Water Effect?

Heres a question for you about ground effect, prompted by your article, Using Ground Effect, in the October 2015 issue, and specifically the statement: We all should know ground effect is only encountered...well, close to a flat surface, be it liquid or solid, but sometimes we forget.

Editorial Staff

Wednesday, November 04, 2015 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

While fixed-wing aircraft experience ground effect over water, helicopters encounter significantly reduced or no ground effect over water due to surface disturbance, necessitating greater power for hovering than over land.
A student pilot expresses frustration and safety concerns over instructors consistently overcontrolling during landings, even after a positive control exchange, which he feels hinders his learning and leads to poor outcomes.
The magazine suggests that instructors should allow students to learn by making mistakes up to the edge of controllability, advising students to have explicit pre-lesson discussions about when instructor intervention is acceptable.

See a mistake? Contact us.

Here’s a question for you about ground effect, prompted by your article, “Using Ground Effect,” in the October 2015 issue, and specifically the statement: “We all should know ground effect is only encountered…well, close to a flat surface, be it liquid or solid, but sometimes we forget.”

After 40-some years of flying (private, CFI, charter, etc.) I took up helicopter flying in 2006. I went into it thinking I was quite familiar with the ground effect, and indeed, it plays heavily on the performance of light (piston) helicopters in a hover. My instructor surprised me one day by stating, “There is no ground effect over water.” He couldn’t explain why, but issued it as a strong warning for me not to expect the same hover performance over water as over solid land. He was insistent.