Dan's Pilot Times

I remember when I was doing my training for my private pilot’s license, my instructor and I had flown on some VERY windy days (much more windy than I’d be comfortable taking passengers up as a PIC these days).  One day in particular, my instructor taught me that if you configure the plane for slow flight and fly straight into a strong headwind, you can actually “hang” the plane in mid-air, creating a zero (or even negative) ground speed situation.  Essentially if the wind speed is at or above the airspeed necessary to keep the plane from stalling, you can achieve this situation.  I thought it was pretty cool back then to do this in a 2-seater Cessna, but seeing an Airbus A330 do it now is pretty darn amazing!  Enjoy (check out around 40 seconds)…

Tags: A330, Airbus, Slow Flight