Tailwind

Never, and it always seems as though the headwinds are stronger than the tailwinds on the same route.

 

I have. It happened in 1970 flying from Seattle to Merced, Ca.and return. It only took 15 hours each way flying an L-3 and Model B Ford powered Pientenpol Air Camper.

 

Mathmatically, 75% if the winds encountered aloft are headwinds...

That is, if you look at the vector sum of the wind, until it gets to within 22 and a half degrees of where you are going, it isn't helping you. The old saying a cross wind is a headwind too is correct...

To get big headwinds in both directions on trip is crazy lucky... Did you buy a Mega Millions ticket recently???

 

Tailwinds are a great thing when your cruise speed is 70 knots!

 

65 MPH in dead air, 40 MPH ground speed or less in a headwind. Still a helluvalot of fun. You can actually talk to the animals.

 

Did a similar thing, Van Nuys to Palm Desert, in an Ercoupe in the 1960s. Cars on the Interstate below were "passing" me at a good clip. Agreed, great bugs-in-your-teeth fun.

 

Usually the winds howl through the Banning pass-- but in the other direction (west to east). I've had a few slow, bumpy, trips through that pass!

 

My wife was with me on a return trip the previous year when we didn't have tailwinds each way but headwinds. As we were struggling to leave Eugene, Oregon behind us on our way north a VW Bug loaded with camping gear was bombing along on I-5 faster than we were. As it was gradually leaving us, my wife had the audacity to ask me if I saw that the Bug was going faster then we were. I politely asked her to keep her comments to describing the pretty (but boring) landscape below us and to forget all the cars.
Going south on the way to Merced the year before I actually logged a ground speed of something less than 40 MPH as I was approaching Weed, Ca. The mounds and hills were rising faster than I was and I had to make a run for the low canyon coming up with the Sacramento River. Flying in the mountains in a heavy underpowered clunker can pose a few problems.

 

I have it all the time with the turbo normalizer. I can have a tail wind in one direction at 6k' and a tail wind going the other at 14k'.

Works both ways though too.

 

Of course you guys are talking about tailwinds with GA aircraft, but my tailwind story involves a 747 that I took from NY/JFK to London.

The entire ride was a bit bumpy, like driving on a rough road, and the captain attributed that to the significant tailwind we had. It must have been significant - we arrived over London an hour early! The problem is that they weren't ready for us at Heathrow, so we held for about 40 minutes before they would let us land. We arrived at the gate early, but not as early as it could have been.

I suppose any flights headed westbound that day would have taken forever......

 

That's not uncommon on transatlantic routes.

I once arrived in Paris on Air France about an hour and a half ahead of schedule. Fortunately, it was 6am so gates were not a problem, but it sure confused the heck out of the local limo drivers!