Recent content by Jon Belanger

Synthetic was my impression as well.

Yep, I see. I'm not entirely sure how it's getting its surface wind data though. I'm thinking I want to look at the source data myself, but maybe that's not advisable.

OK, looking at Windy.com. Nice site. Looks like I'll be getting some good xwind training tomorrow!

Oh, the data Windy is using is "commercial", so I'm assuming that means the 9KM resolution surface wind data isn't freely available.

Here's the ECMWF chart for North America. It's generally agreeing with the current METAR and TAF data, but it's 850 hPA, so not necessarily surface or even pattern winds...

That's some excellent information, thank you.

Yeah OK but where does Windy.com get its data from?

In general it's calmer at night, maybe, but that isn't a hard and fast rule. It was pretty windy here last night around midnight. Very calm this morning though, which is typical. This isn't flatter terrain here in the Northeast and I found it's difficult to notice patterns aside from "it's...

Thanks for the example and the suggestion, good stuff. This is better than ground school!

Home airport is just outside the class D circle on the sectional - KWBW. We have to be careful to not fly into their airspace prior to turning cross for 7 or 9. I'm sure someone mentioned the 5 SM rule in ground training but in one ear and out the other. What would you recommend then? Thank you.

Yes, thanks for the clarification. Hopefully this doesn't slip my mind again. Your numbers also track what we saw visually. Though I did note that there was some cloud bases East of KAVP that had descended below the tallest mountain there (the one on the sectional with the windmills), and we...

Ah yep! That MSL vs AGL in the METAR gets me every time. Thanks.

But pattern altitude is 1500 (actually more like 1560), so we would be just under 500 feet from the bottom of the OVC clouds right?

And honestly that OVC020 is barely VFR in the pattern for a 500 foot field. We would be right at 500' below is class E. I feel like the briefer should have highlighted this, or is that not their job?

So thinking back on this incident, I think I heard the briefer say the expected winds on the TAF - he must have read that to me - but given the time range (8 AM - 10AM). I assumed they would start when we were already 30 minutes into our flight and we would have to time to get it down. Also in...