Pilot tips? Checking wind direction?

[iamtheari]

The easiest one to see is smoke. If I did not have a good visual cue after a few seconds scanning around, It might take me 10 seconds to bring up surface wind on my foreflight map with ads-b

The easiest one to see is smoke. If you don't see any smoke, find something flammable and drop your cigar stub on it. Of course, that begs the question a bit since you need to know the wind to drop anything accurately.

Close to home, I look for oilfield flares. They are much more common than trees, small lakes, and smoke stacks. Depending on the season, smoke from burning thistle piles in fields works over a broader area.

But by far the best starting point is to get used to your plane. Low and slow in the Cub, it's easy to read the wind from how fast and which direction the ground is sliding by beneath me. And traffic on the roads passing me generally means I have a headwind, which I can gauge by how much faster the cars are going. In the Arrow at 9,500 it gets a bit harder, but it's still readable for a general idea of speed and direction. And I mostly play student pilot games in the Cub where they are fun, anyhow. I have a Garmin 430 in the Arrow to cheat.

 

[iamtheari]

The wind direction on the surface usually diverges from that at altitude, at least when above 2K AGL or so; It seems to me to be about 30 degrees, most of the time. I think I remember reading the reason once, but it's slipped my mind.

That one is on the PPL knowledge test. Wind flows parallel to the isobars due to coriolis force, but at the surface the friction between the wind and the ground causes the wind to flow at an angle to the isobars. For a more complete explanation, I think the FAA-approved source is the brilliantly campy Aviation Weather book. You're welcome. And, for bonus points, who wants to guess what topic didn't actually come up on my PPL knowledge test that I'm still bitter about?

 

[MauleSkinner]

The easiest one to see is smoke. If you don't see any smoke, find something flammable and drop your cigar stub on it.

That COULD be illegal...my Maule had an AD against it that required a NO SMOKING placard.

Come to think of it, I don't know that the AD prohibited smoking...mighta' just required the placard.

 

[Sundancer]

That one is on the PPL knowledge test. Wind flows parallel to the isobars due to coriolis force, but at the surface the friction between the wind and the ground causes the wind to flow at an angle to the isobars. For a more complete explanation, I think the FAA-approved source is the brilliantly campy Aviation Weather book. You're welcome. And, for bonus points, who wants to guess what topic didn't actually come up on my PPL knowledge test that I'm still bitter about?

See, that's one of those things that, while it's good to know the effect, the cause is mostly of minimal interest. You'll waste brain cells that could instead be saved for sacrifice to beer.

 

[denverpilot]

I fly mostly long XC. Comm 1 is on ATC FF and Comm2 121.5 the majority of the time. On a 4 hour flight it gets boring, so tuning in AWOS frequencies about 2x per hour also helps break the monotony ... only other "monotony break" is fuel tank changes. In far west Texas even ATC gets quiet, so occasionally will even fire up the ADF and tune in an AM channel softly in the background.

About all I miss my ADF for is listening to baseball games on summer XCs. Heh.

 

[LongRoadBob]

That one is on the PPL knowledge test. Wind flows parallel to the isobars due to coriolis force, but at the surface the friction between the wind and the ground causes the wind to flow at an angle to the isobars. For a more complete explanation, I think the FAA-approved source is the brilliantly campy Aviation Weather book. You're welcome. And, for bonus points, who wants to guess what topic didn't actually come up on my PPL knowledge test that I'm still bitter about?

I read recently, a book by a pilot, where he mentioned that gusting wind moved clockwise, and "waning" or gusts that are slowing down move the wind counter clockwise heading. So a song that wind at 30 deg. Might then be at 35 deg or more, slowing down moves back to 30. Anyone else have experience if this is true?

 

[MAKG1]

I read recently, a book by a pilot, where he mentioned that gusting wind moved clockwise, and "waning" or gusts that are slowing down move the wind counter clockwise heading. So a song that wind at 30 deg. Might then be at 35 deg or more, slowing down moves back to 30. Anyone else have experience if this is true?

The clockwise/anticlockwise thing is mesoscale or larger. Not something you will feel in an airplane.

The argument is like toilets swirling backwards in Australia. No, they don't.

 

[danhagan]

Yea... but, but, but... according to some here, you're always supposed to be super busy watching your instruments or the magenta line, or keeping your plane level, and all that good stuff. All kidding aside, I'd usually make a mind game out of always scanning for places I could put down if VFR, or would pull the charts if in IMC conditions and run the calculations (pre GPS days) of where our position (or future position) would be along the route, and look for places that I deemed would be landable or survivable. To me, that was half the fun of flying.

I do that constantly if on a new route. A bunch of my XC is visiting my son in Austin. There are a lot of great gas line roads in West Texas that run for miles. Am usually near the highway over San Angelo or over I-10 depending on weather after that. Only area that gets "iffy" is between Llano and Austin Exec, there are a few sections in there that'd be difficult during an engine out.

 

[iamtheari]

See, that's one of those things that, while it's good to know the effect, the cause is mostly of minimal interest. You'll waste brain cells that could instead be saved for sacrifice to beer.

You should hear the useless crap I knew way back before I discovered beer. I'd tell you about it, but I'm literally having a beer instead.

 

[wrbix]

Today in the Southeast, you can look down and see which way the cows are being blown over.