Wind - How to judge on off airport landings?

[Peteohms]

I usually start by tuning in the nearest AWOS. Then look for the other clues as I get closer to the field.

[SkySteve]

"Hey Steve, are you sure? I always thought that cows & horses generally faced into the wind.", John.


John,
Horses and cows generally stand with butts to the wind, but always stand facing the wind during take-offs and landings!

[GWright6970]

When Dorsal landed, he reduced throttle and "backed into Runway 2!"

[SkySteve]

When in doubt look at their tails. That's always a dead give-a-way. Not gonna comment on Dorsal's tail.

[Dorsal]

The 55 was only at altitude, was only 15-20 on the ground. Even at altitude it would have been fun to get a picture of the GPS showing a speed and track 180 off from the indicated heading

[TahoeTim]

Thanks for the input. I usually just do a long final and fly the plane down the center line, adjusting accordingly. I guess I should do a downwind, base, final as if I was doing an airport landing.

[Slyfox]

when I fly into an unknown area I always set either airplane up on my slow speed cruise. The kitfox is 84kts with so much throttle opening and set the prop at 5200rpm. Now I look at the ground speed of the gps and go from there if I have a tail wind or head wind, pretty effective. This is also my set up just before landing anywhere, this is my speed when playing in a canyon, so I can get there pretty quick. Of course I also watch my wind in the trees, grass on the ground, water on the ground if any, birds, smoke, to have as a final decision maker. Last ditch is if you have to land with the wind, expect a longer roll out. I did one in the rv the other day and landed with a 20kts tail wind and the landing was almost right at twice as long as a normal calm wind. I guess you can always count on an extra room of twice as long to be on the safe side.

[akflyer]

Back to basics. Remember turns about a point? If you cant figure out which way the wind is blowing with one turn, then you either dont have any wind blowing, or you probably should get some additional flight time with an instructor.

As has been stated above, you can fly a box, look at the grass, trees, nearby water etc. You should be over flying the runway if it is off airport at LOW level to make sure there are no big gotcha's on the strip anyway. If you can't figure out the wind on that first pass (are you crabbing to the left or right to maintain the center line, or is the ground whizzing by at a much higher rate than it should be) then you need to get some more dual.

When I first started my flight training (officially, with an actual instructor) I only got one take off and landing at the airport per lesson, all the rest were on the beach or back bountry strips (or just open areas with no "strip". My instructor knew me from way back it was his mission to teach me what he knew I would be out doing the second he was not in the plane with me. Old crusty instructors that actually use real world knowledge and care more about keeping thier students alive, than teaching word for word out of a book are getting VERY hard to come by these days.

[DanB]

When I first started my flight training (officially, with an actual instructor) I only got one take off and landing at the airport per lesson, all the rest were on the beach or back bountry strips (or just open areas with no "strip". My instructor knew me from way back it was his mission to teach me what he knew I would be out doing the second he was not in the plane with me. Old crusty instructors that actually use real world knowledge and care more about keeping thier students alive, than teaching word for word out of a book are getting VERY hard to come by these days.

AK,
What you just described made me think of the type of training Paul Ledabrand of (Stick and Rudder http://stick-rudder.com/Training.htm)
does. ( not sure he fits the old and crusty part ) I have heard several testimonies of how complete his training is and hitting as many off-field landings as possible. My conventional trainig fell through with him a while back (my bad) but I plan to pick it up with him as soon as I can. I drool every time I think about going to many of the remote air strips outside of the Boise area.
Dan