Pilotage

In whatever mood we encounter it, wind exerts a powerful and fundamental influence over our flying. Rare is the flight that doesn't meet up with a frustrating headwind or a satisfying tailwind. We set our heading to account for wind drift so that we can stay on course. The wind dictates which runway we use and how we fly the traffic pattern. A stiff crosswind calls for slipping or crabbing on the approach and fancy footwork to fight weathervaning on the runway. Turbulence and gusts can affect our speed and spoil our ride. There's all of that, and then there's wind's most basic effect on our flying - as the creator and transporter of weather. Now that's a big job.

I enjoy matching wits with crosswinds and other windy challenges as much as the next pilot, but I also savor my annual break from the wind. I'm talking about summer, of course, the season when the wind typically takes its vacation, too.

The signs of the wind's summer doldrums were everywhere on a recent flight. A huge, sluggish high-pressure system covered the southeastern United States, and nothing much was moving under its blanket of hot, moist, settling air. Smoke rose straight up from the stacks. Lake surfaces were smooth and flat. No papers were grabbed out of my hand and launched across the ramp. My baseball cap didn't get lifted off my head. I didn't have to worry about opening the cabin door downwind.

The absence of even the most modest of breezes also meant that I sweltered as I prepared myself and the airplane to fly. It's amazing how much a human can sweat while preflighting and loading an airplane. This is possibly the worst time for a passenger in a light airplane. The greenhouse effect inside the cabin, and the lack of air conditioning, or even the most rudimentary environmental control system, combine to make for miserable moments until you get the big fan up front turning.

You can try to mitigate the experience by letting the passengers hibernate in the air-conditioned comfort of the car or FBO while you load the airplane. But it'll still take five or 10 minutes to get everyone aboard and the engine started. The simple exertion of crawling into the cabin and belting in will have everyone drenched. There's not much that you can do about it except to provide plenty of cool water for everyone to drink and advise the passengers in advance to wear cool, loose-fitting clothes.

The irony of the superheated experience of loading a small airplane in summer is that once you climb to cruising altitude - where the temperature may be 20 to 40 degrees cooler than on the surface - everyone will be complaining of the cold. So in addition to cool water, in summer you have to stock the cabin with blankets.

Other than lazily noting the passing of an occasional whiff of air, the windsock hung limp from its hoop. Instead of the wind dictating the runway of choice, the tower controller assigned it on the basis of convenience. I was number two for the runway, behind an MD–88. The built-in "taxi into position and hold" wake turbulence delay in my takeoff clearance gave me a chance to watch the big jet climb away from the runway. I like to observe the departure closely because it gives me guidance on how to avoid a wake turbulence encounter. Even the slightest crosswind component immediately causes a departing jet to slide to one side or the other of the extended runway centerline. I then plan to stay on the upwind side when I depart.

There was no crosswind this day - no wind at all, in fact. Lack of a crosswind encourages wake vortices to loiter on the runway. Fortunately, the controller issued a turn instruction along with my takeoff clearance. By lifting off in advance of where the MD–88 rotated, and turning, I was comfortable that I wouldn't penetrate the wake turbulence hot zone.

The absence of any significant wind is most noticeable and enjoyable in cruise flight. It's a rare treat to be able to use your course (ground track) as your heading. No wind correction angle required. The second interesting phenomenon you encounter on such a no-wind day is that your groundspeed is the same as your true airspeed. There is no headwind or tailwind component to take away from or add to your groundspeed.

Given a choice, I'll take no-wind conditions on a long round trip over a headwind one direction and tailwind the other because I'll spend less time on the tailwind leg. A simple example: Say my true airspeed is 125 knots. On a 250-nm leg I'd fly for two hours in no-wind conditions. A 25-knot tailwind would take me only about one hour and 40 minutes. But the return flight, at a groundspeed of 100 knots, would take two hours and 30 minutes, for a total round-robin time of four hours 10 minutes - 10 minutes longer than my no-wind time.

One other interesting phenomenon I encountered on the trip was that the barometric pressure reported by each new controller I did business with barely wavered from the initial departure setting. And this was over a distance of almost 700 nm.

Of course, there's a down side to windless flight. With no crosswind, turbulence, or gusts present, who are you gonna blame for that triple-bounce landing you just executed?