| -- As You Like It (II, vii) |
The cold front marches offshore and the skies are a pellucid blue; the usual aftermath of strong winds from the northwest dominates the weather story in the northeast. The Terminal Area Forecast (TAF) for KBDR is predicting 33018G29 for winds this afternoon. That's a steady wind of 18 knots from 330 degrees with gusts to 29 knots. The favored runway will be 29 so for departure N631S and I may see a right crosswind component of about 12 knots with potential gusts to 20 knots. That will require good crosswind takeoff technique.
I could cheat a bit by lining up toward the left side of the 150-foot-wide runway and angling my initial takeoff roll into the wind to cut down the crosswind angle. I'll see what the actual conditions are when the time comes.
The image clip at left is from the winds aloft page at
Aviationweather.gov. The forecast shown is for 20Z at the 725mb level (about 9,000 feet - close to my initial altitude of 8,000 feet). I've approximated my planned route of flight in red; you can see that the headwind components will be significant. I expect I'll have a long time (
FlightAware.com says 2:35) to enjoy this flight.
But the skies are clear and I'm going home for the holiday weekend. Life is good! To all who visit here, safe travels and a fine Thanksgiving.
3 comments:
When I got my PPL back in the day at BDR, you could have taken off into the wind on Runway 32.
Happy Thanksgiving, Frank. When I opened up "Blog Central" at about 0520L Isaw your post and realized the schedule would be different his week, so I "caught you" in the air on Flightaware, first tiem that has happened I beleive.
It's already Thanksgiving morning here in the Pinas, Thanksgiving isn't observed by many here, but our family will be dining on turkey, ham and lots of true thankfulness in a few hours.
May your day go as well when the sun rolls 'round there and makes it your turn to celebrate.
Thanks for sharing things that might seem mundane to some, but for others are a very welcome touch of home. We have so much to be thankful for.
Happy Thanksgiving, Steph & Dave!
Steph, when I began my primary training at BDR in 1993, the N-S runway already had X'es on it. So every winter, for me, there've always been a few "interesting" days when it howls in out of the north. All in all, tho', I'd rather be taking off than landing.
Dave, thanks for watching over me. Keeps me on my toes :-). I hope you and yours had a lovely time together over there on the far side of the Big Blue Marble. I'll think of you tomorrow(!!) when we sit down with family and friends to count our own blessings.
Good health and good fortune to all.
Warmest regards,
Frank
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