I went for a local flight today in our '47 PA-11 Cub. My destination was a (not on the map) strip with a road-side bar/grill across the street. After getting beat up at 3500ft I found the strip, overflew it once, landed and shut down. I walked to the bar and had a Gatorade and peanuts while I talked to the owner.
After I took off I thought I would try getting above the bumps by climbing to 5000ft before heading home. I was in a 60mph IAS climb when I looked at the GPS. My ground speed was 100mph. I did a double take realizing I had 40mph on the tail. If I was in the Bonanza I would have kept the wind at my back and see how fast a GS I could have got but seeing as how I was in the Cub I did a 180 and started slowing to see how SLOW I could go.
Once I was indicating 40mph the ground speed was between 3-7mph. I slowed to about 38mph and the GS read 0.9mph and my GPS track did roughly a 180. I was looking down at the ground and seeing it not move beneath was very unusual. If I started drifting right or left I inputed a little rudder and it felt like the plane was mounted on a flag poll. Not really a turn but more of a pivot. What was really cool was the air was totally smooth just blowing hard. I played here for about 10 minutes before turning towards home.

It was a great thing to experience.

Phil

When I was taking lessons, we once found ourselves in a 50+kt wind. The instructor thought it would be fun to try to fly backwards in the 172. Unfortunately, every time we got close to 0 in slow flight the G1000's heading indicator would turn into a big red X for a while. I wonder if it has some kind of cross-checking where it decided that things weren't working right, or if some component of the system was failing. Anyway with that happening he decided to just continue the lesson.

Phil, that is so cool. Funny most people would have thought you turned lemonade in to lemons, going against the wind, but you made lemonade in both directions!

That's the kind of stuff I enjoy doing in my champ. I enjoy the tree top early morning and late evening flights looking for deer, turkey, and chasing soaring birds around.

Thanks for sharing.

+1

Phil,

Great story! Reminds me of the time that I experienced 0 mph in a Cezzna 172 during a windy biennial flight review. We were doing slow flight manuevers, when I looked out and noticed that the ground was not moving. I asked the instructor if it was possible to land the plane like a helicopter in this configuration, but he decided that we should not test that theory, since the wind might be different on the way down and we were already at the edge of stall. I agreed and we went on with the review. Now, flying backwards would be fun to experience, just not sure if I can do that in my Bonanza without some serious head winds.

- Kent

When GS and airspeed stop jiving by a large factor, the G1000 thinks you have a pitot blockage and causes the attitude to fail as the airspeed is a part of the attitude calculation.

I remember doing the same thing with my instructor in his Aeronca Champ...He had a hand-held loran and we watch the GPS go zero then flip headings on us. RIP he was the first aviation death I witnessed...sadly, not the last.

You guys are something else!

Flew a C150 backwards during my initial training;

We were practicing slow flight, I was concentrating on keeping the ball centered, not losing altitude, and turning to headings as directed by the instructor.

After a couple of minutes of this he says "look outside"; I did and the ground was moving backwards, way cool.

For years I kept my Quicksilver ultralight at Rio Vista, where for much of the year it seems as if there is a permanent 40 knot wind. Very amusing for folks on the ground when I'd set up just above stall (around 32 MPH) and let the plane be blown backwards the entire length of the airport.

You guys are something else!

I have flown a 150 backwards and didn't like it. I seemed to have trouble processing the sight of the terrain going the wrong way, I couldn't wait to turn around!

My uncle told me about some fun he once had with his Taylorcraft. He landed in a high-wind situation, across the runway. But then he realized he'd have to taxi, so he just hit the throttle again and "hovered" over to the ramp then set it down again. After the tower controller quit laughing, he asked if my uncle needed some help since he obviously couldn't shut down until it was tied down.