[music]

Man: [0:31] Welcome to another episode of Aviator 90 from Angle of
Attack. This episode we are going to introduce you to a very, very
basic overview of aviation weather. Keep in mind that there are
thick 2-inch manuals out there on aviation weather, so this is
definitely not an easy subject.
[0:51] A professional pilot is essentially a meteorologist. They’ve
got to know just about everything about the weather and how things
work. But in all honesty, the weathermen you see on TV don’t have
to go out and fly in it. That means that as a pilot you have to be
diligent in making sure you have accurate information.

[1:13] So, in this episode we are going to talk about airport
weather information and VFR weather requirements. First, we’ll
start with airport information. What we’ll simply do is give you
audio samples and I’ll break them down. So, for most airports, even
ones without a tower, you get automated weather that broadcasts on
a certain frequency.

You can always pull this up and look at it in your FS menu by
pressing the tilde key. Here’s the first real world sample:

Recording: [1:48] South Valley Regional Airport. Automated weather observation
2118 Zulu, weather. Wind, calm. Visibility, 10 clear below 12, 000.
Temperature, 11 Celsius. Dew point, minus six L. Altimeter, 3013.

Man: [2:09] This was an automated observation at the airport that I fly
out of, this is my home base. So, let’s break it down bit by bit.
This is the airport name and the type of broadcast.

Recording: [2:21] South Valley Regional Airport. Automated weather
observation.

Man: [2:26] This is the time in which the report was given in Zulu time.

Recording: [2:31] 2118 Zulu.

Man: [2:34] Now the observation will go through different bits of
weather. First you’ll hear the wind. We’ll listen to this because
it will determine what runway we will use unless ATC gives us
something different.

Recording: [2:45] Weather. Wind, calm.

Man: [2:47] Now the visibility in statute miles. One zero meaning 10.
That doesn’t mean it is actually 10 miles, it just doesn’t go
beyond 10. It means it is actually very clear.

Recording: [3:00] Visibility, 10.

Man: [3:02] If there are any layers of clouds they’ll now be reported.
In this case the observation says clear below a certain altitude.
Any altitude of cloud layers is given in feet above the airport,
not feet above sea level like your altimeter.

Recording: [3:20] Clear below 12, 000.

Man: [3:23] Now for the temperature, which you’ll use for any
performance calculations, given in Celsius and also the dew point.

Recording: [3:31] Temperature, 11 Celsius. Dew point, minus six L.

Man: [3:36] Always an important setting, the altimeter setting is next.
You will place this value in your altimeter to get it to read the
correct altitude. In the States we use inches of Mercury and in
many other places in the world you’ll use hectopascal. So, just be
sure you’re aware of those different settings. The numbers are very
different so you really can’t screw up the two.

Recording: [3:59] Altimeter, 3013.

Man: [4:02] So, that does it for the first observation, very simple and
basic. There are no clouds in the area, the weather is clear and
this is a good indication that if you wanted to stay in the local
area, a VFR flight would actually work. So, let’s do the next
observation. This one is much different and you’ll see why, so
let’s listen to it here.

Recording: [indecipherable 4:24] [4:24] Municipal Airport. Automated weather
observation 2123 Zulu. Wind, 330 at one niner. Peak gusts, 25.
Visibility, one quarter, snow, fog. Sky condition, broken 500.
Overcast, niner 100. Temperature, 01 Celsius. Dew point, minus 01
Celsius. Altimeter, 2999. Remarks, Density altitude – 3200.
Thunderstorm information not available.

Man: [5:02] All right, there’s a lot more to this one, so let’s break it
down. The first part is pretty much the same as before. You’ll hear
the ident of the airport, the type of observation and the time.

Recording: [indecipherable 5:16] [5:15] Municipal Airport. Automated weather
observation 2123 Zulu.

Man: [5:22] The following winds are pretty strong. You’ll hear the
direction of the wind, the wind speed and also, there is a gust
component. The weather station will report the peak gusts reported
in addition to the wind speed.

Recording: [5:38] Wind three, three, zero at one niner eight gust two five.

Man: [5:44] Now for the visibility. When below a mile you will start
getting into fractions. In this case we have one-quarter or one-
fourth of a mile.

Recording: [5:55] Visibility one-quarter.

