Originally Posted by wolfewinde
Wind has some potentially nasty side effects.
Your air speed changes dramatically based on which way the plane is going vs the wind.
Sitting on the ground not moving, pointed into a 15 mph wind, you are already going 15 mph. Pointed away from the wind you are going -15 mph, pointed to either side, you are going zero.
So as you try to fly a circle at a constant speed, your actual air speed keeps changing with a 30 mph overall swing.
Handling changes as the air speed changes
That much variation keeps you really busy just trying to stay in the air and not have your plane blown away. You can be in real trouble if the plane gets downwind from you.
Well, you did good sitting on the ground, but once you took it up in the air, you blew it. Sitting on the ground and not moving then yes, the air speed changes over the top of the wing just like anything else, but once you get in the air, all that changes. With an airplane flying, it doesn't care what the wind speed is, the AIR SPEED will stay the same. What will change is the ground speed and that has nothing to do with the way an airplane flies, it only has to do with the way it flies over a set course on the ground. If you have a wind speed of 10mph and an airspeed of 20mph, then the ground speed with the wind will be 30mph and 10mph into the wind, but the airspeed is not changing, it is the ground speed that is changing. The air speed stays constant at 20mph. Most new people get all messed up with this and try to slow the plane down while flying down wind thinking that the air speed went up, but only the ground speed went up, the air speed stayed the same.
Flying in turbulence is not fun at all if you are a new person to flying. The air speed is constantly changing due to a fast shift in wind that the plane cannot keep up with and the ups and downs will bounce you all over the place and the lighter the plane the worse it gets. The best time to fly is early morning or late evening when the wind dies down. That doesn't always happen, but most of the time it does.
If you have a good location where there is very little turbulence, then you can fly in more wind, but add turbulence and it changes everything. Best advice is to fly in the early morning or later in the day when the wind dies down.
Ed