PPL Weather - To fly or not to fly?

[Muz165]

Good afternoon all,

I have searched for this thread but to no avail - I gave up when I saw a UKIP post on page 7 of my search.

So here are my questions and I very much appreciate any help:

1. What is the best site for aviation weather for a PPL student (Understandably this will vary with opinions)?

2. What are the key metrics to look at when trying to figure out if I will fly or not?

I generally look at windspeed (anything over 25kts makes it unlikely). I look for rain or the absence of it (any rain makes it less likely). I look at cloud and whilst I understand the visibility minimums the website I have used (metcheck) simply gives you a percentage.

So really what I want to know is, where do I look for weather and what are the key metrics/limits to going flying?

I'm still very early days with any of the study but I've taken an interest here because of the clearly crap weather at the moment.

I am based SW London.

Thanks in advance!!

[paco]

I can highly recommend an app called weather pro which is pretty accurate with timings re the movement of systems.

Phil

[RichardH]

As a student or newbie PPL you are going to be limited by flight rules i.e. VFR which has VMC minima plus whatever your school/club and common sense should add. So visibility, cloud base, wind & your location will be the key factors, e.g. a 2000 ft base in Norfolk no problem but maybe not in Snowdonia.

YOU as a future captain/commander need to understand & decode various met charts etc. this should be taught as part of your PPL ground training.

Suggest you start with http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/premium/generalaviation/#/home#top this is a free service for GA pilots.

Further synoptic charts can be found Aviation Weather >> Europe > metar taf sigmet notam winds aloft significant weather information (http://euro.wx.propilots.net) (see London WAFC). Give you an indication of systems in the next few days. Simply low pressure = poor wx, high pressure = good wx (but could be foggy!)

A good app is Aeroweather even tells you whether it's VMC or IMC but won't tell you if you're outside crosswind limits!

The current bad wx is caused be a series of North Atlantic polar front depressions streaming across - again this should be part of your PPL theory.

Regards Richard

[Muz165]

Thank you all for the help.

I expect this all to be taught, I'm just being an impatient student and jumping the gun.

Thanks again.

[Baikonour]

To add some specifics whilst you're learning:

Cloudbase - you will normally do circuits at 800 or 1,000 ft AGL of your home airfield, so any cloud below that is normally not acceptable. If you do nav or handling exercises away from the airfield, most airfields use what's known as the 'Overhead join' which will require you to be about 1,800 to 2,000 ft AGL when you return. In reality, expectations of clouds lower than 2,000 ft are likely to limit your choices or cancel the flight.

Visibility - whereas, once you are licensed, you will be limited by your license, when you are learning, you will probably not fly in anything less than 'all the nines' - shown as 9999 (or CAVOK) on the TAF/METAR. When you start doing your solo cross-country flying, you may be let out if it is down to 7-8,000.

Rain - has no real impact as long as it doesn't affect visibility. Typically, showers will not stop you, but constant rain will, if nothing else then due to the likely low cloudbase.

Wind - depends on direction and purpose of your flight but I think you will in generally not be flying in anything above 10kts for a while.

Agree with the above - learn to read METARs and TAFs - you'll pick up other sources as you go along.

Enjoy!

B.

BTW - Weather limits during training is one of my pet peeves. Most students have never been shown how bad a visibility of e.g. 5,000 really is, but when you are licensed, you can go out in visibility lower than that still. As a fresh PPL, planning a 2 hour trip with e.g. 4,000 visibility on a winter (low sun) day can really easily end really badly. I think students should be taken down to the limits of the license and shown what it means... Ditto (cross) wind, low cloudbase etc.

[Big Pistons Forever]

When teaching practical weather decision making to new pilots I tell them to look at the weather from the general to the specific.

So looking at the area forecast ask yourself "what is making the weather" , then look at the forecast and try to figure out how the overall weather is creating the forecasted conditions and then look at the actuals and see if they agree with what the forecast predicted. If there is a significant difference with what the weather is doing now over what it is supposed to be doing according to the forecasts you need to find out why as the forecast may not reflect reality.



I advise new PPL's to start with the following limits with respect to the forecasted weather

Visibility: At least 5 miles

Ceiling: At least 500 feet above your planned altitude but not lower than 1500 feet above ground.