Man: [5:57] Most stations will report precipitation as well. In this
case it sounds like snow fog. Not sure what that is, but it is
really snow and fog.

Recording: [6:08] Snow fog.

Man: [6:09] Sky conditions will again report the cloud layers.

Recording: [6:13] Sky condition broken 500 overcast niner hundred.

Man: [6:18] Now the temperature and dew point again. But this time it is
quite interesting. The temperature says zero one and the dew point
is negative one. When the difference between the temperature and
the dew point is very small, like in this case, you’ll usually be
seeing fog or mist or at least some sort of weather. VFR flight on
days like this is unlikely just by looking at the temperature and
dew point spread.
[6:46] So the fact that this temperature and dew point spread is
very small makes sense of the fog and the low cloud layers that
were reported.

Recording: [6:55] Temperature zero one Celsius. Dew point minus zero one
Celsius.

Man: [7:01] The altimeter again and nothing special other than just the
setting that you’ll need to place within your altimeter.

Recording: [7:08] Altimeter two niner niner niner.

Man: [7:11] Often there will be more that the regular broadcast doesn’t
cover. These are called remarks. The first one you’ll hear is
density altitude. Density altitude is basically the current
condition of the environment. So density altitude is your
performance altitude in simple terms. Because airplanes lose
efficiency and performance with altitude, the higher the density
altitude, this density altitude is pretty low but once you start
getting into 4, 000 to 7, 000 feet density altitude, you need to be
really careful about you performance.
[7:50] Before takeoff if you were unsure about the runway lengths
and density altitude, make very, very sure that you check and make
sure your performance is in check because density altitude is a big
killer within real aviation.

Recording: [8:06] Remarks density altitude 3, 200.

Man: [8:11] So now the closing remark and you don’t have to right this
down, just take mental note.

Recording: [8:16] Thunderstorm information. Not available.

Man: [8:18] So as you can see there is a lot to take in. For the first
while it might be smart to write all this stuff down until you
learn to commit it to memory as you hear it. Or if you want, you
can just learn to listen and remember the numbers. If you were
using this frequency to run your preflight numbers and
calculations, you should write it down anyway.
[8:39] But when you are in the airplane having just started up,
you’ll just listen to the wind, altimeter and any remarks.
Everything else you should already know or you would have
previously determined it didn’t matter. Things like the temperature
and dew point or the cloud layers.

[8:54] Now that you have learned the basic way to listen to the
current weather observation at an airport, let’s now talk about
general requirements for VFR weather. I’m not going to go through
what each airspace requirement is for weather. I will, however, put
a detailed picture about the different airspace requirements in the
bottom of this blog post. And then in this video I will discuss in
general terms what kind of weather you are looking for as a VFR,
visual flight rules, aviator.

[9:28] So rule number one. No clouds at any time. Any time you’re
VFR all the rules say you cannot penetrate clouds. You can dance
around them, zig and zag, but you cannot go through them.

[9:43] Rule number two; generally you need enough visibility or
lack of mist and fog or other cloud layers in order to see where
you’re going and what you’d like to do. For example, if you like
land at an airport and it’s fogged in, you obviously can’t land. So
the point of going visual flight rules is you need to be able to
see where you’re going. You can go under the clouds and over the
clouds but you cannot go through the clouds.

[10:13] As long as you aren’t continuing into conditions that will
get you in the clouds and you are keeping a clear line of sight and
a good horizon, you are all set for the most part. Everything else
from there, as you’ll see below, is all regulations, rules and so
on. Honestly you don’t need to worry about it a whole lot within
flight simulator, but it is actually really interesting information
to know, so take a look at that if you’d like.

[10:39] Now that I’ve gone over that with you, take a look back at
the weather observations we’ve listened to. The first one was very
clear and a nice day. The winds were calm. The visibility was
great, no clouds. The second one was foggy. It was snowing and the
clouds were low and visibility was just really bad. Which one would
you say is the VFR, visual flight rules, day? It’s a no brainer. I
do realize this is a very basic overview and we’ll be touching on
weather here and there throughout the rest of the series, but for
now we are done.

[11:16] Join us on the next episode as we talk about navigation.
Until next time, throttle on.

Transcription by CastingWords