Weather

I thoroughly enjoy your IFR magazine and eagerly look for it every month. I do have a concern about the front-page caption, Bitch-slapped by physics, found on the cover of the October 2010 issue. Come on, Jeff. All of you at IFR magazine are excellent writers who know how to get the information out in a comprehensible form and fashion that is entertaining and useful. Using that description for your article about V-speeds is inappropriate.

Our flight from Potomac Airfield in Friendly, Md.. to Dublin, Va., (to pick up a new puppy) would take about an hour and a quarter, despite steady headwinds paralleling the Blue Ridge mountains. The only minor wrinkle came from two small cells approximately 10 miles north of our destination. The cells were staggered, traveling west to east across our route at 27 knots, with tops at 43,000 feet and 28,000 feet, respectively.

Excitement is in the air. We just left Fort Pierce, Florida. Rather than heading to a tame destination like Key West, were pointed southeast-open ocean ahead. Our friend Dave, a constant source of bizarre travel ideas, suggested we visit Pig Beach. Wild pigs supposedly enjoy this spot in the Bahamas, living a life of swimming, sun tanning, and getting dinner from passing tourists.

Twenty years ago, the idea of carrying sophisticated digital radar in anything under a medium twin would probably have been met with roars of laughter, but technology has brought amazing advances. Now its possible for even an ultralight pilot to use the Internet to access essentially the same tools that are available to forecasters.

ADS-B weather for the iPad has been around for a while, but this is the first year pilots get some real choices. Baron released its Mobile Link with XM weather for the iPad. SkyRadar, which puts ADS-B weather into WingX on the iPad, just released a new device. FreeFlight Systems is promising an in-panel, complete ADS-B solution (traffic and weather) that will wirelessly send data to the iPad.

Unless you are a weather geek, you probably have never heard of vertically integrated liquid (VIL). VIL is one of dozens of products generated by the same NWS radars that give us composite- and base-reflectivity images weve all come to know and love. Taking a peek at VIL wont revolutionize your use of NEXRAD, but it could warn you which cells are most likely to kick your butt.

My first winter of cargo flying meant dealing with ice every night. With spring came a sigh of relief that I could finally relax a bit. Boy was that wrong. Instead, I learned that although the temperatures may be warming up, the threat of icing remains throughout much of spring.

Sometimes the standard forecasts just arent enough. The area forecast (FA) and terminal forecasts (TAFs) are fine for anticipating the weather for the next day or so, but they simply dont extend out far enough in the future to tell you if IFR conditions might mess with your plans three days down the road.

Whats the worst that should happen if that wide runway seems further away? Well, you could end up too high and go around or you could simply land long, risking an overrun. Embarrassing, to be sure, possibly with expensive damage, but seldom much worse than that.

If I were crowned king, my first decree would be to abolish the official winds and temperatures aloft forecast, also known as the FBWinds. Its an outdated product thats fraught with problems. The problems get compounded when pilots unknowingly misuse the forecast.

Fog along the West Coast of the United States has been documented as far back as the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th...

In March, 1933, Malcolm C. Harrison wrote in An Unusual Texas Duststorm, "Pilots were experiencing the same condition over North and Central Texas, all...