As the summer heats up, let’s talk about density altitude. When we fly in high-temperature, high-humidity conditions, we effectively increase the altitude of runway elevations, and with that our stall speeds increase. All of a sudden that ever so difficult to land warbird is now a real handful off the end of the runway or that heavily loaded model that flew great last winter now flies like a lead brick.
Density altitude is a combination of altitude, barometric pressure, air temperature, and dew point. Most pilots of full-scale aircraft will check this before departing the airport as they calculate their weight and balance. Density altitude also affects RC pilots. As an example, you could have a situation where you fly from a 1,000-foot runway elevation in normal conditions, but on…