Rain: No more than showers. Steady rain for the forecast period of your flight will almost always mean conditions will deteriorate, sometimes suddenly. Never fly if snow or non isolated snow showers, are forecasted.

Thunderstorms: No thunderstorms forecasted

Wind: Max 20 knots on the ground, max 40 knots for winds aloft.

[Jan Olieslagers]

Max 20 knots on the ground, max 40 knots for winds aloft.

Both figures seem quite high to me, for a student, but we do not know what plane she/he is flying. But above all: one cannot discuss ground wind without discussing its angle with the runway. I would much rather take off and/or land with 30 knots straight ahead than with 20 knots across. Gusting is yet another aspect, especially with crosswind.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I miss read the OP's post, as I thought he was already a PPL. As a student, your instructor should be helping you with the weather decisions.

With respect to the ground wind I forgot to add 20 kts max with a max cross wind component of 10 kts. 20 kts is windy but not that windy. I would suggest if a licensed PPL is not comfortable with 20 kts down the runway then they should do a bit more training.

[Johnm]

For a nice overall picture Orbifly is very good

MET'MAP - ORBIFLY FLIGHT SCHOOL - IFR ET CPL AMERICAIN EN EUROPE - FAA IFR AND CPL IN EUROPE (http://www.orbifly.com/member/metmap.php?lang=ENG)

[Whopity]

Probably the best place to look for Met is the Met Office The old site (https://secure.metoffice.gov.uk/logon.jsp) which provides TAFs METARS and charts is about to be switched off, but the new site (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/aviation/ga-briefing-services) which is aimed at the tablet/smartphone brigade is online and it would be a good idea to register and find your way around the site.

You will need to learn how to interpret the information before you can consider making a decision, then that will become apparent once you see what it looks like in the real World and what the forecasts say it is likely to do in the future.

The decision is based upon your interpretation of what you think its going to be like, and your limitations, either imposed by your trainers or later by yourself.

Remember Met is an educated guess.

[Piper.Classique]

With respect to the ground wind I forgot to add 20 kts max with a max cross wind component of 10 kts. 20 kts is windy but not that windy. I would suggest if a licensed PPL is not comfortable with 20 kts down the runway then they should do a bit more training


I can land with 20 knots, no problem. Up to at least 15 knots of crosswind is doable for me in a cub. Please will you come and pull on a strut for me to taxi crosswind? Because 20 knots results in a series of inelegant pirouettes.

[Sillert,V.I.]

BTW - Weather limits during training is one of my pet peeves. Most students have never been shown how bad a visibility of e.g. 5,000 really is...

It doesn't have to be like this.

My somewhat quirky but incredibly experienced ex WWII instructors would fly in all but the worst weather; much of my early handling training was done just above a solid overcast. From lesson 2 I was expected to get up & down through 2000 ft of cloud & once there, conditions were perfect for training with a pin-sharp horizon & absolutely dead smooth air. Cloud & weather thus became part of my flying essentially from the outset.

We often flew on days when the rest of the students were sitting on the ground.

[stevelup]

BTW - Weather limits during training is one of my pet peeves. Most students have never been shown how bad a visibility of e.g. 5,000 really is, but when you are licensed, you can go out in visibility lower than that still. As a fresh PPL, planning a 2 hour trip with e.g. 4,000 visibility on a winter (low sun) day can really easily end really badly. I think students should be taken down to the limits of the license and shown what it means... Ditto (cross) wind, low cloudbase etc.

I only had one lesson cancelled due to bad weather throughout my training which spanned a whole winter here in the UK.

Yes, there was an element of luck there, but also a pragmatic flying club helped. They would only cancel a lesson if it would be unsafe, or if nothing would be gained from it by the student.

[indyaachen]

As I am learning now that a whole lot depends on the flight school policies.

The instructors will tell you which websites to look for the weather-related information. This will inevitably include METAR and TAF reports that you can get from numerous sources. However, I reckon one school might, for example, only allow lessons if the cloud base were more than 3000 feet (e.g. mine) while others might have no problem with such conditions.

