Weather is beyond your control. Obvious, right? Think about it for a second, however, and you’ll realize that fact alone makes weather not only unique among all other facets of aviation, but also one of the most potentially dangerous as well. More than anything else you will face in aviation, navigating in and around weather will be your challenge.
You can easily learn and follow the regulations, take good care of your airplane and expect it to perform well, and learn the proper mechanics of flight. But weather is another animal. It’s volatile. It’s unpredictable. And it’s powerful. Even people who have studied meteorology their entire lives and have written doctoral dissertations on its characteristics get it wrong. To remain completely safe, the only thing you can do is avoid bad weather completely.
But this presents a paradox. Avoiding weather is not only impractical, it’s unsafe. Some day you will want to actually go somewhere in the airplane, and that means dealing with whatever weather is between you and your destination. Conditions will change beyond what is forecast and you will face something, even if it’s only some wind on landing. If you can’t avoid it, the only way to operate safely in the environment is to learn the basics of how weather forms and changes, and then learn how to avoid the conditions beyond your capabilities.
Naturally, how to get normal and proper utility out of the airplane safely is the big question. And unfortunately there is no good and simple answer. Learning to read and interpret weather is an art form that is generally learned over time. Typically it’s done by starting small, with very tight tolerances, and then working your way up to more challenging conditions as time goes on.
Like anything, it helps to start with the basics. The variation in temperature and pressure are at the heart of most of the world’s weather, and those masses of unequal air move in fronts. We cover these building blocks of weather in Tom Horne’s story, “Front Fundamentals,” which begins on page 34. This story is one of the clearest explanations of fronts and air masses you’ve ever read.
Once you know where the fronts are, you can start reading reports to get an idea of what the weather is like on a micro scale. To better coordinate with the rest of the world, the National Weather Service now issues these reports in a standardized format called a METAR. Learning to decode their secret language takes some time, but is fun to do once you get the hang of it. We help teach you how in this month’s Technique, beginning on page 38.
Very few of us get the opportunity to really test our mettle with severe weather, and that’s a good thing. Staying away from thunderstorms, severe turbulence, and wind shear is smart and prudent. But a few select folks make it their mission to do the exact opposite. The Hurricane Hunters of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron of the United States Air Force Reserve fly in and around hurricanes all season long, day or night. Why? To make sure forecasts are as good as possible. Their amazing story begins on page 24.
The Hurricane Hunters avoid some of the worst weather with onboard color radar. Although most light general aviation airplanes don’t have that capability, many of us now have the ability to see an almost real-time picture in the cockpit as we fly. This type of technology was unthinkable only a decade ago. It’s one of many weather advances that has increased safety and given pilots more tools in the battle against Mother Nature—and all she throws at us. Read our staff’s picks for five of the top advances in “Five Weather Technologies that Changed Aviation,” which begins on page 30.
Weather is dynamic and unpredictable. For that reason it’s incredibly hard to learn its patterns and nature. We hope the many weather-themed stories in this issue help to complete a picture that will give you the knowledge and confidence to go out and experience the beauty of flight in a wide variety of conditions—when you’re ready.
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