When I was a kid many pilots made their living as Menhaden (Pogy) or “fish" spotters. They would guide the Pogy/fishing/net boats to schools of fish which would then be enclosed by very large nets and harvested. All of these pilots flew older design, lighter- more economical aircraft because they needed to stay up all day. (Plus they had to have the ability to land on sandy beach areas). I would take a wagon with cans of gasoline down to the place where we would meet and they would refuel.

Most of these pilots took off from dirt strips/beach or back roads. (In those days it was legal and acceptable to land on the beach/salt flats on the Outer Banks).
I can remember many times one friend with a Piper Vagabond took off in Nor-wester wind conditions (incoming pre-storm weather) and you would not believe how quickly an aircraft pops up when it is blowing 45 mph+. With that kind of headwind you could just about make that little yellow plane float like a gyro.

All pilots know this is possible when they've done a cross country and watched traffic on the interstate pass them rapidly...

In the movie “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” the dentist and his wife hire a pilot with an old Curtiss Jenny. In the movie they are flying IFR (I follow roads) and you can see the cars blasting by under them much faster than they are flying. When the dentist complains about how slow they are flying the pilot says it will cost them more “for the gas” to fly any faster…

quote:

Originally posted by opticsguy:
I've done this in my CTSW. Full flaps at 40 kt into a 40 kt wind at 2500 feet. Freaked out ATC showing 0 ground speed.

Kinda cool what Lockwood built and cooler still what Rotax power can do.


Tinyman

I see wires,
no one else see the little wires?

Damn you industrial light and magic

A few years back I was a passenger in a Fieseler Fi156 Storch, flying parallel to a highway that was en route to our home base. It was a lovely sunny July day, and the cyclists were out in force.

As I looked down via the handy observation 'blister' that made the Storch such a useful recce airplane, I could clearly see the cyclists gradually pulling ahead of us on the straights....

quote:

Originally posted by slosig:
It is fun watching them take off with a banner. They lay it out backwards, with the end where the tow rope attaches farthest from the direction they are going. They take off, go around the pattern, land, then taxi forward until the hitch end of the rope reaches the hitch near the tailwheel, hookup, then takeoff toward the banner. They’ll roll what looks like somewhere between 100’ and 200’, break ground, and climb at what looks like a 45° angle. The rope unrolls back toward the banner, the banner folds back over itself, then The end snaps right off the ground. No dragging, no inflight pickup, just peel it off the ground and go.

We watched our local "banner guy" doing his thing at our local airstrip. He lays out his banners in the field next to the strip and snatches them on a low pass.
He'll do 2 or 3 different banners flying each for a set of time on passes over the beach.
Was really interesting seeing him come in at a low speed, snag the hook and apply then throttle, and just barely take back off. We fully expected him to stop and drop a few times, but his plane powered through.

I guess there are different ways of doing it, I can only imagine the wear and tear his method puts on the airframe.

I’ve been in plenty of big trucks where you’re wide open doing twenty mph, watching traffic zip by. I’d imagine flying in a headwind with the throttle on the firewall, zero ground speed, must invoke similar frustrations, especially when you need to get somewhere and you don’t have a mountain of fuel on board.

What would you do? Can an airplane tack like a sailboat to make upwind progress? Or do you just give up and go home.

quote:

Originally posted by sigcrazy7:

What would you do? Can an airplane tack like a sailboat to make upwind progress? Or do you just give up and go home.

The problem is that if you're already at full throttle with a direct headwind and standing still, any deviation a few degrees left or right will decrease groundspeed, and the aircraft will begin to back up in relation to the ground.

The difference is that the sailboat is being driven by the wind, where as the aircraft is not. A better analogy would be a boat that makes 15 knots in still water, working agaist a 15 knot current.

With any degree of crosswind, in order to hold a given track over the ground or heading, one must crab into the wind, resulting in a decrease in forward progress or speed. If one is already headed into the wind, then any altering of heading left or right will also result in a decrease in groundspeed (though airspeed will remain the same).

It's not uncommon on a long flight to discover that winds are in excess of those forecast. Groundspeed is less, meaning the flight takes longer, and consequently, fuel burn is higher. Watching the amount of reserve, or fuel remaining at the destination, decrease over time can on occasion get a bit sporty, especially over the ocean where the diversion fuel only allows 15 minutes remaining on arrival at the diversion alternate airports.

On banner pickups, while the aircraft will fly at higher speeds, the speed must be kept lower due to limitations on the banner. The pickup is with a grapling hook hanging below the airplane, and snags the banner tow rope, which is held up between two poles. Upon snagging the rope, one pitches and climbs and adds full power. The idea is to peel the banner off the ground without damaging it and then to gain altitude as rapidly as possible to prevent the banner dragging or catching on surface objects.

The airplane has a tow release to drop the banner, and the rope has a break link to separate in the event of a banner drag, but the pilot must still take care to avoid stalling during the pickup. Other than that, it's operations at low speed and high power, which means the potential to over heat the engine, and an airplane that's not at all maneuverable

A few years ago while ferrying a turbine Dromader, which is a polish single engine airplane used for fire and crop dusting, westbound, I faced a little headwind and watched cars passing on the highway below. Despite 1100 horsepower, it wasn't going anywhere quickly. Times like that, one is making more noise than progress.