Which wind data to use for flight plan in future
- Thread starter Joffreyyy
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exncsurfer
Pattern Altitude
Practical? Or for a quiz? The only wind that matters is the wind you get.
Clip4
Touchdown! Greaser!
Depending on you desired altitude, you are only climbing for about 10 minutes in most training aircraft. The wind direction and velocity will be changing during the climb. Use a guesstimate for winds from a TAF near your airport and the FD for the altitudes you will be climbing through. Pick a good land mark to fly to as your TOC ck point.
Use the surface winds for the for 1/2 the altitude to the first winds aloft you can get. Use the winds aloft from there on up. So if you take off at sealevel and the 1st winds aloft you can get is at 5000, use the surface winds up to 2500.
Its not an exact science. Any reasonable delineation that you can defend will work.
Its not an exact science. Any reasonable delineation that you can defend will work.
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For a checkride, the Nearest taf is further then 5 miles what would be the best "valid" source if going from sea level to 4500 or so feet
The metar isn't valid though past one hour ? I'm talking 2-3 hours down the road
Use the Taf for that hour if there is one. If there isn't, just use the nearest Metar you can get.
eetrojan
Pattern Altitude
I ignore the wind issue because it seems like false precision. I just estimate my climb rate at 500 ft/min and my ground speed as equal to my V speed to get a distance for TOC. Is that wrong?
I welcome competing opinions, but that seems good enough on getting some situational awareness of where you should be, distance wise, at TOC.
I welcome competing opinions, but that seems good enough on getting some situational awareness of where you should be, distance wise, at TOC.
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Bob Gardner
You get to choose between forecasts and history. The Winds and Temperatures Aloft FORECAST that the FAA uses on knowledge exams is truly useless in real life. A Skew-T is a FORECAST. METARs are history, and they are surface-based. There is no real-time source of wind information accessible to pilots. The winds you use for flight planning are almost certainly not the winds you will experience in flight...that's why flight logs have spaces for estimated time between checkpoints, to be filled in based on forecasts, and actual time between checkpoints which reflects reality.
My personal opinion is that calculating time to TOC is an exercise in futility because traffic/terrain near your departure point may keep you from immediately beginning a climb. I've never calculated one. Flight planning is based on forecasts, estimates, and outdated information...it cannot be accurate. You achieve the greatest degree of accuracy when you draw a course line with a plotter. Variation is almost always out-of-date, and fuel burn/TAS information in a POH is based on what a factory test pilot/engineer found when flying a brand-new airframe with a brand-new engine.
To answer your question, though, I recommend the Skew-T. Go to YouTube and look for Weather in the Vertical by CFII/physicist Ed Williams.
Bob
Checkout_my_Six
Touchdown! Greaser!
This.....and use that "trend" in your planning. If the winds are increasing...then we need to re-think this. Or if it's dissipating then that's working for us.....
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GeorgeC
And for those of us who live under a bravo, airspace considerations. I just assume worst case fuel burns and TAS and then I'm happy when I arrive earlier than planned with extra gas in the tanks.
denverpilot
Tied Down
All of the above is good information. I've seen a TAF be wrong by 180 degrees and 20 knots four hours after it was issued.
You use the best information you can find for the time frame and in the case of a real flight, modify it as you go along if it's changing dramatically.
As someone said, is this for a written test, general flight planning, or what? There's some techniques for dealing with each.
None of them will exactly match what you'll eventually have to do in the airplane.
You use the best information you can find for the time frame and in the case of a real flight, modify it as you go along if it's changing dramatically.
As someone said, is this for a written test, general flight planning, or what? There's some techniques for dealing with each.
None of them will exactly match what you'll eventually have to do in the airplane.