Griff Murphey

I fly micros and park flyers. Most are around 1/20 to 1/24 scale. I am not sure that wind can exactly be linked to scale but it seems to me it might be pretty close. In other words, a 1-2 mph wind which is about what you would feel on your face walking is about a 24-48 mph wind. I would say a real biplane could fly in those conditions although a weakly powered real wood and canvas plane might be dicey to fly in 48 mph of wind.

In 10 mph of wind a 1/24 model would be flying in a 240 mph gale. Your plane at full throttle may have zero ground speed flying into that. I tried a lot of that when I was learning to fly. In retrospect a bigger problem was learning to respect wind.

My flying field is out my front door so I fly (if possible) in dead calm at dawn and dusk. I am in Texas.

E-Challenged

Full scale airplane owner's manuals recommend NOT flying in winds over 12-15 mph especially crosswinds unless pilot has special skills to avoid injury or damage to the plane. Here in SoCal near the beach, air is usually calm in early morning but winds and cross-winds start and get stronger after 10:00AM often getting to 12-15 mph by noon. If I try to get in "one more flight" around noon, I often have some minor damage to repair, sometimes worse.

Vic Z

Haha
I have to fight that "just one more" thing off every time.

fhhuber

Depends on the aircraft...
C-172 Max (DEMONSTRATED for type certification) 15 knots direct crosswind.
Diamond Katana DV20... 20 kts
MD-10 ... 31kts
Saab 2000 ... 40 knots

Under FAR Part 25 aircraft are tested to a"demonstrated" maximum crosswind as part of their certification. In essence this is the highest crosswinds the aircraft flew in during testing. A demonstrated parameter is not a design maximum- like an MMO speed for instance, which if exceeded, may result in loss of the aircraft-but the maximum at which the aircraft was tested to.
The manufacturers and the FAA are very careful with this distinction. It means that the aircraft can conceivably operate in higher crosswinds, but there is no data to say how safe it is one way or the other.

Note... There isn't a spec for wind straight down the runway.

Aircraft carriers run at a "full" speed (adjusted to get the desired wind speed over the deck) aiming for 25 knots wind directly down the deck centerline when launching and recovering.
This is because all of the settings for the catapults and arresting gear are calibrated for that wind over the deck.

road king 97

To me its kinda of a age thing ,rideing my cycle in hot or cold weather or flying in below 0 weather and 20 + MPH winds were when i was a lot younger but now if its to windy ,hot or to cold / to windy this old man stays in and builds more planes to be to picky about taking out to fly :-) To windy today ? are you feeling young or old today ? lol I once drove 70 miles to a water funfly and the wind picked up to 30 mph with rain blowing sideways . Heck yea i flew while their club members hid in their vans and gave me the thumbs up . joe

kyleservicetech

IMHO, all depends on the model, and the skill of the pilot. I've flown my giant scale models in winds up to 20 MPH, when right down the runway. (Wind speed was verified) Crosswind landings, things can get dicey with 12 MPH crosswinds.

Some models can't handle much more than a few MPH, ie, those indoor models. Other models handle high winds easily, take a look at those foamie jets that can hit over 100 MPH. And, if they hit the ground to hard, epoxy works well.

At our club, when it's way to windy, the big models get parked, and out come the foamie jets.

As far as maximum wind, these guys were flying in 60 MPH winds. It's called dynamic soaring, and their model hit over 500 MPH. A crash at that speed, and you'll be lucky to even find where the model hit.

Take a look:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFPJ6DUAY10

fhhuber

We've flown RC demos at the local airshow in 20 gusting to 35 KNOTS