WINDSOR, Ontario – After the washout of the Rio de Janeiro race last month, when torrential rain prompted race organisers to cancel the race on Sunday after the Wild Card round, discussions ensued about just what is considered bad weather… and when it can really affect play. In the run up to the Canadian round of the championship, it’s the hot topic again among the teams as the forecast threatens changeable conditions as we prepare for the race this weekend on 5 and 6 June.
One of the most important factors in flight preparation is checking the weather… religiously. Pilots become overnight experts in cloud formations and other phenomena while they spend their time trying to judge what the weather is likely to do in an attempt to plan flying activities. So when you ask if resident race expert Steve Jones wants to talk about the weather, it’s not a case of making smalltalk – it’s quite the opposite in fact and he’s got some useful wisdom to impart on the subject.
Difficult to fly smoothly
Pilots are already seeing significant shifts in winds in the race track, located along the Detroit River and flanked by the cities of Windsor on one side and Detroit on the other. While wind in the track isn’t necessarily a showstopper, add rain and you might have another story. Often you’ll get wind, rain and a low cloud base all happening at the same time and forming part of a particular weather system – that’s when the fun really starts. If you find weather fun, that is.
“The forecast here is pretty variable with a little bit of wind and quite a lot of cloud and certainly intermittent rain,” says Jones, gesturing skyward from the Race Airport during the first training session. “Something could get disrupted here whether training, Qualification or the race itself. Last year we saw the winds here and you can practice with them coming from one direction but if that changes, it will totally change the way you fly the track. There are some very tall buildings on the Detroit side and they churn up the airflow through the track, making it very turbulent. It makes it very difficult for the pilots, as physically it’s difficult to fly beautifully smoothly. There are also wind ‘shadows’ behind the buildings so you never really know what’s coming.”
Jones says these wind ‘shadows’ can cause a similar effect to hedges along a motorway, which result in stop-start buffeting of vehicles. “Suddenly the aeroplane is destabilised and that makes life difficult for the pilots,” he nods, agreeing that the car analogy is a good illustration. “That’ll be an advantage for the more experienced guys. Also it’s a big disadvantage if the conditions are variable – somebody could fly when it’s not raining and have a huge advantage. Their vertical turns can be really tight but someone else can go out there and it’s different, but that’s the luck of the draw.”
Rain affecting handling
Apart from not being much fun for spectators, rain can also have an impact on events as we witnessed in the South American round of the championship. The question though, is really what volume of water is a problem and why.
“Well any rain is bad but you can fly in drizzle,” explains Jones, used to tackling plenty of rain back in the UK. “You can actually fly in heavy rain but teams and manufacturers have spent a fortune designing the aerofoils of the wings and they need to be that shape. It’s hard to believe, but even small water droplets on the wing can alter that shape and this affects the handling.”
Pilots definitely don’t want any unexpected changes in the handling of the race planes as they navigate the aerial race tracks. Jones says they are likely to have accounted for ‘dry’ stalling characteristics so water particles in the air can drastically influence the lines pilots take based on recalculated margins.
“A lot of the practice time will have been done in dry conditions so most of them don’t know where the turning limit is when it’s wet, or not so accurately at least. If you imagine the turning ability of the wing is like the grip of racing car tyres, when it’s wet a wing, in effect, has less grip in the corners,” adds Jones.
Damage to propellers
Rain can cause damage to the race planes, with propeller leading edges a usual spot for erosion to occur. Jones explains that when you consider the propeller spinning at high speed and meeting water droplets in the air, the impact can be significant.
“I flew a race in Berlin when it was raining and it literally took all the paint off the propeller blades and started to erode the actual structure,” remembers the former race pilot. “Water is actually quite heavy so big droplets on a blade doing nearly Mach 1 at the tip can cause damage. Most of the guys are flying with a Hartzell propeller which has a metal insert on the leading edge of it so is tougher. That’s what takes all the impact of any particles in the air.”
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