Enflight.com is now offering AOPA members the opportunity to try its enhanced flight planning service at no charge through the end of the year. Enflight provides AOPA's Online Flight Planning Service. The new product on Enflight's Web site offers similar functionality to AOPA's current flight planner but with the addition of several features, including Enflight's new WXpert weather advisement system, an enhanced flight planner, and support for selected PDAs.
When using WXpert on the Enflight site, each pilot enters their own personal minimums for poor and marginal conditions in these categories: visibility, ceiling, wind, and temperature/dew-point spread. Plain-language weather briefings from CSC DUATS then come back color coded based on the pilot's own personal minimums. METARs and TAFs in which all selected parameters are above the pilot's personal minimums are shaded in green and noted by a large green check mark.
Reports that have at least one parameter in the marginal category are shaded in yellow and marked with a yellow exclamation point. At least one item in the poor category causes the report to be shaded in red and be marked with a red "X." In addition, the specific parameters that are causing the "yellow" or "red" alert are highlighted in bold text.
The result is a complete, legal weather briefing that a pilot can scan quite rapidly to easily and consistently determine whether a flight is doable based on their own personal minimums. "Enflight WXpert clearly shows which conditions are acceptable, marginal, and below your personal minimums," says Enflight President Geoff Peck. "These limits are your limits, not a generic 'VFR not recommended.'"
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