How do you guys find the right weather for a flight?

[carlito777 712]

I have rather general question for you: When I go flying in P3D, I always have the problem to find the right weather for the flight. By "right weather" I mean weather which is appropriate for a specific flight I want to make. If I want to go VFR flying, I dont't want overcast conditions but rather some nice looking medium cloud cover. On the other hand, when flying tubes I like a lot of clouds with some heavy weather here and there. Sometimes, I also want to fly a specific approach and then the winds have to fit that as well.

 

I'm using Active Sky Next and in order to find the right weather I tend to go through various historic dates and then check the weather conditions at the origin and destination of my flight. However, this is a rather time consuming process. Does anybody else know a better procedure how to find historic dates at which the weather in a certain location fits a predefined set of characteristics? Or do you have any other procedure to find suitable and interesting weather for a flight? I would be thankful for any suggestions.

[Gordon Hutchison 76]

http://www.wunderground.com/history/

 

Choose your airport and date - you can usually guess what weather you will get by roughly specifying a date in winter or summer.

 

Then scroll down and look at the big table at the bottom, I usually only pay attention to the wind speed and conditions info.

 

Then set ASN to that date for your chosen location.

[carlito777 712]

 

 

http://www.wunderground.com/history/



Choose your airport and date - you can usually guess what weather you will get by roughly specifying a date in winter or summer.

 

Thanks Gordon! That is exactly what I was looking for! Very helpful!

[ryanbatc 12,775]

I use skyvector to look at the colored metar dots - if I'm trying to find poor Wx go to red or purple areas.

 

I then use windyty.com to look at the winds aloft forecast (I prefer tailwinds haha)

[MarkW 1,490]

Did you  know that ASN has a search feature where you put in the parameters of the weather and it will list the metars for each airport that meets that critieria?

[carlito777 712]

Did you know that ASN has a search feature where you put in the parameters of the weather and it will list the metars for each airport that meets that critieria?

 

Yes I know. But this only works to find a location with a specific weather once you have set either live weather or a historic date. I'm actually looking for a specific weather at a predefined location and not the other way around. But it would indeed be useful if ASN would extend the search feature to do exactly what I am looking for. Should be rather easy for them to do.

 

 

I use skyvector to look at the colored metar dots - if I'm trying to find poor Wx go to red or purple areas.

 

I then use windyty.com to look at the winds aloft forecast (I prefer tailwinds haha)

 

Thanks! Will have a look at this, too.

[MarkW 1,490]

Yes I know. But this only works to find a location with a specific weather once you have set either live weather or a historic date. I'm actually looking for a specific weather at a predefined location and not the other way around. But it would indeed be useful if ASN would extend the search feature to do exactly what I am looking for. Should be rather easy for them to do.

 

 

OK understood, yes that would be useful, and probably very simple to add to the current search feature.  I actually never consider weather when I plan a flight, I usually plan as follows 1)  Which VA  2) How much time do I have  3) Which aircraft  4) Now find a route that matches 5) Plan using PFPX 6) Check ATIS  7) Fly.   The only time I ever actually search for specific weather is when I am testing out something.

[z06z33 763]

I don't use ASN as it kills my FPS I use a freeware program called FSXWX. To me it works just as good as ASN or Rex and it doesn't even effect my frames.

[vgbaron 3,486]

I don't use ASN as it kills my FPS I use a freeware program called FSXWX. To me it works just as good as ASN or Rex and it doesn't even effect my frames.

 

And how does this answer the OP? Makes about as much sense as complaining about EZDOK.

 

Vic

[z06z33 763]

And how does this answer the OP? Makes about as much sense as complaining about EZDOK.

He asked about what we use to find weather.

 

Vic