"Koopas Ly" wrote in message
om...
Am I way off base here?

No, I think you understand it reasonably well.

As far as the plausibility of your second scenario, I don't think it's as
implausible as you imply. Wind shear is a funny thing (funny strange, not
funny ha ha) and you could find yourself descending through or flying past
different air masses, resulting in just such a gust on final approach.

Fortunately, light planes have relatively little inertia and it doesn't take
much extra airspeed to insure against gusts. But I wouldn't say that the
scenario you proposed is all that improbable.

Pete