WIND GUST

[flyerme]

There was an accident yesturday involving a U/L practicing forced landings when they were hit by a severe wind gust and lost control and had to do a real forced landing. I can,t help but wonder how many Unexplained crashes may have been caused by this? For you whome follow my threads you would know I,m awaiting a warm front to fly my new lightwing back home from Benalla.I have made 3 genuine attempts with no success,Reason is weather..Mainly wind gust.on attempt 2 I did an assisted(CFI - accompany,nav refresher and getting to know my plane)) short x-country to benalla (25nm) whilst on finals on the return trip we were hit by a cold front that brought a severe wind gust rolling the plane to 35 deg Ailrons proved useless and a boot full of rudder was needed to level her ..bit of a fright!!..

 

A week later I was back down there fo attempt 3, I t was a calm morning with fog and after waiting 4 hrs the fog,it lifted to about 1-2000ft.youcould make out the suns reflection and looked like some good flying weather.I wisely desided to have my CFI take another flight with me to practice some stalls,

 

We took off and I noted how smooth it was and did a circuit then started to head for the training area when we got a couple of small bumps..then out of know where it hit us..A sever gust rolled the plane 60deg My CFI Instintivly took control rolling her level with full ailron and a heap of rudder ,then the front continued with severe wind shear and 90 deg x-wind componet IAS jumping from 55 to 70kts and CFI landed a perfect (very hot 65kt) wheeler landing rolling some 500 mtrs... turns out hidden above the fog was a nasty CB..bloody storms.. YES YES had got a met report and No men tion of a Charlie Bravo in the area.

 

Sice then I have undergone a disaplined research into turbulance..One thing I came across a bit was that most 3 -axis Ultralight ailrons WILL be over powered by severe windgusts? I find this strange? why would you not make the roll rate better? In the case of my Lightwing with short ailrons,why?not make them full span? amyway sick of waiting for the weater,want my plane home.

 

 

[facthunter]

The swirling airmass you are in can overcome your control of the plane, but often your technique will aid the result. You have to assess what to almost ignore and what you should react to. Light planes with low wing loadings, at slow speeds tend to get buffetted more than high wing loaded faster planes which have more" penetration' and the gust may be felt more as a "bump". (sometimes quite a big one), with them.. Sometimes you "ride out" the disturbance rather than fight it. You have to analyse it at the time. When this happens close to the ground it is more critical as with a "willy willy" or Dust devil you may not have a good outcome. You are obviously becoming very aware of these things. Try to avoid them where you can. I don't think warm fronts are very common in southern australia. Nev

 

 

[Deskpilot]

Anyone know who owned the Savvy that crashed. Looks like a total write off.

 

 

[flyerme]

Anyone know who owned the Savvy that crashed. Looks like a total write off.

not sure ? someone out of adelaide soaring club

 

 

[eightyknots]

Anyone know who owned the Savvy that crashed. Looks like a total write off.

There must be a news item about this?

 

 

[flyerme]

There must be a news item about this?

Hey Eighty,it was on all news channels last night in s.a...you should be able to find it somewhere?

 

 

[Tex]

Please take this as just a discussion and not critical at all OK? but I am pretty sceptical about a describing these as 'wind gust' occurrences rolling an aircraft ... an apparent increase in wind speed is going to increase airspeed and if anything will yaw the aircraft and perhaps move it side ways. Remember the wing doesn't know it is flying relative to the ground in any axis, it is just trapped in space relative to the ground vs the wind/airspeed.

 

With the winter fading what these aircraft are experiencing is probably thermic lift activity and/or just turbulence associated with wind shear and mixing areas (strata) of differing winds. YES however If you have embedded CB they can be hard to detect but the signs are always there.

 

BUT A storm above a fog ?

 

 

 

[flyerme]

BUT A storm above a fog ?

 

 

yep as the fog lifted there was a gap producing the elusion of sun lifting the fog ,indicating a clearish sky.and as there was no ground wind this backed up that forecast,however unbenounced to us was a looming cb blowing from the west. as we climbed to cruise hight we noted how cold it was as we were breathing out a lot of vapour,.once back on the ground the cb blew the fog est and we could clearly see what was going on ,minetes later it was above the strip and nasty...this has been on going,weather/met report seem to be a bit out of late?

 

 

[turboplanner]

BUT A storm above a fog ?

yep as the fog lifted there was a gap producing the elusion of sun lifting the fog ,indicating a clearish sky.and as there was no ground wind this backed up that forecast,however unbenounced to us was a looming cb blowing from the west. as we climbed to cruise hight we noted how cold it was as we were breathing out a lot of vapour,.once back on the ground the cb blew the fog est and we could clearly see what was going on ,minetes later it was above the strip and nasty...this has been on going,weather/met report seem to be a bit out of late?

Where are you getting your weather forecasts from?

 

 

[flyerme]

the Bureau of met. ..also elders,willy weather and also others(accu weather,etc)

 

all looking good to head down sunday and fly back monday.all are PREDICTING the same forecast. we will see? No rain from Boxwood vic to Sherlock S.A,mostly sunny 17-19 deg max wind around 1pm at 8.7knts(swan hill vic) nth/est-nth/wst...hope to do it in 1 day but aim to get her as close to home as possible..

 

 

[Tex]

If you are keen to get a little bit more into your weather short term then check out this site... I will let you all do the research to work out what it means

 

http://glidingforecast.on.net/RASP/RASPtable.html

 

Also available as an App...

 

 

[turboplanner]

the Bureau of met. ..also elders,willy weather and also others(accu weather,etc)all looking good to head down sunday and fly back monday.all are PREDICTING the same forecast. we will see? No rain from Boxwood vic to Sherlock S.A,mostly sunny 17-19 deg max wind around 1pm at 8.7knts(swan hill vic) nth/est-nth/wst...hope to do it in 1 day but aim to get her as close to home as possible..

Go here,

 

https://www.airservicesaustralia.com/brief/

 

Register, then click on General Met Forecasts, or Special Met Briefing

 

The big benefits of this are:

 

(a) You can get an Area Forecast matched to your WAC charts rather than a BOM district forecast where the met stations may not be near your route

 

(b) It's been put together for Aviation use, so the CB you ran into may well have been forecast

 

© You'll be legal

 

Also, I'd highly recommend doing the Met module from the PPL course. Best method would be to do it in a class at Murray Bridge, Goolwa or Aldinga if they run them, because people are asking questions and collectively you get a better understanding, or get the Met module book.

 

 

[flyerme]

Go here,https://www.airservicesaustralia.com/brief/

 

Register, then click on General Met Forecasts, or Special Met Briefing

 

The big benefits of this are:

 

(a) You can get an Area Forecast matched to your WAC charts rather than a BOM district forecast where the met stations may not be near your route

 

(b) It's been put together for Aviation use, so the CB you ran into may well have been forecast

 

© You'll be legal

 

Also, I'd highly recommend doing the Met module from the PPL course. Best method would be to do it in a class at Murray Bridge, Goolwa or Aldinga if they run them, because people are asking questions and collectively you get a better understanding, or get the Met module book.

done,now just waiting for conformation email..24hrs....

 

 

[Wayne T Mathews]

done,now just waiting for conformation email..24hrs....

Good onya Flyerme...

 

Here's another possible benefit to using the airservice's site that Turbz didn't mention. I'm not at all sure Airservices keeps a record of who logged on to look at what, but I like to think/suspect they do. And if that is the case, you'll have left a "paper trail" that'll prove you looked up the current, applicable weather, and by extension, that you were planning your flight. I personally find it helpful to print out the first page at least, of the area forecast, and put it on the knee pad with my flight plan.