Birdy2

Trees n grass are the most reliable windsocks.
Dust n bits of trees are good for stronger winds.
but if your land sumwhere where theres no veg, then a low steady 360 turn will give you a good indication.

Mitch

Smoke from farm house chimneys and water in the dams give indications as to wind direction too.

Gyrodes

Yaw indicator or S&L and let the rudder input off and you will tend to nose into the wind if ya machine is set up right in the first place .
Well that is what the grey matter seems to remember being taught a couple of hundred days a go when I was learnin from my Instructor.
Des

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What you focus on grows. Des Garvin

niquenaque

Another cue is the ground speed, fly the legs of the compass and see which one gives you the greatest ground speed if there are no other obvious indicators.

Pick two straight geographical pointers, eg, long fence line / road / shore line / power line{carefull!!!], see how long it takes to fly from one end to the other, then turn around and go back the other way, time for shortest leg is down wind, longest time is up wind.. which side you drift to gives you a better sense of the cross component relative to the fence, and you will drift to the one side if the wind is constant, see how much rudder you have to input to correct for the drift if you fly directly along the fence. You then calculate and compensate. Note the calculated direction on your compass and plan your best approach to the airstrip based on this.

Hope this helps,

Nick.

mceagle

Around most farms there is usually a windmill or dunlite and they can be good indicators.
A gyro should always fly with the drift flag straight, with the feet off the rudder pedals. If you are 'crabbing' with respect to your ground track (feet off) then the nose will be pointing towards the 'wind'. If you are not crabbing, turn 90 degrees and try again. If you are still not crabbing, then there is not enough wind to worry a normal landing.

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Tim McClure

Birdy2

Mmmmm ....... all these indicaters are true and reliable, but you should always be keepn track of wind direction, i the case of the dreded silence. if your on your way down with no noise, you dont want to be haven to be lookn round for cues as to wind direction.

anatha thing to concider is the fact that different layers of air can be go'n different directions.
if your do'n your 360 at 200', the direction the air is traveln up there can be in the opposit direction to ground level.
wen air is most likely to be 'stratified' is wen most of you blokes go for a putt around, early in the mor'n before the sun and any wind mixes it all up.
iv seen smoke from the camp fire go streight up for 20', then lean one way for anatha 20 odd feet, then turn 180 n be blown back the other, all inside 100'.

Oh yeh, forgot to mention, bout them mills. only look at the tail vain, not the fan, coz if its 'pulled out' the fan will be parralell to the wind [ and tail.]

Brian

Depends a bit on wind strength as well, a wind of less than 5 knots, isnt going to cause a lot of drama if you get the direction wrong, for a low hour pilot. Also, when coming into land [if uncertain of wind direction] if you feel you're ground speed is way too high, then go around, change direction and give it another go and see how the ground speed looks. A bit of extra flying will not hurt and all experience is valuable.

Another good pointer of ground speed is a GPS, it seems most pilots have a GPS now days!!

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Brian Reid
Pooncarie
NSW

bones

Yep that be the truth Birdy the morning at BC for eg the smoke from the fire was a VERY distinct S in it as it rose, simply amasing to see, and it would shock a lot of people.
After awhile you can tell where the wind is coming from without even thinking about it, some times i tihnk to meselr how did i know the wind was gonna do that just becomes second nature after awhile.

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add

thanks all.had half of the info worked out.will keep the rest in memory bank.