Windward and Leeward - Other Significance

Other Significance

In aviation, "downwind" refers to a portion of an aircraft's landing pattern, the long side parallel to the runway but flown in the opposite direction is called the downwind leg.

On land, "downwind" is often used to refer to a situation where a point source of air pollution or a scent moves from a point upwind – from the direction of the wind to the point of the observer.

"Downwind" has specific connotations in industrial cities in the English North, where less desirable or expensive housing was often situated to the leeward of steelworks, blast furnaces, mills, or other sources of intense pollution. Hence in some cities it is used as a generic, slang, pejorative and discriminatory term for less wealthy areas or their inhabitants.