ascj,
I suppose the avoidance or otherwise of headwinds has to do with where you are in regard to your career.
I've noticed more often than not that pilots are of two varieties (again I stress generally but not always). Those that will fly as much as possible for little renumeration (in order to get those precious hours) and those that try to fly as little as possible for maximum renumeration (in order to well... do nothing really). However we are getting off track here.
Getting back to the original subject matter, the issue of headwinds vs tailwinds depends also on whether you're looking at it from a time perspective or a distance covered perspective. The point was made earlier that if the same distances were covered using the same wind (both in a headwind and tailwind sense), the time spent in the headwind would be greater and one's average speed would be less. The distance spent experiencing either a headwind or tailwind would be be the same however (not withstanding takeoff and landing etc).
Who would have thought this topic so involved?
P68
