While I knew that it was theoretically possible...

Morgan3820

Morgan3820

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Jun 29, 2013
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New Bern, NC
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El Conquistador
I never, ever thought that I would ever get a solid tailwind both ways. I took the Wife to Myrtle Beach on Friday. I had a solid 35 knots all of the way down, (wowee!, I'm a Bonanza!). Returned Sunday, had 25 knots coming back. I am going to pay dearly for this later, I am certain. Fate is not usually kind.

Has this ever happened to any of y'all?
 
Clearly you flew the whole route backwards from what should have been ordained.
The gods will not be amused...
 
Morgan3820 said:
I never, ever thought that I would ever get a solid tailwind both ways. I took the Wife to Myrtle Beach on Friday. I had a solid 35 knots all of the way down, (wowee!, I'm a Bonanza!). Returned Sunday, had 25 knots coming back. I am going to pay dearly for this later, I am certain. Fate is not usually kind.

Has this ever happened to any of y'all?
Click to expand...

Yes, I did have that recently.

But on average, the likelihood of having headwind both ways is greater than tailwind both ways.
 
Yeah, I had a trip like that to Galveston a couple of years ago. For some reason, since it was to and from the coast I thought it was odd not having a South wind for both legs of the trip, but I didn’t complain about it.
 
Many times especially if I changed altitude by a few thousand feet.
 
Actually both times I've taken my wife on overnight trips. Im worried about the day I have to pay that back.

Does a tailwind count though if a 6 hour flight takes 3 days due to cloud conditions?
 
Never seen it, always dreamed of it...
 
Several times; crossing a cold front, if I go high when NE-bound, then low on the return trip. (often have destinations NE of me)
 
I had pretty much direct crosswinds to and from Phoenix once. I'll take it!
 
I had 170kt headwind houston to Harlingen. And 45kt headwind and moderate turbulence on the way back the nxt day.
 
GRG55 said:
Clearly you flew the whole route backwards from what should have been ordained.
The gods will not be amused...
Click to expand...

And the gods are vengeful ... the OP should expect the next 47 flights to suffer extreme headwinds:eek::confused::confused:;)
 
Morgan3820 said:
I never, ever thought that I would ever get a solid tailwind both ways. I took the Wife to Myrtle Beach on Friday.?
Click to expand...
Going from New Bern to Myrtle Beach? What does it matter, that’s like a 45 minutes...so you saved 2 minutes?
 
Morgan3820 said:
I never, ever thought that I would ever get a solid tailwind both ways. I took the Wife to Myrtle Beach on Friday. I had a solid 35 knots all of the way down, (wowee!, I'm a Bonanza!). Returned Sunday, had 25 knots coming back. I am going to pay dearly for this later, I am certain. Fate is not usually kind.

Has this ever happened to any of y'all?
Click to expand...
No. I’ve always paid for it on the return trip, mainly because my long x countries are day trips. I’ve had a 50kt tail/headwinds, and while it is amazing on the tail, it’s absolute hell on the nose, especially over mountains of the west!
 
The funny thing about winds is that headwind and tailwind don't exactly cancel out. This can be mathematically shown. If the wind remains unchanged for the outbound and inbound, you will always spend more time on the trip compared to if there were no wind. It took me a while to grasp that idea, but it is true.
 
sarangan said:
The funny thing about winds is that headwind and tailwind don't exactly cancel out. This can be mathematically shown. If the wind remains unchanged for the outbound and inbound, you will always spend more time on the trip compared to if there were no wind. It took me a while to grasp that idea, but it is true.
Click to expand...

Also wind at 90° to your intended course hurts you because you have to steer into the wind. Even 100° or more (slight tailwind component) can hurt if strong enough because of the larger crosswind component you have to fight.
So the bottom line is if you have a tailwind, enjoy it, take pictures or videos and impress your friends with how fast you can fly.


Tom
 
The trick is to depart from the NE to the SE just as an intense low pressure system is moving up the coast so that you get on the backside of the counterclockwise flow, then as the system moves into the Maritimes it's replaced by high pressure and you get on the backside of the clockwise flow when you head back north. If you time it right the whole flight can be made in VMC.
 
Did that last time I flew to DC. Got back in about 2 hours. After that Mrs. Steingar liked the Mooney just fine.
 
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