Weather Tactics

I am having a bit of a bad-luck streak. For those who are not aware, the last flight of a trip is fondly called the “go-home” leg, and it is absolutely cursed. You could be having the perfect rotation, avoiding delays, mechanical issues and weather for days with minimal fuss. All of a sudden, it is […]

When compared against the opposite extreme—summer—flying in winter has a lot to recommend it. Because the air is cooler and therefore denser, aircraft performance is better. For the same reason—cooler air—flying in winter can be more comfortable than in the summer, thanks to the lack of air conditioning aboard the overwhelming majority of personal aircraft. […]

You would think pilots would have learned their lesson about messing with thunderstorms, especially landing in or near them. I mean, we’re almost 40 years beyond the defining moment in understanding wind shear and microbursts, the August 1985 crash of Delta Flight 191, a Lockheed L-1011, in Dallas, Texas. Add to that, many aircraft now […]

Due to Alaska’s wide-ranging geography and limited road system, residents are heavily dependent upon air travel. In October, the FAA released the final report of its Alaska Aviation Safety Initiative (FAASI), which provides an up-to-date look at the continued problems plaguing the state’s aviation infrastructure. Completed in response to a 2020 recommendation from the NTSB, […]

I used to ground myself when I saw a forecast of thunderstorm weather. I had an immediate visceral response rooted in memories of growing up in Kansas, seeing vast tornado-spawning squall lines, their blue-green tint indicating they were pregnant with hail. At age 11, I watched a barn across the road explode in one of those storms, flying in pieces across the fields, followed by a barrage of baseball-sized hail. Surely you cant fly when convective weather and thunderstorms are nearby or on the way, can you? Well, Dorothy, sometimes you can. You just need to know what to look for and what to avoid.

People wouldnt fly personal aircraft-or participate in many other activities-if there werent benefits. Thats human nature. Some benefits we seek by taking risks are intangible and hard to quantify. Others can be readily identified and weighted. Its a calculus we all employ daily in mundane ways. However, the problem isnt that we fail to assess benefits when we analyze risk. Instead, the issue is the inaccurate values we assign on both sides of the equation.

Open your favorite EFB or log onto a web-based aviation weather site and youll be presented with a deluge of information on the environment in which we fly. Text-based weather observations and forecasts, plus Nexrad weather radar mosaics, satellite-based cloud and moisture images, and information-dense graphical products are but a few taps or clicks away. With a smidgen of understanding, a lot of it becomes self-explanatory to even the infrequent pilot.

Beginning in our December 2015 issue, we shared with readers and explored ongoing efforts at the FAA and the National Weather Service (NWS) to replace the old, familiar text-based area forecast (FA) with a graphics-based product. A follow-up article in our April 2016 issue discussed some of the proposed changes and presented screenshots of the graphical replacement. Now, beginning about the time this issue is in your mailbox, a three-month transition period will begin, ending in October, at which time the text-based FA covering the Continental U.S. (Conus) will be no more.

Last month in this space, we reported on a Special Investigative Report (SIR-17/02) from the NTSB, Improving Pilot Weather Report Submission and Dissemination to Benefit Safety in the National Airspace System. Its a 68-page collection of everything thats wrong with the Pireps system. We also highlighted as most interesting one of the NTSBs recommendations: for the FAA to provide a reliable means of electronically accepting pilot weather reports directly from all users.

Its that time of year again in North America: Summer is upon us and theres nothing we can do about it without a passport, even if we wanted to. The good news is we no longer have to deal with freezing precipitation, cold, low clouds hugging a runway for warmth or preheating our engines. More good news is that the number of reasons to hop in an airplane and go somewhere will grow.