Interesting Night Flying Conditions

Geico266

Geico266

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Jun 15, 2008
Messages
19,136
Location
Husker Nation, NE
Display Name
Geico
Home Airfield
KCEK
I flew .8 hours each way to watch my granddaughter and her team win the Championship Fast Pitch softball game for her age group! On the way out and back temps were brutal. Going out air temps were 102-99F. Oil temps soared so I pulled back the throttle and slow roasted. :yesnod:

Coming back the surface temps were 85, but the air temps as you can see from my Dynon were 93f! It was very rough at 4,000 msl so I decided to get low and hug the interstate and to avoid any unlite towers and stayed about 1,000' agl. Engine problems and I land behind a big truck. :eek:

Take a look at the wind calculator at the bottom of the screen. 58 MPH winds at 1,000' agl, surface winds were 7-10 mph at 11:00pm. It was bumpy, but flyable.

Density alt was 5,000+

Interesting weather conditions to say the least.

Yes, that is my fuel burn for the Rotax 912 engine. 3.8 GPM at that RPM, and yes, that is car gas. :D



Dynon.jpg



The game was great, and could not have been better. Granddaughter was last up to bat in the bottom of the 7th inning, down 2 runs, 2 outs, 2 on and she hit a base clearing inside the park home run. :happydance:
 
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:rolleyes:

60mph winds 1000' above the ground and 7 mph on the ground happens everyday huh? :rofl:


Or is this a "no fly" situation for certified plane drivers? :dunno:
 
Been hotter than holy heck around here lately. Glad you had a good flight.
 
Geico266 said:
:rolleyes:

60mph winds 1000' above the ground and 7 mph on the ground happens everyday huh? :rofl:


Or is this a "no fly" situation for certified plane drivers? :dunno:
Click to expand...

Dunno, The post refers to a pict I can't see. Does anyone else?
The winds sound unusual.
 
its called a temperature inversion and one happens practically every night. if you would've kept climbing it would've cooled off again. typically there is a wind change at the inversion level.
 
That's a scenario we all dreamed about playing sandlot baseball...every at bat was bottom the the 9th in the 7th game of the World Series...two outs bases loaded and a full count...

I'll bet you are glad you saw that at bat!!!!
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Kind of like what I ran into a few weeks ago at 06:something AM.

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=49751

I see from the picture that you had the Rotax throttled back some to only 4800 rpm.
Click to expand...

Yes, any more throttle and the oil temps went into the yellow. Low, the temps were tolerable, up high they were hotter. Weird flight for sure.


Years ago I was flying at night and ran into a warm air mass. Temps raised up, cabin got hot, I made an emergency landing at a close airport thinking there was a fire. Just my imagination and a warm air mass. :redface:
 
I flew around 6:15-7:15PM yesterday. After two instrument approaches with the student I called it off - it was just too damn hot.

I had every source of groundspeed off as I don't want to make things too easy on the guy so I don't know what the winds were exactly. But I do recall it seeming as if we were ending up REALLY far north on the approach given the small amount of time we flew north. So I can confirm the winds were indeed rather strong. We were around 2000 AGL

But yes likely you could have just climbed a bit and all would be well.
 
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Around where was that picture taken?
 
I was following I80 east to around 20 miles west of KLNK then turned south east towards KCEK. The crab I needed to stay on course was crazy. I have not flown in temps that high before, but the readings before this have always been amazingly accurate.

KLNK AWOS was winds calm and they were landing on 35. I had to land on 17. KCEK is 15 SW of KLNK, but 300' lower MSL.
 
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The Lincoln skew-t bak14 valid June 29 04 zulu indicates that there was indeed a temperature inversion. 83 degrees at the surface, 88 degrees at 3000 AGL, 71 degrees at 7000 AGL.

attachment.php


So the better option would have been for you to just climb. At 7000 AGL things would have been nice and smooth and you'd have been enjoying 70 degree air.

Understanding how to read skew-t analyses is a useful skill, you could have grabbed this information before you even took off and avoided all the bumps and hot oil temperatures to begin with :)

I can't really find anything indicating the winds should have been that strong aloft at that time..but I haven't looked that hard. I have seen winds of similar strength along with temperature inversions in Nebraska on many occasions so I certainly believe you.

You really should get that instrument rating - reading skew-t diagrams is a subject I teach during training :)
 

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Certainly could have climbed, but I only had .8 hour flight, and getting to 7k would have been pushing oil temps pretty hard. Besides, I like scaring the heck out of the traffic on I80. :lol:
 
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