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finally seen it

spasmcreek
what my pilot friends call "dead air"...a friend was out flying a paraplane yesterday afternoon and landed close to my place...said he had a problem and was trying to get it right..took off again in an area 3/4 mile wide by a mile plus long that was bounded on the E=W=S side by power lines and north side by creek trees....could not get high enuff up to get out of that area and landed in some short dead planted feed just south of the creek trees...20+ acres of this in feed had never made it because it was so dry..AND it was light colored residue so had not heated up as much as the open planted wheat ground on the rest of the area and when he made his turn it just settled in and he set it down...just before sundown was clear with a light breeze change from the north bringing in some more cooler air to further reduce the lift.....he bagged the chute up , we visited and he drove it 5 miles to town on roads......way back in the 1970s i had a spray pilot fly weed spray on a circle of soybeans (years before roundup treated seed) and later that year he was spraying about 20 miles from here and parked the plane in the top of a grove of cottonwood trees, no injury ... and said he had hit dead air.. now i know what he meant
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  • pulsarnc
    I too, have heard my pilot friends talk about it but I have never seen it myself . Did watch an ultralight hang up in one place in a head wind once 😜. Take off was normal but at about 200 foot he hit a head wind and ceased forward movement . Looked for all in the world like a still life photo . Just hanging in one place , no movement at all. After about 10 minutes or so the wind quit and he flew on off
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  • bambihunter
    Pulse, that would make a perfect Kodak moment. You'd have that whole time to get the perfect shot. LOL
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  • NeoBlackdog
    Pulled a guy out of a 135 Super Cub back in the fall of '87 when he hit a patch of that bad air on take off.
    Still have the occasional nightmare about that. Humans and fire do NOT go together well.
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  • pulsarnc
    Bambihunter, sadly that was way before the era of cell phones with cameras . Think 35 mm film but mine was at the house , 15 miles away
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  • bustedknee
    I learned to fly in Alaska and regularly flew between two villages on my job. There was a 10-mile stretch of flat land with a knob in the center that I usually overflew, either going or coming.. The hill was probably 150 feet tall. I discovered updrafts and downdrafts off the hill depending on the season and temperatures. I generally flew at 500 ft agl so was minimally affected but found it very interesting. Anyone flying low level, 200 'agl, across the flat expanse and deciding to skim over that knob would be in for a surprise.
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  • Don McManus
    Not understanding this.

    Cooler air is denser and provides more lift.

    At least that is what Mr. Bernoulli told me as a lad.
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  • bullshot
    Don is correct cold air increases lift due to it being more dense.
    I'm not understanding either, I've been flying for decades and I never found air that I couldn't fly in. I've seen turbulent air, cold air. hot air, micro burst, up and down drafts and still air. The term "dead air" as I have always understood it is the disturbed air left behind as a result of flying through it like vortices (vortex generated by the wings at the wing tip).
    When wind blows over something like trees, it sometimes acts like a breaking wave, tumbling downward after clearing the trees, I could see a very lite, under powered craft like parachute being pushed down and failing to climb but even that would be kind of rare I think.

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  • Merlinnv12

    Dead air is what is coming outa the mouths of libtards!


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