Wind Flying

Has anyone ever done "wind flying" with a C/L plane? How do you get it going and how does the plane make headway against the wind? Does it fly like a kite?

I have heard of Aldrich flying a streak in Chicago several minutes after the fuel ran out. Was this true? How was it done?

--Curious in windy north Texas.

>Has anyone ever done "wind flying" with a C/L plane? How do
>you get it going and how does the plane make headway against
>the wind? Does it fly like a kite?
>
>I have heard of Aldrich flying a streak in Chicago several
>minutes after the fuel ran out. Was this true? How was it
>done?
>
>--Curious in windy north Texas.

Gordan Delaney, I think this was tailor-made for you!

Wind flying is actually pretty easy to do under the right conditions. A combat plane is perfect for this. If it's pretty windy, just get downwind when your plane quits and fly your maneuvers, and keep the plane always downwind. You can do figure-eights forever in a steady wind. You lose it if you get too far away from straight downwind, or the wind calms for a bit. Yeah, it's basically just a kite.
Years ago a buddy and I went out to test fast combat planes, but it was too windy to do any serious work. So we got one beater plane out, filled the bladder with just enough fuel for a few seconds of flight, went into maneuvers downwind, and when the engine quit, we'd just keep flying. We must have flown for an hour this way, trading off.
--jt

Yup, you just stretch your lazy eights so the wind pushes it back over the top of the loop at each end. A necessary skill in west OK where it blows 'most all the time.
--Ray

Brett,
Thanks Brett. You must of been standing somewhere close at the 95 nats. When I was flying the twin HUH.HA!

Gordy

>Brett,
> Thanks Brett. You must of been standing somewhere close at
>the 95 nats. When I was flying the twin HUH.HA!
>

For those of you who didn't make the '95 NATs - Gordan flew the big yellow twin for probably 5 minutes with the engines not running on one of his officials. Let's say the conditions provided more than enough HP to keep it going!

LAST EDITED ON Feb-23-04 AT 12:16 PM (CDT)
 
If I remember correctly what GMA said (I think I still have the e-mail somewhere on a disk)- he put the FS through two complete patterns after- the motor quit- at the NATs that year while doing a demo flight in front of a crowd of a few thousand people. The weather conditions were just right and he just kept whipping it around after the engine stopped until he got tired.
He told me that he always flew clockwise as he was right handed and felt it helped him "tow" the airplane when needed. He said he felt this was what helped him win the '57 NATs and the Walker. He said a gust of wind caught his plane while on the landing approach and it just seemed to stop in mid-air- he thought he was dead right there. He said "I towed for all I was worth, and the next thing I knew the wheels were rolling and I greased it on".

Thermals always, George...

Jake

I remember Mr. Bob Palmer talking about doing dead stick loops on his trips abroad. This was on the VSC 9 or 10 tape from Bob Hunt at the Awards Banquet.
Bill <><

I've seen Marvin Denny do this in Wichita and Tulsa with his NOVI. It is the coolest thing I've ever seen done with a CL model.

Yes, I've seen Marvin do this at VSC 2 years ago. After the engine quit, he did 3 insides, 3 outsides, 3 eights and whip it around for a few more laps before landing.

If you have got the room, you keep walking backwards into the wind, too. That helps.

It's pretty windy here in Motown, too.

I have done some wind flying. It's pretty easy in Wyoming, where the wind blows a lot, hard. 1/2A combat stuff was my favorite because it turns so quickly you can really get a lot of manuevers in and you can launch them without any power. Just toss them up about 45 degrees into the wind, then flip inverted and fly the downwind side of tehe circle. Bigger stuff flies well but is tougher to launch. A little power is better there to start.
Bare

Barry Baxter

>For those of you who didn't make the '95 NATs - Gordan flew the big yellow twin for probably 5 minutes with the engines not running on one of his officials. Let's say the conditions provided more than enough HP to keep it going!

>Brett

As Brett says, not only is the model in question a twin, it is also big.

And just because I really like Gordan, I ain't gonna tell anybody what it weighed in yellow, although the refinish was a lot lighter than the original.

Gordy,

I've got Rick Cochrun flying CL again. He's taking at least this year off from RC Pattern, hoping he goes to the NW Regionals with us.

Many moons ago, there was an article in one of the mags about building a model for this purpose (weight in the nose instead of engine & tank). Then a U-Reely was used for launching close with short lines, then longer and longer....
If it doesn't stink, it's not a diesel.

Also the "Haboob" for wind flying was published in Model Aviation in 1985. Pretty god article on the subject.

Jake

Ron B.
F4Fguy

At a contest at Bolling AFB in the mid '60s the wind was such that most contestants sat out the second round.John Hunton(designer of many published planes)went to his car and brought out a Shark which he'd modified for wind flying.The gear was removed,and the nose faired in,with ballast to restore the CG.after getting Jimmy Paul to hand launch,he proceeded to fly a full pattern interspersed with lazy eights to regain energy.An amazing display.