Blowing in the wind

As time has gone by I have been putting the Electrafun up into breezes really beyond its design more and more. This is a result of a few things. Increased confidence in controlling the aircraft is certainly one of them. The general absence of days that are still enough to fly the Electrafun is another.

However, I probably shouldn't be doing it. I should probably fly some more and get some more experience on calm days.

Here are some of the things I have learnt:

1. Provided the plane is in the air, at altitude it is reasonably safe. Even in a strong breeze if you can keep the plane turned into the wind, keep the nose down (the wind may cause very high wind speeds, causing the plane to climb).
2. When you need to turn the plane downwind, you will get the impressive site of your Electrafun moving faster than you have ever seen it go. I think it might have been up to 100km/hr on one run the other day. The obvious point here is, start your turn back into the wind early. The plane will disappear from your site, or go towards those trees, much sooner than you expect.
3. You need plenty of battery power to fly in the wind. You don't have to have the engine on all the time, quite the opposite to some extent. But you need to have energy to get you out of trouble.
   
4. Further to above, start your landing approaches whilst you still have plenty of power. Patience is the key - simply wave off each approach that is spoiled by the wind, power up and come around for another try.
5. Give yourself more room than usual for the landing approach. The wind will push the plane down, the wind will make the plane soar, the wind will just mess up the whole business of approach.
   
6. Once you are off power on your final approach, expect the wind to try and turn your plane away from it. Anticipate this and give some slight rudder inputs to try and keep the plane steady.
7. Gusts will mean that your plane, in an instant, can go from cruising happily, to stall speed, to the speed where it climbs at 40 degrees. Try and keep the nose down on approach so that even if the wind drops of you don't have a full on stall.
8. Expect less than perfect landings. The most critical things IMO are a) make sure the wings are level, b) try and make sure that you have enough speed to flare and c) if you see the plane start to nose up towards a stall, dive the plane to try and pick up air speed. If the Electrafun stalls from anywhere up to two metres, but hits the ground with wings horizontal the chance of any serious damage is quite low. The important thing is to protect your wing and tail plane.

I haven't tried it, but another useful trick might be to line your landing up with just some slight throttle, ideally cutting at the last instant before touchdown.

Be careful of coming down too low whilst flying. It is easy to lose altitude quickly when the wind is strong (and easy to put it on as well).

If you find yourself caught in strong gusts, my advice would be, keep the plane up nice and high, use as little battery as possible, and just wait for a period where the wind is low enough to land. The chance will probably come. While the plane is at altitude it is reasonably safe.