Randy,
Blowing mud at 21,000...
That brings back an ugly memory. Coming out of Love Field on a spring afternoon in a Cessna 414 to return to Cessna Field, Wichita.
Weather briefer says the winds at Wichita are 270 at 15 - that's what I heard, 15. What he really said was 50. I didn't catch on until well into my flight.
The wind in that part of the world is never out of the west, never. It's either out of the north or south; maybe east for a short time before a huge storm, but never out of the west. That's why every runway in Kansas is oriented north and south.
20 miles north of Dallas, at 10,000 feet, I flew into coffee. A brown world; could see the ground, but that was it. It looked a bit brighter above and I was about to ask for higher when someone at 17,000 said it looked like he was about on top and asked for higher. I stayed where I was. (The air filters were replaced after the flight.)
No way to land on the skinny, north/south runway at Cessna. Too young and inexperienced to realize I could have shot the VOR A into Cessna field and landed on the east/west taxiway that ran from the airstrip over to the factory and all would have been well.
Shot the ILS to 1R at Wichita, circled/dodged/behaved like a leaf in a whirlwind to runway 32. The controller sounded like an announcer at a horse race, giving me the winds every five seconds; "and it's 270 at 55...now it's 280 at 50...270 at 52..."
A 414 handles very strong crosswinds very, very well. Taxiing downwind is another matter. When the rudder gets blown to the stop, your knee comes up and hits you in the chest.
When they say that in the spring in Kansas they take down the wind socks and put up log chains, they aren't kidding.
Warmest regards,
Rick
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