OT : Flying a Powered Plane Backwards?!?!

[airmalik]

Great story!

My instructor told me about the time when he took off almost like a helicopter in a strong headwind. I don't think he landed behind the spot he took off from though.

A few weeks ago I was flying into a stiff headwind and tried to see if I could go backwards. My ultralight stalls at 29-30mph. I tried to hold it just above 30mph and looking down I could see myself hovering over the same spot for a while. It seemed like I was going backwards at times but I couldn't be sure. The slowest ground speed my GPS displayed was 9mph. It took me a few moments to realize it was backwards!

cheers!

[Azimech]

The Antonov An-2 is famous for being able to do this. Not only that, it's stall characteristics are a real life saver.

[PeterPanPan]

Talking of wind assisted take-offs and landings, you have to see this video of a Twin Otter landing in a very strong head wind. Incredible ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwMlg...eature=related

PPanPan

[mazex]

He he, when I was 16 and taking my glider license back in 1986 we had to do a tow from a nearby field where we had been flying on a "camp" for a week even though it was a storm. Both my teacher and the tow pilot where 60+ and had thousands of hours and said it would be good practice for me as an apprentice I have in my logbook with the entry:

1986-07-12, 50 min, Bergfalke 2/55 "Towed from boras in 90 km/h headwind at 700m, tow speed was 135 so it took ages! Landing circuit was performed by reducing speed to 70 km/h and reversing to end of field at 500m. Then fix the shadow at 90 km/h and descend until the ground effect caused a very unpleasant speed drop while still not moving relative to ground. Stick forward to get relative speed and landing with a roll out of maybe 20 meters..."

This was a school flight (my 14:th start) and my teacher who started flying in 1935 told me stories from the finnish winter war where they hovered the biplanes down on lakes in a similar manner. Reduce speed until the shadow does not move and be prepared to apply throttle when the ground effect kicks in...

[RAF74_Winger]

Good stuff Mazek, I assume that by ground effect you mean the transition into the slower moving air close to the ground, is that correct?

W.

[mazex]

Originally Posted by RAF74_Winger

Good stuff Mazek, I assume that by ground effect you mean the transition into the slower moving air close to the ground, is that correct?

W.

Yeah - using english terms I actually mixed it up, what I meant was the wind gradient and not the ground effect (the ground effect beeing the "floatiness" close to the ground produced by the pillow of over pressurized air under the wing and the wind gradient beeing the fact that the wind is a lot weaker close to the ground due to turbulence). The wind gradient is always present in wind and can be quite nasty in strong wind for rookie pilots coming in to slow. Suddenly you can lose 20-30 km/h of air speed while the ground speed remains the same. In this case it was extreme

[AndyJWest]

In the days when I used to fly radio-controlled gliders this effect was very noticable - probably because their airspeed was low compared to a full-sized aircraft. In a strong wind the safest way to land was to push the nose down as you came below about 10-15 ft, and then level off about a foot off the ground to bleed off speed. Trying to maintain a constant airspeed was asking for trouble as you could only do this by diving, which put you into slower air, so you had to dive some more. I should imagine real glider pilots have the same difficulties too.