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Awesome! How did he manage to overcome dizzying feelings from cross-winds in an open-air cockpit? When I fly a sailplane, beside tailspins and free-falls (contr

by bitL 12y ago

Awesome! How did he manage to overcome dizzying feelings from cross-winds in an open-air cockpit? When I fly a sailplane, beside tailspins and free-falls (controlled of course) it's the crosswinds that can make me feel dizzy, especially when I approach a runway with an angle over 40 degrees left or right to the runway direction to compensate for cross-wind. And there is also the open-air pressure "fun" with quickly changing cockpit winds, especially over large water bodies and mountains.

darkmighty 12y ago
Perhaps it's the low speed? Apparently their cruise velocity is 70mph.
sokoloff 12y ago
I suspect the queasy feeling you feel on approach is from (intentionally and necessarily) uncoordinated flight, not from the airflow across the cockpit. In normal flight, you fly coordinated; the airplane is flying "straight and level" through the airmass; the total force vector on the pilot and the inner ear is straight down the spine and everything feels normal. To address a crosswind taking you off course, you simply turn ("crab") into the wind, but the airplane stays coordinated and you sum the aircraft airspeed vector with the airmass vector and adjust until your ground track is taking you where you want to go, even though the nose of the airplane isn't pointing straight along the ground track. This still feels "normal" though it can look odd in a strong wind and at low altitude. In a crosswind landing, you can't allow the nose to be off the ground track[1]. Otherwise, you'll impose a large sideload on the landing gear. So, you transition to uncoordinated (slipping) flight, where you dip a wing into the crosswind to keep the ground track aligned with the desired track. At the same time, you use opposite rudder to align the nose with the ground track (which is aligned with the runway on approach). In this condition, the force vector on the pilot is not straight down. (The turn coordinator "ball" will be displaced into the crosswind; that ball operates purely on force, so the pilot [and pax] feel the force vector pulling them to one side, but they know they aren't moving with respect to the airplane and this confusion is very disconcerting to some.) Long way to explain: in a long cross-country flight, the airplane is coordinated for 99.9+% of the flight and so most of the source of "dizziness" from crosswinds is no factor. [1]-many transport aircraft have gear that is tolerant of crabbed landings. Almost no light aircraft do. There's a limit to how much slip a large engined transport aircraft with underwing engines can tolerate before the engine nacelle will scrape the ground, so designers of those airplanes have had to allow for crabbed touchdowns in strong crosswinds.
fche 12y ago
"crosswind" in the landing contexts is imperceptible at cruise.

by bitL 12y ago

darkmighty 12y ago

Perhaps it's the low speed? Apparently their cruise velocity is 70mph.

sokoloff 12y ago

I suspect the queasy feeling you feel on approach is from (intentionally and necessarily) uncoordinated flight, not from the airflow across the cockpit. In normal flight, you fly coordinated; the airplane is flying "straight and level" through the airmass; the total force vector on the pilot and the inner ear is straight down the spine and everything feels normal. To address a crosswind taking you off course, you simply turn ("crab") into the wind, but the airplane stays coordinated and you sum the aircraft airspeed vector with the airmass vector and adjust until your ground track is taking you where you want to go, even though the nose of the airplane isn't pointing straight along the ground track. This still feels "normal" though it can look odd in a strong wind and at low altitude. In a crosswind landing, you can't allow the nose to be off the ground track[1]. Otherwise, you'll impose a large sideload on the landing gear. So, you transition to uncoordinated (slipping) flight, where you dip a wing into the crosswind to keep the ground track aligned with the desired track. At the same time, you use opposite rudder to align the nose with the ground track (which is aligned with the runway on approach). In this condition, the force vector on the pilot is not straight down. (The turn coordinator "ball" will be displaced into the crosswind; that ball operates purely on force, so the pilot [and pax] feel the force vector pulling them to one side, but they know they aren't moving with respect to the airplane and this confusion is very disconcerting to some.) Long way to explain: in a long cross-country flight, the airplane is coordinated for 99.9+% of the flight and so most of the source of "dizziness" from crosswinds is no factor. [1]-many transport aircraft have gear that is tolerant of crabbed landings. Almost no light aircraft do. There's a limit to how much slip a large engined transport aircraft with underwing engines can tolerate before the engine nacelle will scrape the ground, so designers of those airplanes have had to allow for crabbed touchdowns in strong crosswinds.

fche 12y ago

"crosswind" in the landing contexts is imperceptible at cruise.