One specific idea shared with me at a frighteningly windy (and wet) NW regionals by the generous Brett Buck (correct me if I mis-state this): as you transition into the upper loop of Vert8s don't let the plane get fully horizontal; maintain some climb thru that transition. Right off the bat it worked like magic; preserved power/momentum/airspeed to not get "blown out" of the top, increased my confidence to fly this maneuver in wind 100x, and I now totally enjoy titrating this/practicing V8s in stiff wind....all because of one specific thing applied to a snippet of the pattern lasting less than two-tenths of a second.
And, I was just paying it forward. I got that from the legendary, larger-than-life Big Art himself, at a contest in Detroit in about 1983.
Just that one little tip illustrated to me one of the basic issues you have flying in the wind - that the airplane may be pointing in a different direction than it is moving. The higher you get in the circle, the bigger the difference is. In the vertical 8, for example, at 5 feet, the airplane is going more-or-less where it is aimed. At 45 degrees, if you let the fuselage get horizontal, the actual flight path is substantially down toward the ground, and as you get to the top of the circle, it pushing you down very strongly and if the nose is horizontal, the flight path is at a pretty steep down angle.
The effect is that the airplane is being forced towards the ground, and slowing it down on the way up, and speeding it up on the way down. The problem, if you ignore it, is that the maneuver will tend to be forced shorter from top to bottom, the intersection on the way down will also be too low, and it will be going like a bat out of hell, making it very difficult to get the bottom loop to come out above the ground.
The correction is to recognize that on the way up, all the turns will tend to be much tighter than normal, so you have to be pretty soft and back of the control pressure on the way up, and don't let the fuselage get horizontal - leave it "short" of the apparent angle, turning "early", then be very gentle on the controls on the outside part, because it will want to turn tighter and not get to the top - and then leave you without enough space to make it on the way down. Right as you get to the top, you have to really start jamming on the controls, because your turns want to open up and will drive the intersection too low, keep turning well "past" the horizontal so you are nose-up, then really hammer the "up" to make sure you are able to make the bottom loop.
If you do it right, the track of the airplane will be just like it is in the calm, but the angles will look all wrong.
The same issue applies to all the maneuvers. In the square 8, if you fly with the fuse horizontal across the tops, the flight path will be down and, again, make the ends shorter, leaving you less space. The nose of the airplane needs to be biased a little up towards the top of the circle in either loop, basically, you "under-turn" coming out of the intersections.
Just this idea, and the idea of "biasing" the maneuvers as I mentioned above, is at least a pretty good start on flying in the wind. Different airplanes, particular different engine and trim notions, require different degrees of compensation. Modern airplanes with aft-CG trim (as pioneered by Paul Walker) and tuned pipe engines take much less correction than, say, the mid-70's style ST46 airplanes with nose-heavy trim of the day. There plenty of times in the ST46 days I was just sitting there like a spectator in the bottom of the round 8, holding as much "up" as it had, and hoping it missed the ground.
Brett
Topic: How Hard Is It to Fly in Windy Days at Approx 17-20 Knots? (Read 977 times)
