Patch's Flight Schools Guide

Flight Hrs: 1.7 / Total Hrs: 10.0
Aircraft: C-172 / Airport: KGEG

Ground reference maneuvers are meant to increase your awareness of the effects from wind speed and direction. This is vital when flying the pattern just prior to a landing.

If you’re flying on a north heading with the wind out of the south (a tail wind), your indicated airspeed won’t change, but your ground speed will increase by the amount of the wind speed. As you turn to your left or to the west, you’ll need to crab into the wind to compensate for the wind coming out of the south. Your heading will be a slightly south of your course.

As you turn to the south (simulating a turn to final) your indicated airspeed will remain the same, but your ground speed will slow by the speed of the wind. If your flying at 60 kias and the wind is blowing at 10 kts, your ground speed will be 50 kts.

Learning to compensate for these changes and effects on our aircraft will help us to make more accurate landings.

Rectangular Course

My CFI took me out to a rural area and found a group of intersecting roads that made up a nice rectangle. We then flew at about 1000′ above the ground and remained a short distance, I’d say about 500′ outside of the rectangle.

I then had to maintain the distance from the roads as I traveled around the rectangle. On one leg, the wind was pushing me closer to the road and I had to compensate with the rudder. As I turned to the left and had a tailwind, I had to remove the adjustment to the rudder. I also traveled down this leg much faster than the others (the tailwind increased my ground speed). As I turned to the left again, I had to adjust to keep myself from being pushed away from the road.

This was a great exercise. The day I was flying there was a nice 10-15 knot wind. This gave me a VERY good feel for the effect the wind direction has on the airplane. It wasn’t easy, but it sure did open my eyes to the need for some serious rudder control.

S-Turns

These are also meant to teach about the effects of wind direction on the aircraft. But, this is a more fluid motion rather than the 90 degree turns done during the rectangular course.

On this exercise my CFI had me fly an S shape back and forth across a straight road. The goal was to find a couple of intersections and start the S turn at one intersection and switch back at the next. Basically flying at a 90 degree angle from the road and curve around to another 90 degree angle in the other direction.

If the wind is pushing you away from your reference road, you’re going to have to increase the rate of turn and bank angle to compensate.

Then as you switch back and do the second half of the turn you’ll need to decrease the bank angle and rate of turn because the wind will be pushing you toward the road.

Again, a great exercise to do when the wind gets up there. You’ll really notice the effect. I know I did. If you’re getting close to your 5th, 6th or 7th lesson and the it’s a windy day, ask your CFI to do some ground reference maneuvers. You won’t regret it.

Turns Around A Point

Again, another exercise to teach about the effects of the wind. With this one, you pick a specific point (mine was a hay silo on a farm) and then you fly around that point, maintaining your distance from it throughout the entire 360 degree turn.

This is even more fluid than the S-turns because you’re in a constant turn. No switching back toward the other direction and no 90 degree turns.

I had the most difficult time with this one. It takes a lot of awareness to the winds in order to successfully complete this maneuver. Don’t be afraid to ask your CFI to continue working on this one.