Windy Day at Ohio Grass Strip

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Here are some pictures from today.

The local ultralight club meeting and Fly-In Lunch was today at Double J airport Northeast of Cincinnati Ohio.

The club is large and have about 30 members show up for each meeting/event at least.

Today was clear but we had a very strong steady direct crosswind.


I am sooo glad I fly a gyro.

Due to the 'high winds' only 5 aircraft showed up one of which of course was my ultalight gyro. The wind was steady so I had no difficulties flying in it whatsoever. I made a traditional no-roll landing on the runway right in front of the hangars.

It was a different story for the fixed wingers though. Many members that had planned on flying in drove to avoid having to land in the crosswind. Two ultralight fixed wings flew in, one Fischer and one KitFox. They had 1,2,3,1,2,1,2,1,2,3 point landings if you know what I mean. The other two fixed wings were larger craft a 2 seat KitFox flown by a hangar-neighbor of mine and a club member with a 172.

Some of these poor guys spend hundred of hours building these things then they can only fly them in the morning and dusk on good days! I would hate to be flying one of these things then have the winds pick up on me.

I’ll stop complaining and get to the pictures now:

1. Scenic Pond at the airport.
2. Approaching Double J Airport
3. A cell phone tower I flew by.
4. Scenic Farmland
5. Mo farmland
6. Mo Mo farmland
7. GolfCourse

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Horse Farm
Kitfox Ultralight
Lake near JJ Airport
Fisher Landing
Airport 'office' note: one of the windows is a painting showing a landing plane.
Outside of office
A pair of ponds

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side shot
flight line at Double J
One of my friends took this of me flying my gyro

[birdy]

Onya Tim,kinda makes you stick your chest out ay.
Fly'n these things when the FWers reckon it's time to hanger their fly'n windsocks.

Just spent another couple of days muster'n in typical september weather,cold and blow'n like a bastered.Perfect for mustering.[except the cold bit.]
Virtical takeoffs and spot landing right next to the fuel drums and plenty of 10' "hovering".

[GyroRon]

Tim thanks for the pics, This winter when it is all gray and brown out, those blue skys and deep green pics will help pull us through.

About the winds.... News flash, most gyro owners won't fly in bumpyor strong windy conditions. You were at Bensen Days, you saw how no one was flying until after I pulled out my fixed ultralight and flew, I guess they figured if I flew a plane they better fly their gyros! But seriously, most gyro and light fixed wing plane pilots won't fly if the wind is more than 8 or 10 mph. A gyro can handle it better, but a plane in most cases can still do fine if the pilot is up to the task. The guys flying the big iron - Piper Archers, Cessna 152's etc... - at my airport will still take off and go flying on days I am not sure I want to fly anything.

[Chuck Irby]

Great shots of your beautiful countryside, Tim. Thanx for sharing them with us.

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Thank you Birdy, Chuck and Ron!

Ron, you are quite correct the pilots experience in wind plays a large factor.

During my gyro training most weekends were windy. Several times I made the 6 hour round trip drive to training just to find the wind was too gusty to train. 

Now I look on this as an advantage. I feel that I have a good sense of what wind I can handle and what wind I cannot.

As a general statement I don’t mind wind as long as it is STEADY. Gusty wind is a different story altogether.

The heavier aircraft made landings at a high enough speed that the landings appeared normal. The ultralight fixed wings however, were working hard to make a controlled landing. One pilot reported he had the controls at the stops and still was not crabbing enough into the wind to make a good landing.

We can tilt our rotordisk which gives us a much easier time landing in a crosswind. Also the basic physics of the rotor dampen the effects of wind and thermals.

Pilot tolerance the same, we are lucky to be gyropilots when it comes to wind.

I am glad you got things going at BDays. Maybe there is extra stress when flying in windy conditions at a fly-in? Reflecting on BDays I wonder if I would have flown if my gyro was there? If it was not at a fly-in I can say ‘yes’. But at bdays it might have been another story. Fortunately you got out there in your fixed wing and that seemed to get things going quite well.

Your mini-airshows were one of my favorite things at Bdays!


Here are two pictures of a bird in the gas line at my home airport.
They don't look big on TV but get next to one and wow. The second shot shows my scooter parked next to her.

[GyroRon]

I am still waiting for a copy of the tape Jose took of me tearing up the sky in the Phantom at Bensen Days. Anyone else got any good footage I could see?

[Brent_Brown]

I didn't some great high wind flying yesterday. Stady 12 mph at 10 degree cross. I like to be able to get the blade up to speed before rolling. I don't have a pre-ro so the wind is it. landing and rolling back was cool too. Wind at 1000' must hav been 20 mph I could hang in one place all day. My runway buddy all loved it.