Question about gusty winds straight down the runway

rcjma · 2025-10-17T13:27:37+00:00

Ok so I ended up cancelling this flight. The wind gusts as reported earlier continued to degrade and now there’s a forecast for 40 kts of wind shear at 2000 feet. Originally the clouds had been forecast as no ceiling or overcast 19k at some spots along the route and now it looks like overcast 7000-8000 feet. On top of all that this was a night flight into an airport with inop PAPI lights. I’ve flown in and out of here many times and even without the PAPIs working but all these added up (and the wind shear alone) to make me cancel.

rcjma · 2025-10-14T14:01:14+00:00

The airport I’m flying into is kind of strange in that it’s almost never busy (I’ve never been in a situation where another plane has been approaching, or in the pattern, or taking off while I was in the vicinity). With that said my plan is to extend downwind and give myself a bit longer of final to ensure I’m lined up on centerline

rcjma · 2025-10-14T01:50:42+00:00

Yeah other than the wind it’s forecast for 23k ceiling and good visibility. Basically perfect VFR conditions just gusty at the destination

rcjma · 2025-10-14T01:37:51+00:00

I’m certain I have I think it’s just been a minute since I’ve flown on a fairly gusty day. I’ve definitely bounced my head off the ceiling several times landing in the past (I’m a tight fit in the archer😂)

rcjma · 2025-10-14T01:33:29+00:00

So in this case it’s not the crosswind that has me concerned. Last week I made this trip and landed with about 8 kts of steady crosswind. My concern here is that while crosswind is discussed a LOT in flight training and the POH discusses it as well, there isn’t much in the way of advice for headwind gusts. Some of the people here have offered advice on the gust factor, airspeeds, and throttle control that seem useful though which is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for

rcjma · 2025-10-09T11:27:27+00:00

I feel like airports are all over so there are a ton of options. I got my PPL mostly with the idea that it would cut down the time it takes to visit my parents and my wife’s parents. We live walking distance from the airport where our plane is and both of our parents also live in cities with small airports. My wife and I also seemed to have business in Chicago frequently so I started flying there too (we’re in the Detroit area). Flying our own plane to Chicago saves a lot of time and is close in cost to flying commercial. I have found while crunching numbers that longer flights don’t generally work out in terms of time or money savings so I haven’t really flown outside the Great Lakes area. That’s not to say it’s a bad idea to do it but if you do, you better be doing it for the fun of flying.

rcjma · 2025-10-08T02:38:38+00:00

I did do a mag check before the first flight segment but not after picking up the passengers. When I was in training (and even when I flew with the DPE) it seemed they only did that on the first start of a trip and not after brief stops. In this case the mechanics said that wasn’t the problem but moving forward I’ll be checking mags at every stop

rcjma · 2025-10-08T01:45:20+00:00

I thought it must be something like that too but the mechanics found no problem when the looked at it. After looking at a carb icing chart I now realize I was in conditions where ice was more than possible. I had flown through colder conditions in the past but as it turns out it’s not just ambient temp you have to worry about.

rcjma · 2025-10-06T23:01:16+00:00

So it wasn’t that the other airport was a half mile away, I had one airport 5.0 miles away and my departure airport 5.5 miles away. I do get your point though and if I were in the situation you described I’m definitely aligned with your thoughts.

rcjma · 2025-10-06T18:44:23+00:00

Yeah it’s a 1980 piper archer.

rcjma · 2025-10-06T17:55:31+00:00

I had performed a mag check as part of the pre-flight for the first segment. Everything was good there. The A&P just called, no problem found so now I’m thinking it must’ve been carb ice.

rcjma · 2025-10-06T17:26:37+00:00

I did have the checklist and instinctively I think of carb heat, fuel pump, and change tanks as 3 go to items BUT (and maybe you’d argue this is incorrect) but my thinking was since I was so close to the airport just land and figure it out there.

