Flying with a missing panel

[Graeme Bird]

Due to funny click type poppers not being properly home I lost a 550 x450 GRP luggage/inspection panel on the side of my C42 the other day just after take off over fields thankfully. Also thankfully it didn't do any damage on the way past the rest of the planel. Amazingly, Will, the very pleasant and helpful owner of Swanborough strip recovered it for me.
Ive have only around 10 hours on type but what I cant work out is whether it affected the flight performance. The hole was on the port side behind the door and its high wing. Climbing over the downs with a strong headwind it did seem a bit reluctant to turn to starboard and with a moderate and variable cross wind on the side of the hole the landing was a bit of a 'wrestled it manfully the the ground' job. But were these symptoms of a hole in the side?
I guess its similar to having a big window open on one side of a plane.
Fuel burn and cruise seemed fairly normal and I was shocked to find a hole after landing. javascript:emoticon(':shock:')
Shocked
Any of you old barnstormers any comments ( apart from calling me a twit).


Ps I noted the poppers have been changed on the new C42 for wing type 1/4 turners. I'll have some of them.

[David Hardaker]

BB
you suggest "it did seem a bit reluctant to turn to starboard and with a moderate and variable cross wind on the side of the hole "

Off the ground, crosswinds do not exist !

But there may well have been some disturbed airflow on the LHS of the fuselage and fin/rudder, which in turn may have been causing left yaw. Did you notice if the slip ball was telling you anything unusual......?

Which may be nearer what you experienced.
Whatever, no harm done....

DH

[J.C.]

I would have thought if you are flying north and there is a 40 knot wind from the east ,it is a cross wind ?
What about all the debates about "downwind turns at low speed causing stall related accidents at low level".are they not downwind unless you are on the ground?

[Mike Cross]

Mmmm.... Whatever happened to the "Principles of Fight" exam?

I would have thought if you are flying north and there is a 40 knot wind from the east ,it is a cross wind ?

You need first to define what you mean by that statement, are you travelling from one place to another directly north of it or are you steering a heading of 360, which is an entirely different thing?

You shouldn't have any "crosswind" (i.e. a force pressing against one side) acting on an a/c in the air unless you have crossed controls and are slipping it.

If you're heading north and the wind is from the east you actually fly a heading east of north, as a couple of minutes with the whizzwheel will tell you, in order to describe a northery track over the ground. There's a crosswind relative to your track over the ground, there's no crosswind relative to your course. (For some reason pilots tend not to recognise a difference between track and course, where you go as opposed to where you're pointing. In sailing there's no confusion between the two.)

The downwind turn at low level is a perception issue, not an aerodynamic one. You're flying at 70 kt into a 30 kt headwind and your speed over the gound is therefore 40kt. You turn downwind and your speed over the ground is now 100 kt, two and a half times what it was before. Your brain sees this sudden speed increase, you pull back the power to compensate and raise the nose to maintain height............ whooops!

[J.C.]

Mike,
The statement was to the effect that no crosswind can not exist once off the ground. Ok you have refined my clumsy attemt to dispute this ,but you have also proven my point by your ref to unbalanced flight.