Definition
A wind blowing from in front of the aircraft, opposite to its direction of travel. A headwind reduces groundspeed without changing airspeed, and during a glide it shortens the distance the airplane will travel over the ground for a given altitude lost.
Plain English
Wind blowing into the nose of the airplane. It pushes back against your forward progress, so you cover less ground for each foot of altitude you lose.
Context Anchor
Used when judging glide distance, choosing a landing area, and deciding whether the airplane can reach a selected touchdown point.
Derivation
From 'head' (the front of the aircraft) plus 'wind.' Literally, the wind hitting you head-on. The plain-language origin matches the aviation meaning exactly.
Why Pilots Care
A headwind reduces glide distance over the ground, requiring the pilot to adjust the landing aim point and plan a steeper approach path.
Analogy
Like walking forward into a strong wind: your steps stay the same effort, but you cover less ground.
Intuition Check
Do not think of a headwind as simply “bad wind” or as wind that stops the airplane from flying. The airplane can still fly normally through the air; the headwind mainly reduces how fast it moves over the ground.
Example Sentence 1
With a strong headwind on final, the pilot adjusted the aim point closer to the threshold to avoid landing short.
Example Sentence 2
The pilot added extra airspeed on final to compensate for the headwind and maintain the proper glide path.