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Blow down on a cross country
I’ve been flying for about 6 years with about 150 hours in the trike. Last week I was on a mid day flight with very squirrely winds and was having a hard time keeping in control. A blast of wind from 90 degrees off to my starboard turned the trike a full 90 degrees to port. I had been trying to ride the changing winds and manage but not fight the bar. When this gust hit it was so strong I just let it turn me and hung on for the ride. At that moment the red handle within easy reach was a comforting thought.
I’m generally an early morning/late afternoon/evening triker but am thinking even someone with more experience in turbulence would have done the same. A little scary for me to say the least.
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13 Replies
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Could you have hit wind shear? Thank God you made it back safe!
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It was more of a lateral blast rather than downward force so I don’t think it was wind shear.
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wind sheer can be completely horizontal and in many cases is.
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Ack
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Not to nit pick but a blast from the right will turn you right. So must have been a gust from the left that turned you left. Typically there is no roll upset when you get a horizontal blast, just a temporary heading change. if you are touching down, add power and time the “swing back” with the touch down. Otherwise just ignore it because your flight track should remain unaffected.
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Sure felt like it was 90 degrees from the right but given the wind conditions, perhaps coming from 180 degrees in the opposite direction is what caused me to swing to the left. There was no roll upset, simply a change in direction as you state. It was the most significant one I’ve experienced to date…..one of those “Yee ha” hang on for the ride moments.
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Swing? Did it yaw or did the carriage swing or both? Did the carriage bank at all
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I guess you would call it yawing to the left. The entire chassis and wing changed direction to the left, as if the bow of the trike was being pushed from the right. The general wind direction was from the 2 o’clock position. There was no carriage bank. My thought was a very strong gust came in from that same 2 o’clock direction (it was gusty as all get out at the time).
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So when the wind gust comes from the right for example, the relative wind you were flying in which is going straight over both leading edges and hitting the front of the carriage now shifts to from the right. If you are going 50 MPH and get hit with a 90 degree, 50 MPH gust from the right, the relative wind will shift temporarily to a 45 coming from the right. If we imagine your leading edge is at 45 degrees (90 degree nose angle, for example purpose , yours is 135 degrees) the trike is now in a slip and 100% of the relative wind is pushing on your right leading edge and 0% is hitting the left leading edge. The wing now will coordinate itself so it is flying straight into the wind again. When the gust goes away, the process repeats itself again and the trike coordinates again.
So if you felt that when it turned sideways your trike was flying sideways through the air, I can see that raising alarm, but the fact that when it turned sideways your were now flying straight into the relative wind with a crab angle to the ground. The trike after the initial yaw/heading change was as happy as it was a second before the gust. And as mentioned, your ground speed may have slowed down, but should have continued in the same ground track. So maybe less concern now with more understanding that your trike simply coordinated itself and was flying straight through the air when you were eyeballing that BRS handle.
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Thanks, Larry. Makes sense now.
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One day, Diane told me she had a headache, I told her it is all in your head. She didn’t like that too much. When we hit good turbulance or abrupt changes in wind direction, I tell her it is just air. She doesn’t like that too much either. 🙂 Seriously though, We have had some pretty good winds hit us also. I hit what i believe was a wind shear one day at about 400Ft agl, it dropped me to about 200 feet agl in a few seconds. it wasn’t stormy that day just some wind that was normal for the airport we fly out of. I did not push out on the Bar when it hit me. That would be the wrong thing to do.
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Hey Tom – I have found myself in 45mph winds, been hit by all kinds of blasts, generally speaking, if I can do it safely, I just ride it out and do not fight it – More often than not I am side by side flying with Spencer, and whatever happens to me, happens to him, so regardless of how close we are, and we are typically pretty close, we both ride it out and we do not collide, not a concern – All that said, most of our flying is from 6 inches off the water to treetop level – Getting a blast there is another matter altogether, lots of things to collide with – I have had to “wrestle the gorilla” on occasion, fighting tooth and nail – At times, when I have a passenger, they can get unnerved on a turbulent approach to landing – The comforting thought is that no matter how turbulent it is on approach, the wind cannot go thru the water or land, so once you get to a flare, that is the end of it – My two cents
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After my forced tree landing, I installed the BRS chute I had sitting in my garage for the previous 10 years – That said, I can’t see ever using it, and I have lost my engine 4 times in flight – Once you pull that chute, you have given up all your choices – Personally, I would prefer having control and choosing where I go – The only reason I can see for ever using it, would be a structural failure where I can no longer fly the aircraft – I forget who said it, but whoever it was said, “never stop flying the aircraft, fly it right into the crash” – Words to live(survive) by – The BRS was more of a comfort for my wife
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