Originally Posted by Cubdriver

I am not in agreement. I consulted a couple of standard engineering texts on this and unless I am missing something, then the speed through the air the airplane "sees" is what counts. Ground speed has nothing to do with it. If the airplane does happen to "see" a higher speed due to headwinds, then it needs to adjust to bring it back to the calculated Vg speed based on the equation shown in my earlier post. Perhaps the confusion here is that if this speeds drops or increases by the action of local wind, then the airplane may be climbed or descended a little to account for the change in total airspeed. This would be done to bring the airspeed back to the correct Vg for best range. Otherwise the airplane is not at L/D max and is not going as far due to the excess drag.



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