Could you find your forward speed from a wind meter?

[TALONSKY 0]

A post in Canopy control forum got me thinking about the idea of mounting a wind meter on a bracket mounted on like your chest strap. I just wanted to get others thoughts on if this might be a way to find out forward speed of these suits?
Kirk

[billvon 3,009]

You would have to ensure the following:

It was far away from anything large, like your chest. Your chest introduces a compression wave that messes up pressure-based altimeters.

The pitot tube was mounted so that it pointed square into the relative wind, which is NOT the same as the direction you are going - it comes from slightly below you.

[Deuce 1]

That's an interesting question. Several wingsuit jumpers use GPS. But that doesn't measure airspeed, but groundspeed.

If you could get confirm with your pilot the windspeed, by correcting between the pilot's airspeed and the pilot's GPS groundspeed, you could get a fix on your airspeed for the first part of the flight anyway, as you track along with the aircraft.

Clear air pitot tube.... Neat problem begging a solution.

[andy2 0]

what about flying next to a plane and getting the pilot to record simple data points. Wouldnt be EVERYDAY practical, but a wind meter mounted somewhere on your body wouldn't either I guess...

(or maybe im full of stupid "ideas" today ).

---------------------------------------------
let my inspiration flow,
in token rhyme suggesting rhythm...

[LouDiamond 1]

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what about flying next to a plane

Already tried that. It's too hard to hear what the pilot is saying over the drone of the engine. So next week I'm taking lip reading classes

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[Deuce 1]

It's all about sign language, dude.

(I'm faster than you, Scott, I have propellors)



And like that....

[ManBird 0]

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A post in Canopy control forum got me thinking about the idea of mounting a wind meter on a bracket mounted on like your chest strap. I just wanted to get others thoughts on if this might be a way to find out forward speed of these suits?
Kirk

That's a cool idea. You can find out what the wind's speed and direction is at different altitudes via weather services, then use this to subtract the relative windspeed from the speeds you record (in your head) at different altitudes during your flight. If you mount the wind meter on your wrist next to your alti, you could just look at your wrist and remember three things: altitude, windspeed, and direction (relative to North, in radians). At a glance, you'd have all the info you need to figure out exactly what your true forward speed is.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

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[VectorBoy 0]

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what about flying next to a plane and getting the pilot to record simple data points. Wouldnt be EVERYDAY practical, but a wind meter mounted somewhere on your body wouldn't either I guess...

(or maybe im full of stupid "ideas" today ).

If the plane is in a descent to stay parallel with you they would out fly you in speed unless they are in beta or had some drag inducing device , beta is something the twin engine craft are unwilling to do for fear of an unsymmetrical transition. Dehavilland lost one of the test flight craft this way.
A single engine would do nicely as flying back into a porter from a matched descent has allready been done. Or maybe a heavy forward slip will do.

[ManBird 0]

Yeah, there's are quite a few NTSB reports that start: "aircraft went into beta". Not a good idea. ;)

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

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[Aviatrr 0]

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That's a cool idea. You can find out what the wind's speed and direction is at different altitudes via weather services, then use this to subtract the relative windspeed from the speeds you record (in your head) at different altitudes during your flight. If you mount the wind meter on your wrist next to your alti, you could just look at your wrist and remember three things: altitude, windspeed, and direction (relative to North, in radians). At a glance, you'd have all the info you need to figure out exactly what your true forward speed is.

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding what you wrote here....but the wind speed/direction at altitude makes absolutely no difference if you have a device that measures AIRSPEED, and not GROUNDSPEED. The wind speed/direction would be a necessary component if you were using a device to obtain groundspeed(such as a GPS) and you wanted to derive airpseed from that.

One other thing....any type of airspeed measuring device(such as a wind meter) will give you what is known as INDICATED airspeed, which will be lower than TRUE airspeed. True airpseed is the actual speed at which something is moving through the air(in a no wind situation, the true airspeed and groundspeed would be the same) while indicated airspeed is the speed at which an aircraft(or BM in this case) "thinks" it is moving through the air. The higher you go, the "thinner" the air, so the less air molecules there are to turn a wind meter or go into a pitot tube(in the case of an aircraft)....therefore, the higher you go, the lower the indicated airspeed would be for a given groundspeed.

I think what you would find in the case of a BM is that the "indicated" airspeed would remain roughly the same throughout the flight, but the true airspeed would decrease as you descend into denser air. If wind remains the same at all altitudes, groundspeed would decrease as you descend, but vertical speed(fall rate) would also decrease.

I hope this is at least somewhat understandable..

Mike

[Amazon 7]

Why am I picturing you with a PITOT tube attached up there on top of your helmet with all the other stuff

[ManBird 0]

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Maybe I'm just misunderstanding what you wrote here....but the wind speed/direction at altitude makes absolutely no difference if you have a device that measures AIRSPEED, and not GROUNDSPEED.

I am talking about airspeed.

"¯"`-._.-¯) ManBird (¯-._.-´"¯"

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