Weather

Category I ILS approaches, long our low-weather mainstay, offer us minimums as low as 200 feet above the touchdown zone with RVR 1800 feet or higher. That’s low, but as it develops, not as low as you can go. CAT II approach approval opens about 160 public CAT II approaches to GA, easing access to […]

When the jet age arrived in 1959, little was known about wind shear. Aviation was focused on thunderstorm avoidance. In Joseph George’s compilation of Eastern Air Line’s forecasting techniques from that era, we find thunderstorms described in terms of turbulence, icing, and hail hazards. As jet aircraft were equipped with radar, it was assumed that […]

There’s an old Buddhist saying that the fool sees only the form, while the enlightened person sees the essence. It’s strange to think that religion could give us any insight into aviation weather. But in the same way that gods tend to be elusive, many of the important details in the atmosphere are unseeable and […]

For some, flying is just braving the traffic pattern or short, local flights. But serious long-distance flying or commercial operations will eventually bring you to the heart of the Great Plains. Meteorology captivated me because of the incredibly turbulent and strange weather in this area. I chased tornadoes for 15 years and forecasted weather for […]

Rime ice giving your Cessna 210 a quarter-inch coating was the inbound surprise to Mission Field in Livingston, Montana. As one accustomed to life without ice protection, you were careful in the planning and had an alternate, but you simply didn’t expect to pick up that much extra drag on approach. Still, cloud levels were […]

Too many pilots have died because they attempted instrument flight without a thorough working knowledge of their GPS navigators. Do you need to know all 2000-odd G1000 commands? No, but you need the essentials that apply to any GPS FMS. Preflight Check Your Gear What’s in your GPS? Mainly, is it WAAS equipped? WAAS offers […]

Maybe it’s because the long Midwestern winter is not yet over, but the idea that approach procedures are like snowflakes comes to mind. From a broad view, they’re all the same with minimum weather requirements, descents, altitude restrictions, and missed approaches. But, up close, no two are alike. Such is the case during a short […]

(This is the first of a four-part series of articles in which contributing editor Fred Simonds will fully explore common, oft-fatal mistakes that we pilots make. This first article merely relates a number of ultimately harmless incidents that will serve as illustrations on which we’ll build in subsequent articles. As I read Fred’s manuscript, I […]

Skew-Ts aren’t the sort of thing you learn about in ground school, but I’m quite outspoken about how important they are to understanding the weather. They’re very easy to get online, they are understandable, and they form a playbook for the weather ahead. In a sense, reading a METAR or TAF report is like looking […]

Things are getting busy approaching Trenton, Tennessee, Gibson County (KTGC), even though its not that bad. But the skies are grey enough to make you squint as you enter the overcast. Youve also entered, as youll soon find out, the murky realm of the regs. A cold crust of rime clings to the aluminum and probably the antennas, so youre anxious to get into that toasty hangar at TGC. Worse, the suns going down and the gyros acting up. So any shortcuts (safe and legal, of course) would be great right about now.