.if its windy dont fly around your house...go to an open area.
Bill W.
You brought up a good point, one that deserves some expansion.
As mentioned, the H is more stable in the wind with the gear raised. The reason for the additional stability is due to having less surface area hanging out in the wind. Look at the airframe as you would a sail, but of different shape. All those arms and legs are surface area that offers a place for wind to push against. With the gear up much of the surface area of the landing gear is shadowed by the body and arms, reducing the effective sail area.
Now let's consider where we are flying when in the wind. Close to a structure or tree? Anything the juts out into the wind will effect the flow of the wind. The slope of a hill will create an updraft or a down draft depending on the direction the wind is flowing over it. If the wind is blowing onto the face of a slope you will have an updraft, and that updraft can project far in front of the slope and run to quite lofty altitude. Just a little past the face of that slope the updraft will fall apart and a rotor effect will occur, making for considerable turbulence. Wind blowing down the face of a hill causes a down draft, or sink, which we should be prepared for if flying near a hill on a windy day. Wind blowing against buildings and trees will have a similar effect, although a flat walled building will have more of an effect on the wind than a tree will. You may have a small pocket of smooth air when in the "lee" of a wall or building but move out away from that surface some distance and you should anticipate some level of disturbance to occur.
If the wind is blowing over flat ground the air will be turbulent within a few feet of the ground. Friction with the ground is slowing the lower level wind, and the faster moving wind above what is being impacted by friction causes a "roiling" effect at boundary layer some distance above the ground. The air will become smoother as the elevation increases. As the elevation increases the wind speed will increase somewhat because it no longer encounters ground level friction. You can see the impact of wind and the ground every time you take off and land. Your propellers generate turbulence, which the H does a fine job of dealing with but a launch that quickly puts 10' or so between the aircraft and the ground makes things easier for beginning operators by putting the H into smoother air quickly.
The atmosphere is very much like a river or ocean as it is a fluid. Toss a large rock in a shallow, flowing stream and watch how the the rock disrupts the flow of water. The air we fly in works the same way only we don't normally see it. However, with a little learning and practice we can certainly predict/anticipate what we will encounter based upon the wind speed, terrain, obstructions and be able to plan our flight to obtain the best stability possible regardless of the conditions. Wind does not have to be our enemy if we understand how it interacts with what it blows over and through. Nothing is immune to the effects of wind, although a good flight controller works hard to counter those effects. Even a 747 gets bumped around by wind but a good pilot or operator never puts the aircraft into a situation too great for the aircraft to handle. They avoid those areas.
