seem to find a solid answer for:
How does a gust affect a swept wing?
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Is any device installed on airplane to measure wind speed relative to the ground, and its direction?
A device or tool which can measure actual wind speed to the ground rather than to the airplane. Also a device which detect the wind direction to the plane. The device I meant is something like this ...
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What should a pilot do when facing a sudden tail, cross, or head wind?
Consider a pilot is flying a conventional fixed wing airplane with a ground speed of 60km/h with no wind. Then suddenly the wind starts blowing at 20km/h in either of the following directions:
from ...
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Does lift coefficient for maximum range change for a glider experiencing headwind?
When a glider or unpropelled aircraft experiences headwind, I understand that the flight velocity and sink velocity for the "new" maximum possible range both increase (see velocity polar from How does ...
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What is the best option when the headwind exceeds the maximum airspeed?
In a previous question, Mongo described flying his Cessna with a negative ground speed in a head wind. In this situation, what is the correct thing for a pilot to do, if there is nowhere to land ...
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What is wind "CALM"?
What is the exact criteria for wind speed to be considered "CALM".
Different countries might have different values and i do not mind getting answers from those. But an answer from an ICAO annex would ...
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Is it possible to fly backward if you have really strong headwind?
Is it possible to fly a plane backwards if you have a really really strong headwind? I mean when you are aloft, you have positive airspeed and airflow over the wings but you have negative ground speed....
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