Springtime means high winds in Northern Arizona, where I do much of my flying. I've been doing a lot of aerial survey flights that require a lot of low-speed flying beside cliff faces and in/over canyons. Obviously, wind is a factor in maneuvering and the more wind, the tougher some maneuvers are.
What I'd like to know, however, is how much wind is TOO MUCH wind for flying?
At the Grand Canyon, they'd shut our operations down when the wind hit 50 MPH (seriously!) or one of the pilots claimed it was too windy to fly. Because none of the pilots wanted to be thought of as cowardly, we very seldom stopped flying because of a pilot's call. We were flying Long Rangers, with two-bladed rotor systems like my R44. My understanding is that 2-bladed systems are more vulnerable to problems than fully-articulated rotor systems. Indeed, the EC120s would often continue flying for another operator after we'd stopped.
But is there an actual NUMBER for windspeed that I should use as a rule of thumb? 50 MPH is a lot more wind than I want to be flying in. What's the "right" number to pull the plug on the type of flying I do for these surveys? Anyone have any insight on this that they might want to share?
This weekend's survey flights were postponed because of expected gusts up to 55 MPH in the area I was supposed to fly in. Fortunately, the client made the decision before I had to. But I'd like some feedback from more experienced pilots to help me set my "magic number."
