The International Cessna 170 Association

My wife and I were flying back to Atlanta from New York last night - via Delta - after a quick weekend trip to the Big Apple for dinner and a show. A big storm system was moving through the east coast and part of our flight transected a portion of the front. We were delayed a bit getting out of LaGuardia; thankfully, turbulence was minimal and the ride relatively smooth. But ... take a good look at the head-wind.

I remarked to my wife that at cruise-power in Baby (our 170), we would be flying backwards at nearly 40 mph.

My record this winter was 201kt on the nose coming from Burlington, VT enroute to Charlotte in February.

Painful!

I saw 155kt on a repo flight from Greensboro to Little Rock on Saturday. This past trip was horrible weather-wise.

Ryan Smith wrote:My record this winter was 201kt on the nose coming from Burlington, VT enroute to Charlotte in February.

Painful!

I saw 155kt on a repo flight from Greensboro to Little Rock on Saturday. This past trip was horrible weather-wise.

I hope “repo” means something different in the airline world than it does in reality television. (One of the drawbacks of saving a few typing strokes... )

I think Reposition. Just to get a plane where it needs to be.

John

I landed in a 30 kt headwind once . It was straight down the runway . ATC warned me about landing there due to the winds but fuel was nearly gone due to head winds and I didn’t have any choice . Thinking it would be a piece of cake but about 100 ft off the ground turbulence was off the charts. It scared the pants off me. I had to turn right off the runway after landing and taxi over to the fuel pump. It’s the only time that I have had brake fade and see smoke coming off my left wheel. I have double puk brakes and seeing whips of smoke coming off in that wind I knew it was hot. I was nearly at full engine power to just taxi . My tail wheel was skidding on the taxi way. While refuelling my friend who was with me stood at the rear of the aircraft holding it parallel to the fuel pumps and with brakes on and wheels chocked . We parked it in the hangar next door and stayed in a motel until next day and next morning not a whisp of air movement. It was totally dead still air .totally unbelievable .

cessna170bdriver wrote:

Ryan Smith wrote:My record this winter was 201kt on the nose coming from Burlington, VT enroute to Charlotte in February.

Painful!

I saw 155kt on a repo flight from Greensboro to Little Rock on Saturday. This past trip was horrible weather-wise.

I hope “repo” means something different in the airline world than it does in reality television. (One of the drawbacks of saving a few typing strokes... )

I experienced a 140 kt tailwind on a "Repo" flight from Phoenix to Charlotte once. The airplane had been repossessed by NCNB bank and I was hired to bring it to them.

Enroute from my home field at Toledo Bend to Atchison KS, and this was before GPS, I estimated I encountered a tail wind of 40 to 50 knots! I had planned a fuel stop at Pittsburg KS. Realizing the kind of head wind I would encounter on landing, I chose to "hover taxi" to just short of the apron and with just under cruise power I touched down right at the edge. Needed a lot of power to taxi 300' to the pump. The line boy ran out with the big chocks and it held till we got the gas in. They had a little tug and we used it to swing around, with me hanging on the right wing strut, to some tie downs that were cross wind. We tied down without it flipping over!
Of course at the time we departed it had changed to a head wind! Just not as severe!

In the ancient past (1969), when I worked for Aviation Services (a Beech dealer) at Ventura County Apt, a co-worker had a T-craft based at Santa Paula,Ca. In the mornings, when the Santa Ana winds would blow from the east, the marine air would usually keep the air calm at the Santa Paula Apt. but the winds would be blowing at about 3,000. We would take his T-Craft up into the wind and fly backwards over town, drop back down below the wind and do it over again. We got a kick out of folks on the ground watching us. Just one of the strange things you do when you're young and stupid. We did know the winds usually changed between 8:00 and 10:00 so we usually ended our stunt before 7:30. Some thing I wouldn't do now or suggest anyone do.
AB

I do remember, many years ago, I was flying my Cherokee 180 from Glens Falls, NY back to Michigan. Not exactly sure what the head wind was, but cars were passing my on the NY Throughway, and this was in the 55 mph days. I think my ground speed was about 45 mph.