PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Basic Aeronautical Knowledge questions
View Single Post
Old 16th Apr 2022, 13:14
  #27 (permalink)  
Uplinker
 
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: UK
Posts: 2,486
Received 95 Likes on 56 Posts
The OP's first post asks why didn't the wings break off at a ground speed of 239 kts. The only thing affecting a light aircraft structure is the IAS. The groundspeed is the speed of your aircraft flying along plus whatever speed the airmass is moving at, referenced to a fixed point on the ground, it is not the speed of the air passing over your wings ! Only the IAS shows your actual speed through the air molecules, and that is all the aircraft structure can 'feel'.


As long as your max allowable IAS was not exceeded, you have no case to answer. I have a photo from an A321 with a TAS of 465 kts and a ground speed of 600 kts giving a tailwind of 135 kts - it is in the wrong format to post here. Admittedly, that was a jet stream up at FL380 or so, but tail winds of more than 72 or 43 kts are not uncommon.

You cannot work out what an aircraft's IAS was from a groundspeed readout after the event, because you need to know the aircraft's TAS, so need to know the air density and temperature up there where the aircraft was at the time, as well as an accurate windspeed of the airmass you were in. None of this can be known from the ground.
Uplinker is offline