In general it'd be a good idea to learn to interpret METAR/TAF, weather chart, and temperature/wind chart. A lot more becomes clear once you start flying.

@Steve ... I have read your blog. I think you're right that you were lucky with the weather and the flight school. I had nearly 7-8 cancellations due to wx during a 20-day intensive course. This is in Malaga, Spain where I could still go out and enjoy the sun through few/broken ceiling at 2000' :*

[stevelup]

You sure your cancellations were really wx related and not an excuse for something else?

[indyaachen]

Steve ... I think it was wx tied to insurance thing.
My instructor (>600 hours) could obviously fly in much worse conditions, but his hands were tied due to the policies.

Surely other schools must have weather minima for VFR trainees, don't they?

[Pace]

As you are a new PPL I would add a word of caution on relying on reported weather!

Remember many airfields do not report weather as such and its important to check by phone for visual observations.

Checking for weather at a station 20 miles away and others may give you a picture but doesn't account for localised weather as in the recent Malibu crash.
Actuals can change enroute and TAFS can be out as I have found on many occasions.

Really you are building a picture and in the early days its better to keep your margins large until you have the skills to handle most weather that is thrown at you.
As in all things aviation trust nothing including weather and always have can exit plan

Pace

[Capn Bug Smasher]

Et pour moi: -

AOPA Flight Training - Too Windy? (http://flighttraining.aopa.org/students/solo/skills/toowindy.html)

[rnzoli]

PPL Weather - To fly or not to fly?
One of our old instructor said: if you are a beginner, and you wonder if the weather is right for flying or not - then it's not! :) (He meant that with our limited experience, we have to maintain a larger safety margin for all eventualities.)

Remembering my student days (not so long ago), it was always up to the instructor to decide in the beginning, but I always looked back what was the actual weather reported at our home base, especially wind (speed, direction, gusting). This was enough for circuit practice.

For cross country, we started to factor in visibility, ceiling and the probability of thunderstorms. Again, I always compared what was the forecast, what did I experience, and what was actually reported by various stations.

This way, I developed a pretty good grip on how much I can trust the various forecast, and how my experienced weather related to the actual parameters recorded (e.g., weather radar playback also). There's a lot to learn from this exercise.

So when the skill test came, I knew already 2 days ahead, that the selected date will be unflyable for me. The instructor insisted to meet at the airfield, but while driving there, I made up my mind that I won't fly that day due to the strong winds. The instructor also agreed when we met. We even called the examiner not to come and he also agreed to postpone by another day.

Next day, the wind lost strenght, but it was still gusty. The aircraft was still in the hangar, because the maintenance guy said "it's too windy outside" :) Then the examiner asked my instructor to shut up for a while and asked me: in your very own opinion, are you capable to fly this weather? I just checked the wind speed recordings, and I knew it was just a little bit above what I already handled many times, so this gave me sufficient confidence and I decided to fly the exam, prepared with the expectation that I really have to be firm and alert on takeoffs and landings. Although we suffered from a bit of turbulence here and there, and takeoffs / landings were far from perfect, they demonstrated what the examiner wanted to see, and I passed.

So the moral of the story is: the weather parameters alone will never tell you, if you can fly or not. It's you, who must tell whether you can fly the weather you see. To learn this, after every flight, check back on the actual weather recordings and relate them to what you expeienced. This way you will establish your personal minima, and you can gradually work on reducing them (expanding the type of weather you can handle) in manageable steps.

But remember: your personal minima can change as well. After a 3-hour flight in poor visbility will drain your energy and you will have trouble to land if the weather at your destination is on your minima.

With weather, always have an exit strategy. A 180 turn, or a re-route or even landing out. Never let weather corner you in the air, because this is a killer.

[tmmorris]

This thread is timely as I nearly cancelled this morning and then did fly and didn't regret it for a moment. The problem I have is that while I have personal weather minima to make the decision easier, I never know what to do with the TEMPO, PROB40 and PROB30 elements. If today's weather had been as bad as the worst possible forecast it would have been nasty; but they never materialised. We did spend 5 minutes or so using my (recently renewed) IR(R) as the choice was fly under the cloud at 1000, or in the tops of it at 3000 (freezing level 5000, surprisingly for January).

