wrote in
:

On Apr 27, 3:43 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Big John wrote
:





On Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:40:55 -0700 (PDT), WingFlaps
wrote:

On Apr 25, 10:16 am, Stefan wrote:
WingFlaps schrieb:

(the stall is now damn close -better
hope there's no significant wind)
...
Now we add in the energy losses from having to
accelerate with the wind and to glide speed.

Arrrgh! Not the old "turn into downwind" legend again! Better
work
out
your understanding of physics before publicly reasoning about
turns.

Try reading the statement again, here it is:

"Now we add in the energy losses from having to accelerate with the
wind and to glide speed."

Now perhaps you would like to revise some physics and try to
critcise it for us?

I await your stumbling analysis of my words with mild amusement.

Cheers
*****************************************
Long time ago in the 30's I saw on a couple of occasions a Cub take
off in a strong head wind 25+ mph and make a 180 degree turn to
down wind. They then started losing altitude and mushed into the
ground nose high. Any idea why? Pilot's said they had full throttle
and proper RPM showed on engines until impact.

Wind gradient. As they climbed, the wind would increase and they'd
lose some airspeed until they were on the backside of the power
curve.same thing would happen if you took off with strong tailwind in
the first place. Also, the poorer climb angle even without the wind
gradient would cause many to get the nose up a bit too much as well
if they were not used to it.

Bertie

I think someone screwed up. As he turned, his airspeed would
remain constant and in the turn he would begin to move sideways over
the ground, and as he completed the turn his groundspeed would be much
higher but his airspeed the same as before. The airplane has lots of
time to make the shift in direction and it's not an instantaneous
change in vectors.
The sideways drift over the ground (which is mentioned here
only as a reference for visual flying, not that the airplane cares
about the earth's mass) might have caused him to think he was slipping
big time, so he pumped in a bunch of rudder, skidding it badly and
spun it in. And that's the reason we teach "Illusions Caused by
Drift."


Yeah, that's a big factor in the downwind turn scenario, but I also find
few really appreciate the wind gradient element as well. It's quite
significant close to the ground and it's a big problem with downwind
takeoffs as well.


Bertie