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2/8/2023 11:10 AM
 

In today's Adventure Pilot Newsletter email, there's an excellent video by Brolin about the Winds Aloft display. It's succinct and informative--and it's about one of the many really cool features of iFly that aren't necessarily obvious, especially to new users.

It's helpful in planning a flight--but in the video, Brolin points out that Winds Aloft "give[s] you up to the minute both winds aloft and forecasted winds aloft...." That makes an important distinction between actual and forecasted wind info. (He goes on to recommend updating the winds to be sure you have the most recent data.)

This means that if you're flying into a headwind, the Winds Aloft display may show you on the fly that at a diffeent altitude you might have a tailwind. It took me a long time to figure that out for myself--and even then I didn't think about how old that wind data was. Later I realized that my cellphone could update the winds in flight if I wasn't too high. And now with ADS-B weather it's even more likely that the actual data are current.

I've used the Winds Aloft feature many times to pick a more favorable altitude, and found that it usually saved time over ascending and descending while comparing ground speed with airspeed.

So it's a great feature and a good video.

The only thing Brolin left out is another great hidden feature of iFlyGPS--that the winds aloft slider control is movable, easy to drag around the map so it doesn't cover up something important.

 
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2/8/2023 3:12 PM
 

I'm not sure how the winds aloft forecasts can be "up to the minute" when the data source only updates once every six hours?  The direct measurements come from balloons launched four times a day, and the forecasts are generated from those readings.

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publi..._section_3.html

 
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2/8/2023 6:07 PM
 

Yes, it's almost miraculous, isn't it? On the other hand, the text above that FB "schedule" at your link is miraculous in itself--especially this part:

"Temperature is forecast for all wind levels that are 2,500 feet or more above the station. No temperature is forecast for the 3,000 foot level."

Does that parse?

 
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2/8/2023 10:35 PM
 
Don Maxwell wrote:

Yes, it's almost miraculous, isn't it? On the other hand, the text above that FB "schedule" at your link is miraculous in itself--especially this part:

"Temperature is forecast for all wind levels that are 2,500 feet or more above the station. No temperature is forecast for the 3,000 foot level."

Does that parse?

No, it could have been written better.  But since that paragraph starts off with, "Dependent upon station elevation...", I interpret their intended meaning to be, "Temperature is forecast for all wind levels that are 2,500 feet or more above the station, except for the 3,000 foot level."  So, stations at elevations between 0 and 500 feet don't get the 3000 foot forecast.  Stations above 500' wouldn't have gotten a 3000 foot forecast anyway, so for them it's true that they will get all levels 2500' or more above them.  (And no, I don't know why they omit the 3000' forecast.)

 
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2/9/2023 7:30 AM
 

It's another miraculous mystery: winds aloft forecast. https://www.weather.gov/media/publica...05nov-front.pdf

But I don't know where the "B" comes from--nor the "D" it replaced, either.

 
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