• Sources

Purpose of heading vs ground track

Wind direction and velocity variations are the primary effects requiring corrections of the flightpath during ground reference maneuvers. Unlike an automobile, but similar to a boat or ship, wind directly influences the path that the airplane travels in reference to the ground. Whenever the airplane is in flight, the movement of the air directly affects the actual ground track of the airplane. Many aircraft are GPS equipped and display the aircraft’s current ground track, if there is wind present, this reading will be different than the compass or directional gyroscope reading. Practicing and correcting for variations in ground track compared to heading will prepare the pilot for following maneuvers and cross country flying.

Lesson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVduCCEWiLc&ab_channel=flight-club

Common errors

• Inaccurately judging the strength and direction of the wind
• Not using enough rudder to appropriately counteract the force of wind
• Constantly being pushed off course and intermittently correcting with bank
• Using bank to correct for the “drift” experienced by the force of wind

Procedure

Configuration Power……………….cruise Pitch…………………level Airspeed………….~120kts

1. Select a ground reference point in the distance
2. Align the aircraft to fly directly to the point
3. observe the track of the aircraft through the air
4. observe from which direction the wind is coming from and to which direction the wind is pushing the aircraft
5. Crab into the wind as necessary to keep the aircraft flying direction to the point
6. NOTE* the nose of the aircraft may not be pointed at the selected point in order of the aircraft to fly directly to the target

Videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVduCCEWiLc&ab_channel=flight-club