How to Solve the Wind Triangle

[MuseChaser]

Fwiw, I never caught a wiff of condescension in the original post. On the other hand, I enjoy the math behind this stuff, so maybe I'm immune/oblivious to it.

 

[woodchucker]

All is good and fine until the wind changes direction and velocity.

Well it is just for flight planning. That’s why you verify the legs in comparison to the plan and adjust course accordingly.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I guess I have to admit that one day while trying to understand exactly how the E6B worked, I was doing the same derivation. I appreciate the OP presenting this nicely and did not think the original post was at all condescending either. I was glad to be reminded of the law of cosines.

 

[Kelvin]

That's when you talk down to people.

Fwiw, I never caught a wiff of condescension in the original post. On the other hand, I enjoy the math behind this stuff, so maybe I'm immune/oblivious to it.

 

[jonvcaples]

Always interesting and frequently amusing to see the comments on here!

 

[Crashnburn]

Drat. I popped some corn, and it doesn't look like this thread is going to develop into a train wreck.

I'm an engineer, but never worked out how the wind triangle is solved. In high school advanced algebra, we solved a lot of wind problems, but mostly to determine what the apparent wind was for a train moving at a certain velocity through a wind with a different velocity.

In any event, the calculate heading, ground speed, and ETA are just initial estimates, and will change as the wind changes.

 

[PaulS]

Drat. I popped some corn, and it doesn't look like this thread is going to develop into a train wreck.

I'm an engineer, but never worked out how the wind triangle is solved. In high school advanced algebra, we solved a lot of wind problems, but mostly to determine what the apparent wind was for a train moving at a certain velocity through a wind with a different velocity.

In any event, the calculate heading, ground speed, and ETA are just initial estimates, and will change as the wind changes.

I remember those train problems, who fricken cares about apparent wind for a train???

 

[Clip4]

The FAA has a wind triangle diagram/problem on the written test so student need a basic understanding of drawing one.

 

[EdFred]

I remember those train problems, who fricken cares about apparent wind for a train???

High school teachers with a fear of sky and water??

 

[Crashnburn]

High school teachers with a fear of sky and water??

Simple way to visual vectors and resultants. Of course, if it's diesel-electric, there's no smoke.

 

[EdFred]

Simple way to visual vectors and resultants. Of course, if it's diesel-electric, there's no smoke.

We did boats crossing rivers. Wind and train is just, convoluted.

 

[PPC1052]

Personally, I prefer to split both the vectors into x- and y-components using sin/cos, then perform vector addition (or subtraction) using the components by just adding (or subtracting) the components up, and then convert the resultant back into a magnitude and direction using arctan(y/x) and Pythagoras.

But that's just me.

That's what we did (as well as the law of cosines) in high school physics during the vectors section. That's all wind triangle analysis-- basic vector analysis.