Should you turn Left or Right?

[hangar32]

As a kid, during summers at the (New) Jersey shore, there was usually a pretty strong N to S cross current offshore. So when I went into the water, I would first turn around and spot my family's beach umbrella and the ones surrounding it and try to remember what it looked like. After 10 minutes or so, I would turn around and look at the beach again to see how far I had drifted down the beach and usually trudge against the current a few dozen yards back to where my view of the beach looked familiar with that first view. Of course being a kid playing in the water there were a few times (OK, Many times) when I lost track of time so when I turned around I couldn't recognize anything. So then it was walk in , head north along the beach until I "un-lost" myself.

 

With that in mind…

 

All other things being even, I'd turn Left, into the wind so as to keep the ground track of the 180 turn as small as possible - more from a situational awareness issue than anything else - assuming you compensated for the crosswind on your outbound track and a standard rate of turn in the 180, you would end up heading back closer to that outbound track - so hopefully your "sight picture" of the starting coast would be instantly recognizable…you could more easily recognize your "beach umbrella" as it were.

 

I'm not saying one would get definitely lost if they turned to the right, only that you would drift farther east on the turn and have a different sight picture of "the beach".

 

This is purely visual navigation reason as I think it has been shown that there is no specific aviation/flying reason for turning one way or another.

 

That is what I would do…and then fire/sack my mechanic when I landed.

[ianhr]

I know about pilot tubes. I've seen the speed tape go up when I'm facing the wind on the runway without moving.

 

That's "PITOT" tubes.

[lnuss]

but how did you get your Cub into a 40 kts wind system in the first place? And how did you fix it?

 

It was actually the L-21 (military version of the Super Cub) in my avatar, not a J-3, and I'd left 48V and had been south of the Denver area, showing an out of town friend the sights. Winds were light when we left (not forecast for that strength) and still light down south, but on return several hours later, there were strong winds from a gust front, but right down the crossing runway, so I made the approach into those winds (obviously a lot faster than normal approach speed), ready to go around (and there were other airports near without the problem), but it was smooth enough that, as I slowed for touchdown, I could hover there a couple of feet off the ground. Taxiing was, fortunately, mostly into the wind, largely tail up 'til I left the runway, in the shadow of a building.

 

Addendum: I note you're in the Netherlands, so perhaps you've not encountered the quickly changing weather, and even variation minute to minute and mile by mile that can sometimes occur in the mountain country and southwestern deserts of the U.S. I encountered some similar situations when I lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and sometimes it's just wait a few minutes, sometimes it's go elsewhere, and sometimes it can be handled in similar fashion to the above. Dust devils, thermals, gust fronts from T-storms in the distance, strong winds aloft funneling through venturi-like canyons, and more (even very local terrain variations, such as abruptly rising/descending terrain, etc.) can occasionally bring up some of these situations.

 

Many's the time I've stayed on the ground, but if an unforecast situation shows up, and you're airborne, you have to deal with it some way.