Wind Direction Indicators

We walk out to where our airplanes are parked side by side and the gear door on the ‘repaired’ airplane is open again. Ack. My co-worker will investigate, as she’s the one scheduled to command it today. We keep swapping planes, which is making the expense records a mess.

My mission takes me to an airfield where there isn’t much to see at all, just a narrow runway and a cracked apron, but there is an interesting wind direction indicator. Usually an aerodrome is equipped with a windsock, like the one on the right side of the picture. The sock is on a swivel so as the wind blows it makes the sock stream out , pulling it around so the opening faces the wind. The wind fills the sock so that the pointy end indicates where the wind is going and the open end where it is coming from. Takeoffs and landings should be made towards the pointy end.

At night, if an aerodrome is to be used at night, the windsock is supposed to be lighted. The bulb is somehow wired inside the sock. I’m not sure how they do this without getting the wire twisted to death as the sock turns, but the result is that the wide end of the sock is illuminated, but, especially depending on the angle from which you are viewing it, it can be tricky to determine the wind direction at night.

The giant yellow thing in the picture is also a wind direction indicator, called a wind-T. You can see it’s built a little bit like an airplane, with a big vertical tail at the end opposite the “wings” of the T. When the wind blows, the T weathervanes around so that the wings are facing towards the wind. The blue lights on the T make it easy to see. There must be some kind of electrical swivel connection to make the lights keep working.

If you like, you can use this picture and previous information to to figure out where this wind-T is located. I have another picture taken at this aerodrome that I can show you once you’ve worked it out.

When I return to base, I’m told we need another oleo for the airplane. “But didn’t you just get one?” It turns out that there’s a very short range of allowable adjustment: get it too long and the door will droop after shutdown. Make it too short and the oleo will cut its own seal and cause a leak. Three different mechanics–i.e. the one who worked on the airplane before I got it, the one who adjusted it too short at the most recent scheduled maintenance and the one here who got it first too long and then too short–have been trapped by this irritating design. We’ll get another oleo and try again.