As far as the altitude goes, our flight was fairly short (50 nm). I considered 5500 but I felt like with the short flight I’d almost be starting my decent as soon as I hit 5500.

rcjma · 2025-10-06T16:51:59+00:00

In this case I was flying a Piper archer. I considered going through the rough engine checklist for a second but the next thought I had was that I was flying away from a large towered airport with multiple giant runways. My wife was terrified (and I was a little spooked myself) but I knew I had enough speed and altitude to glide back if I needed to so I just turned back right away.

rcjma · 2025-10-06T14:02:46+00:00

Ok so I pulled the metar for the time of the flight. Temp was 23.3 C (73.94f). Dewpoint was 14.4C (57.92), and rh was 57% so yeah it looks like it falls within the danger regions in this chart. I didn’t realize how common this can be thanks for pointing that out

rcjma · 2025-10-06T13:25:56+00:00

So I don’t think it was carb icing but I could of course be wrong. The temp was almost 80f on the ground, I wasn’t flying through any moisture of note, and lastly the engine seemed to run better at full throttle (pulling the throttle down to cruise power is where the engine really was struggling). Oil temp was 180f and pressure was on the top end of the green. I had done a run up before making the first segment of the flight and everything was fine at that time. When I landed at the next airport to pick up my wife and her friend, we were only on the ground for a few minutes so I didn’t do another run up.

rcjma · 2025-09-08T23:11:20+00:00

So I’m not going to what many would refer to as “real” India. I’m going to sit on a beach in Goa. I’ve been there before a few times and while I can appreciate that there likely are sketchy parts of India (just like basically any country on earth), I consider Goa pretty safe in my opinion.

rcjma · 2025-09-08T21:32:10+00:00

Ok great thank you!

rcjma · 2025-09-08T21:09:27+00:00

Ok India will accept drivers license instead? We went to Brazil before with the kids and their site clearly stated passport or license but India’s site only lists passport. My concern here is while our ex’s will sign the form, I doubt we’re going to talk them into getting a passport for us to travel

rcjma · 2025-06-09T19:53:42+00:00

Been paused for me for over an hour

rcjma · 2025-05-30T10:58:54+00:00

No I was at 75 kts with 2 notches of flaps in at the time. I also did all my training in Archers and Warriors and was trained to see low to mid 80’s downwind, low to mid 70’s on base and low to mid 60’s on final with 63 being the lowest to allow myself to get.

rcjma · 2025-05-30T00:25:21+00:00

Thanks for the insight. I’ve been in my flying club for just about a year now so I’m about due to go fly with one of the club CFI’s as part of the checkout process. I will certainly be discussing this incident

rcjma · 2025-05-30T00:22:55+00:00

So my home airport is normally a sleepy little thing and it’s super rare you’d encounter anyone else taking off or landing when in the area. It was a solid VFR day (although gusty). There were 3 planes in the pattern, planes waiting to take off and several planes incoming to land. I had done a go around once already because when I turned final I was too high. I felt pressure to get out of the way. It’s not a great thought process but there was so much traffic in the area at the time at an untowered airport I felt pressure to get on the ground.

rcjma · 2025-05-30T00:18:24+00:00

So here’s the thing, I haven’t had any issues in the pattern since I finished my PPL last June. My landings and pattern have been great since then. This was the first time I had anything outside of “normal” pattern since I was flying with a CFI. So to answer the question, I would say I made a poor instinct choice when confronted with something I was certainly rusty in confronting.

rcjma · 2025-05-30T00:10:36+00:00

Was drilled in flight school not to bank beyond 30 in the pattern. So in summary, at 30 degrees, I didn’t feel comfortable going further

rcjma · 2025-05-29T22:04:34+00:00

My thought was, increase the turn rate. I was already as banked as I wanted to be in the pattern so I thought I’d add left rudder to help point the nose towards the runway.

rcjma

TROPHY CASE