superchamp
Registered User
COOK MINNESOTA
Yesterday I flew my Stinson 85 miles south to get the annual done. Air was smooth as could be, but a big headwind. I was 2000 AGL doing 110 MPH airspeed and 60MPH groud speed on the GPS - telling me there was about a 50MPH wind from the South. When I got to sky harbor in Duluth, I noticed the waves off Lake Superior were going the same direction I was - north to south - and they were 4 foot rollers. Couldn't understand it so I found a windsock and yup, winds were from the north and the sock was straight. I descended and landed, and didn't notice any real turbulence on the descent, and landed on floats in the harbor to the north into a 25 mph headwind. This meant that in 2000 feet the wind changed from 50 mph south to 25 mph north, a 180 degree change and a combined difference of 75 mph. I would have figured my GPS was giving me a bad ground speed except the 85 mile trip took one hour and 20 minutes. Any one else ever encountered such a change in 2000 feet of altitude? I never encountered any real bad wind sheer in the circling descent either.