I often advise new flyers who are trying to learn on their own, without help, to avoid wind over 5 mph until they are very comfortable with their plane. When you can launch and land it without trouble all the time, then you can start to think about challenging a little more wind.
Of course the problem is knowing when the wind will be best. Most forecasts give broad ranges for wind speeds. However the link at the top will take you to a weather reporting system that can help you predict the wind within smaller time windows.
This link will take you to the forecast for my club's flying field. Actually it is for a small airport that is not too far from our field. All the locations are airports, as far as I can tell. So pick one that is closest to you and see how well this tracks to your actual experience.
Note the third pull down has two choices, aviation model and environmental model. These pull from two different databases. Normally they differ in the forecast but not by a lot. Sometimes they differ greatly.
Over time you will realize which airport gives the best prediction for your flying field. And you will decide which model tracks best to your experience. Then you can use them to plan your flying time.
I publish a weekly flying report for the weekend for our club. Apparently it has been very helpful to the club and gets everyone thinking about flying. It certainly helps me plane my flying time and I enjoy doing it. I typically only have one day each weekend when I can fly. By using this report I can best plan which one it should be.
I hope you find this useful.
Best regards, Ed Anderson aeajr on the forums Long Island Silent Flyers
Weather - Knowing when to fly
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Posted - 08/31/2006 : 12:47:00 PM
