The best tailwind you've ever had on a flight?

[Jim Rosenow]

What is this tailwind thing of which you speak?

My wife (a workin' girl pilot) texted me earlier. They had 180 knots on the nose enroute between Ohio and Florida this morning. That's painful in any airplane!

Jim

 

[Jaybird180]

What is this tailwind thing of which you speak?

My wife (a workin' girl pilot) texted me earlier. They had 180 knots on the nose enroute between Ohio and Florida this morning. That's painful in any airplane!

Jim

Tell her to come down from the stratosphere

 

[Bill Watson]

Not the best but this happened yesterday:
NC to NYC and Return0

If you look at a graph of the two legs you can see a high of 220 knots as I approached NY and a low of 116 knots leaving NY.

On one hand all I could think of is how nice a single engine turboprop would be.

On the other hand it is hard to remember that the Maule topped out at 116 knots.

TAS was calculated at 159 for most of the flight.

 

[Jim Rosenow]

Tell her to come down from the stratosphere

Be easier to convince her to quit breathing. She loves airplanes as much as I do. It's one of her most endearing qualities!

Jim

 

[Cpt_Kirk]

Someone here has to have hovered or flown backwards in a cub right?
I have heard stories about that

I've done it in a 172.

And best wind was 120kts at our back. FL410.

 

[flyingron]

I got a GS reading on the Navion of 240 knots once@17,000. I was indicating only about 90 knots or so but I didn't figure out what the TAS was so I don't really know how much of a tail wind it was, but it was a lot. I remember that I was showing 180 knots in the climb to altitude so I knew I was going to have fun when I leveled off.

One time I was coming back (fairly low) and I noticed I was showing about a 40 knot headwind. Not too bad in the Navion when the TAS was around 140. My buddy had departed about the same time as me in a skyhawk and he finally gave up around Richmond and put it down and got a car instead.

 

[Hank S]

My worst headwind was 68 knots groundspeed while indicating 133 mph at 10,000 msl.

Two weeks ago I sustained ~90 knots for three hours, with power set for 135 knots. Throttled back on approach, level at 3000 msl with ~16"/2400, when I rolled inbound indicating 110 mph, groundspeed jumped to 130 knots.

Last night, I was climbing with GS = 115 knots, and cruised at 170-175 knots. I'd have climbed higher for stronger winds, but climbing through 6000 it got both bumpy and squirrelly so I dropped back down to 5000 msl.