Where's the Wind?

One of the most important things to be aware of whenever flying is the direction and velocity of the wind. This is an important factor when flying cross-country (in order to make sure your ground track is in the right direction) and also when flying low, especially when going around the airport pattern. The latter case is the reason for practicing ground reference maneuvers, where you need to maintain a constant altitude while going around a point or doing S-turns. The trick is that the wind will be pushing you in some direction and you need to compensate for it by adjusting the rates of turns as you change headings.

That was my practice today, as it was last time, to be able to tighten the tolerances on my speed and altitude fluctuations while doing these. The wind was fairly calm at the field (as opposed to this day), so I thought it would actually be not very valuable training, but it's about all I can do still, since I'm not cleared for cross-country flying yet.


So off I went into our practice area, and tried to see what the wind was doing. I wasn't expecting much, but as I got to the western edge (along a river valley), I started picking up some moderate turbulence -- actually wind gusting through the valley. So consistent in fact, that when I came back over to the same spot a bit later, I hit the same air currents. So, the first S-turns didn't turn out that well and I left this spot for later and practicing some steep turns.

As I moved back to the east, the wind was a bit steadier, and only about 15 knots or so. It still took me a couple of turns to see which way it was going though, since it seemed to vary depending on where I was. The farmers down below must have thought I was lost, but I suppose they see a lot of planes just spinning around in the sky.

With a decent mix of turns around a point and S-turns, I did a few steep turns, which turned out okay. The final one was the best, even with altitude steady. Since I wanted to do some touch-and-go's, I started back, and called the tower. It definitely pays to pay attention, since the controller mixed up my call sign and another from the same school which is only one digit different. I had to negate the clearance he had given to the other guy, thinking he was me. And today wasn't anywhere near as busy as last week.

We got it straightened out, and I came in for the first approach. This one, like all the others (6 in all, with 5 touchdowns) seemed to come together just right. The wind was about 6 knots, about 30 degrees off the nose, so it was virtually perfect, and my groundspeed seemed awfully slow. Nevertheless, I kept the airspeed on, and even had a chance to do a forward slip on one of the approaches that was just a bit high.

One the second go-around, there was some departing traffic that the controller wanted to get off the ground. He asked if I would be willing to accept a "low approach" over the turf runway. That was a different experience, since every other approach has been over a paved runway. In the past, this has meant that we would fly lower and lower attempting to maintain a very low altitude over the ground, but if the wheels inadvertently touched, it was okay, since we were cleared for the "option". This time, not only was I not cleared to touchdown, but I was over grass, a no-no for this rented airplane (unless it's an emergency, of course).

This meant that I stayed a bit (a lot...) higher than I could have, but it was also interesting to approach a field that had no markings other than some white cones to delineate the runway edges. I saw that I can do all right without the VASI lights or other typical visual cues, and could have landed if it had been necessary.

Coming up...night flying?