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Hi all,

I finally had a long plane ride (commercial, yuck!) where I could get caught up on the latest vidcasts. One of them talked about procedures for using the wind circle to determine which direction the wind was flowing and thus, best runway.

Windsocks are easy, but I got confused by the illustration for the wind-T. It suggested that with a wind-T, the wind is flowing in the direction from the base of the T toward the tip. To illustrate in letters, if this "T" represents the wind circle, the wind would be directly from the North.

However, I always thought it would be the opposite, such that "T" would represent a wind from the South. Did I get that confused?

Truth is, I've never seen a wind-T at any airport so I'm not sure how often they're used, but this was bugging me so I appreciate any clarification. It's just that I can't envision physically how the wind would be acting on the "T" in the top scenario to keep it pointing in the right direction.

Thanks!

Never mind...I dug around and found the answer online. What I was missing was the knowledge that with a wind-T, there is a vertical fin at the end of the long leg. With this vertical fin in place, I can see how the long leg would stay pointed down wind from the base.

And I can also see now how this would help a pilot visualize the T as a little airplane, indicating which would be the best way to point for landing. So I keep learning every day, as we all should.

Cheers!

Jeff

That's the trick, visualize it as a plane and airfoil and you'll never mix it up again. I haven't seen more than a handful myself, but they are still around.
Thanks for the post.