7-Day VFR XC Weather Planning

William Pete Hodges

William Pete Hodges

Line Up and Wait
PoA Supporter
Joined
Mar 6, 2020
Messages
852
Location
Virginia
Display Name
Petehdgs
Home Airfield
KCJR
I have been an advocate for 7-day VFR weather planning. In 2005 I developed a system using NOAA available weather tools to predict good VFR weather days a week in advance. The idea was to be able to take a VFR XC trip and be able to fly home VFR in a timely manner. I wrote an article describing my system here: https://airfactsjournal.com/2013/05/7-day-vfr-cross-country-weather-planning/

I have found it is relatively easy to pick good VFR weather days several days in advance, but more importantly it is easy to pick bad VFR weather days too. If you can quickly eliminate the bad weather days in advance, it is easier to plan what days to fly and what days to stay on the ground. That is what the system is all about.

I have recently started using IflyEFB and mounted their tablet in my airplane. One of the features I learned about is the forecast tool built into the software. It is similar to the aviation graphical forecast tool complete with a time slider so you can see how the forecasted weather moves around your route of flight. I sent Adventure Pilot an email describing this system and asked if they could add it to IFlyEFB. They like the idea and they have added it to their desired features list. So maybe in a year or two we'll be seeing 7-day VFR weather planning on IFlyEFB. That would be good for all of us.
 
Nice work convincing an EFB developer to seriously consider adding a useful feature. That’s an accomplishment I definitely can’t claim.

I hadn’t read your great, old article before but I will probably refer a lot of pilots to it now that I know it’s out there. Knowing that you will have a launch window within the range of days you can use it to get home is a fantastic antidote for get-there-itis forcing a launch outside of the window. Knowing before you leave that you probably won’t have a window is even better.
 
I'm a bit confused. What will they be adding? The graphical.weather.gov website?

I actually ran across your article several years ago when I was in the early stages of learning to fly. One of the things that stuck with me is the idea that long range forecasts of weather systems are often correct...but their timing isn't. If I am looking for a VFR day to fly a week out, and I see one that looks good, but see rain 2 days after, I understand that there is a high likelihood that the storm could arrive a day early.

The article you wrote contains some common sense vfr planning tips, but I'm not sure how you could make that part of an EFB.
 
I've definitely used those strategies for muti-day trips, both VFR and IFR. There are other advance forecast tools and lots of pilots have started using Windy. Like @dcat127, though, I am trying to think of a good EFB connection unless it's to add a page that pulls up one of those.
 
Windy and FlowX are excellent tools for browsing various long range weather models. These are excellent presentations of weather data for planning multi-day round trips around flyable weather.
 
dcat127 said:
I'm a bit confused. What will they be adding? The graphical.weather.gov website?
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IFlyEFB currently has a weather forecast tool that works on their chart platform with your programmed route on it, allowing you to see your route and how the forecasted weather moves around it for the next 24 hours. This tool could be expanded to cover 7 days of forecasted weather data instead of 24 hours. That is what they can do with data that already exists and is readily available.
 
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William Pete Hodges said:
IFlyEFB currently has a weather forecast tool that works on their chart platform with your programmed route on it, allowing you to see your route and how the forecasted weather moves around it for the next 24 hours. This tool could be expanded to cover 7 days of forecasted weather data instead of 24 hours. That is what they can do with data that already exists and is readily available.
Click to expand...
Windy does that now. Easy to use.
 
I use Windy but I disagree that it is easy to use. I find it difficult to program my route and change my route for different flights and see all the information I want. You can't use fixes and nav aids to enter your route, only airports and you have to find them in a hit-&-miss fashion, instead of entering their codes. The pinpoint read out doesn't work with the route displayed, so you have to leave the displayed route to get access to all of the data. That means highlighting the airports as points along the map. To me that is not as easy as seeing the route displayed while you examine the other data in detail. Maybe I'm wrong but I think a better tool could be had. Maybe windy has improved but I am not aware ot it. I use it but it could be better.
 
Need more folks like you who have a passion and build helpful tools, and then take the time to engage with IFly, etc. to "share the wealth". Spoke with the folks from I Fly at Oshkosh. Small company that seems to be open to their customers, seems nimble and a bit innovative. More so than ForeFlight I think.

FWIW, appreciate your effort.
 
William Pete Hodges said:
I use Windy but I disagree that it is easy to use. I find it difficult to program my route and change my route for different flights and see all the information I want. You can't use fixes and nav aids to enter your route, only airports and you have to find them in a hit-&-miss fashion, instead of entering their codes.
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I’ve mentioned the same in the Windy user forum. It’s “ok” without it but “I think where I’m going is around here” in an unfamiliar location is a big weakness for flight planning.
 
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