What do others do with respect to personal minima vs possible (rather than probable) forecast weather?

[Gertrude the Wombat]

What do others do with respect to personal minima vs possible (rather than probable) forecast weather?
Look out of the window. Compare the METAR to the TAF. Go to the airport and talk to people who've already been flying.

And then there's experience and local knowledge. Round here usually when the forecast contains something like G27 it doesn't actually happen, so I don't let that forecast put me off until I've seen some actual evidence of real gusts.

But on more than one occasion I've turned up at the club to find that nobody has been flying yet today (only lessons booked, no PPL hire, and the weather was too bad for lessons so they were all cancelled). So there's nobody to tell me what it's really like. So after I've been flying I get to tell the instructors (or ATC on occasion) what it's really like.

On one occasion I flew a circuit, then asked for a low level circuit the second time, so ATC asked me where the cloud was. "Well, there's some down here (at 600'), but not very much." Neither the TAF nor the METAR had cloud at 600' or I wouldn't have taken off - but I did have a Plan B, I had the approach plates to hand and I knew where there was a diversion airfield with better weather.

[phiggsbroadband]

Whilst learning to fly PPL and Gliding, I used to cram in as many lessons in a week as possible, which meant accepting some challenging weather conditions.


However one day the wind was given as 12kts straight down the runway 05, which seemed Ok at the time. However when we had done the power checks, and were at the runway holding point, we were told 'LR cleared for take-off, wind 090 degrees 15kts gusting 20kts'... Although that was marginally within limits, we decided to cancel, as it could have got even windier in the next hour. So we made a quick U turn and RTB. That was the closest I got to flying but didn't.


Nowadays as a PPL, myself and others can wait for Gin-clear days, when my passengers can get some good photos. Some light aircraft owners also wait for non-turbulent days, as they prefer not to be thrown around the sky by thermal action.

[150 Driver]

This thread shows how much Instructors can vary.

On one of my lessons - about halfway through my PPL with an old school, massively experienced Instructor we were returning to base from a Navex when a local rain shower was soaking the airfield and two miles around it whilst everywhere else was dry. Quite windy and therefore obvious it was going to blow through.

I was asked - 'Imagine you're in charge, what do you do ?'. Answered that I'd bimble around bit and wait for it to clear.

He then said 'Right answer, but I have control, watch and learn'. We flew through it. I learned a lot - mostly that I'd still prefer my answer !

[rnzoli]

He then said 'Right answer, but I have control, watch and learn'. We flew through it. I learned a lot - mostly that I'd still prefer my answer ! Same here! After returning from a cross-country training flight, the wind got stronger and changed direction at our uncontrolled airfield, so I wanted to build up a circuit opposite to what we used for takeoff, in order to avoid turbulence from nearby hills and a fair amount of tailwind developing since then. But my experienced instructor said it would be too long taxi back to hangars, he will show me how to do this, he takes the controls, I just stay on to feel what he is doing.

In the process of landing, the gusts threw us around in the cockpit like never before, a huge fight on the control ensued, and a rather high landing speed. When we landed successfully, I remarked that it was a great show, but I would still chose the opposite circuit direction next time. My instructor laughed and said "I realized that I should have done that now too!" :)

[fireflybob]

My observation is that most pilots do not fully check and interpret all the forecasts which include F215, F214, TAFs etc.

The Rainfall Radar picture is also very useful.

This is because they are often not taught how to do this.

Obviously one should also look upwind before departure (especially in shower situations).

However just because it looks ok at the moment doesn't mean you should go flying - if the forecast shows a worsening trend it's common sense to take that into account.

[Pace]

I think its your experience level, the aircraft and your ability which determines what are your warning pointers when looking at weather from anything from non aviation forecasts to TAFS METARS etc or good old instincts knowledge and the mark one eyeball.

I know with my own flying there are specific NO NOs but they are short

If there are strong winds forecast you look into those in more detail, wind direction runway etc even terrain for turbulence shear.

Fog at destination is the main show stopper so you then look at fuel alternatives etc
In non deiced/anti ice aircraft, cloud base freezing levels etc

Always specific warning pointers

Pace