Track and heading at 90 pitch up or down
 

Please would someone put me out of my misery and explain how track and heading are defined at 90 deg pitch up or down. I suspect track becomes wind direction (if it is defined at all), and I seem to remember that there is a rather arbitrary way of defining heading, which I was told in my tech training, but for the life of me I can't remember it. (it was only twenty five years ago:uhoh:). For some reason it came into my mind a couple of nights ago, and I have been tearing my hair out ever since.

TIA

Synth

Heading is simply the direction of the fuselage. At 90 degrees pitch, it becomes academic as the compasses will tell you when they start spinning in confusion. Track is simply defined as the direction the aeroplane is moving in on the ground, so I would expect 90 degrees up to then mean track was wind direction. Academic.....not real life........

Unless you drive a rocket :}

Exactly, unless you're flying an F15, the last thing on your mind if you are pointing straight up or down is "I wonder what heading I'm on".

However, I was in the radar pattern at Waddington many years ago, the approach controller asked a Lightning pilot what his climbout heading was after he'd just flown a PAR to overshoot. The cool and laconic reply was,

"No heading, I'm in the vertical".

Why? Because he could! :ok:

Thanks for the replies folks. Problem is that I was thinking of the context of driving a simulator instrument and the software wouldn't understand "academic". Track I can handle because that's frequently undefined (stationary on the ground for example), but I am sure I was taught there was an arbitary way of defining heading in these circumstances - vague memories of something as simple as "where the pilot's legs are pointing". Of the top of my head would it be relevant if a pilot was flying an aerobatic display and needed to know at what point to stop a vertical rolling manoeuvre so that when they leveled out they would be on the correct heading?:confused:

Synthetic, surely in the context of pitch attitudes +/-89.99 degrees the heading remains where the pilots legs are pointing, and 90.01 degrees pitch becomes 89.99 on the reciprocal heading .. or am I missing something ? :suspect:

Oooh er - my brain hurts. I think that is what I was taught.