Get the big weather picture with this new ASI online course
Whether you’ve just begun training for your instrument rating or are in the final preparation stages for your checkride, it can be difficult to interpret the weather and how it applies to real-world IFR flying. Your flight instructor may drill you on the dangers of thunderstorms, icing, and low ceilings—and impress on you that in spite of modern cockpit avionics and datalink weather services, it’s still possible for any pilot to get in way over their head. That’s important advice to heed. And to put things in perspective you’ll want a straightforward overview of available weather sources—what they look like and how to use them.
Good news! This latest course in ASI’s “IFR Insights” series does just that. Touting a fresh presentation style—combining video, tutorials, and interactive scenarios—ASI’s IFR Insights: Cockpit Weather (www.airsafetyinstitute.org/cockpitweather) goes straight to the heart of real world IFR issues that matter. It’s a perfect tool for you to use with your CFI. Here’s why.
Two tutorials—essentially narrated videos—cover details about radar images many pilots (even your CFI) may not know and provide examples of how one can use datalink in real life as part of an integrated weather decision-making process. In essence you’ll get answers to important questions: What’s this radar image telling me, and not telling me? What other sources of information (satellite, text, Flight Service, ATC) do I need to consider? What’s the “big picture?”
What else do you learn? You’ll be able to engage in four interactive scenarios that create conditions in which you have to interpret the situation based on “raw data” from datalink; each scenario has its own short quiz—and you have to pass all four to get course credit. Sit down with your CFI and take the course (www.airsafetyinstitute.org/cockpitweather).
Quiz, anyone?
Quiz, anyone?
Do you like to take quizzes? ASI has a creative lineup for you from “ATC Terminology” to “Collision Avoidance” to “Airspace Review,” to name just a few topics. Sharpen your knowledge while you exercise your brain with ASI’s online quizzes, underwritten by the AOPA Insurance Agency, Inc. (www.airsafetyinstitute.org/quiz).
