Re: Anybody going to chase
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DieselDave said:
You could theoretically fly an aircraft backwards in a hurricane. With a aircraft indicated speed at 1000 feet of 150 and a hurricane head wind of 160 would give you a -10 ground speed while still safely inside the aircraft flight envelope. If the ground speed of the hurricane is 10 knots in your actual negative heading then you could stay in the same spot in the hurricane until you ran out of fuel, right?
Fly an aircraft backward? I have done exactly that but not in a Hurricane. In 1972 when I was taking flying lesson, one day the wind was so high my instructor was undecided as to whether we should go or not. He finally said let's go. We were at 2,000 feet, in a Cessna 150, flying directly into a head wind. He told me that he wanted me to put in fully 40 degrees of flaps and fly the plane as slow at it would go without stalling. He said I want to hear the stall warning horn but do not stall. I did that for a few minutes with the stall warning horn steady blowing. My instructor said "James, look at the ground.' "We have a negative ground speed, we are backing up". I had an indicated air speed of about 50. So that had to mean that I was flying into a head wind of greater the 50 mph. The winds at the surface was about 20 which was the maximum allowed for an instructor to give lessons at our flying club.
James