Meteorology / What does REALLY matter?
 

Dear Forum Members,


starting out as a Meteorologist and Aviation Weather Forecaster, I have recently-ish become an aviation meteorology instructor at a military aviation academy. The main purpose of meteorology lessons in pilot trainin being safety, I need to tell my students not only what makes the hazards, but how how they affect the different flying phases and how they are dealt with by pilots. Ever so often my students ask me "why do I need to know".

My students are complete beginners and fly VFR with a 2-seater propeller machine. Holding no pilot license of my own, I can only present generic information (as it were) to my students. First hand information from the flying community, however, would help to add value to my lessons. And that's why I am here.

For example, I would like to know
a) re visibility, why a pilot would need to know about the different ways of making fog (i.e. what distinguishes evaporation fog from advection fog)? After all, doesn't a fog warning come from the forecast? Does it really matter what type of fog you're looking at? If so, in what way? At what level does poor visibility become a real threat? What is the minimum distance a pilot needs to see in order to have a chance and avoid an obscured ground obstacle?

b) how a pilot assesses the icing risk (both engine and airframe).
My current approach is to tell people about supercooled water (for airframe icing) and adiabiatic cooling (for throttle and fuel icing), and tell them to stay clear -if possible- of the dangerous temperature zones (0 / -15 degC for airframe, -5 / +15 degC for engine).

What else could / should I say? Does a pilot calculate how much to climb/descend in order to exit the dangerous temperature zone (application of the DALR / SALR are part of our syllabus)?

c) how a pilot assesses the hazards that are not explicitly forecast, such as turbulence or crosswind, and what intensity they become threats? Is in-flight turbulence a problem? How do you identify the safest place to fly e.g. near mountains or in a valley, or the best path to climb out (after takeoff) or glide (in landing approach)?


So the main questions here are:
- what do you _really_ need to know
- and why

That's the information I am after.
Please feel free to comment. Any little bit will help.


Thanks


Grille

This may be a millenial problem.

They have been raised in a era of Google providing instant access to "correct" information. An example would be "How do I change the oil in my car?" They google a video from youtube, and are more or less successful.

But ask them what the oil does in the engine?

Not a clue.

Aviation: a neophyte might believe a forecast as infallable.

An experienced pilot, going to a place with abundant moisture, and seeing a forecast for calm winds and a temp/dewpoint spread of 1 or 0...yet a forecast of 6 miles viz would probably say "I want more fuel, and an alternate."

Yeah, I like knowing how weather works. I would think most pilots do.

I would purchase the Jeppesen Private Pilot Manual (or similar) so you can see first hand what kind of weather theory a student pilot is expected to learn. Brand new students are bombarded with lots of information to process, so keeping it as simple as possible often is the key.

Used to was, the British ATP Met exam gave the examinee a surface analysis, the current weather at the destination and the answer was to provide a forecast for arrival after an eight hour flight.

I once had a forecaster, not an observer, tell me my base, an hour away was going to have heavy snow with visibility below mins. I asked for the current weather which had a light south wind, a lot of dewpoint spread and good ceiling, clearly the low with its cold front was moving slower than the forecast. I went, landed out of visual approach. Snow began a few hours later adding up to over a foot.

Pilots fly in weather, they must understand it. Fly international and you will get some real surprises applying US weather patterns to a different environment, go back to the met fundamentals and it makes sense.

GF

Re: Weather
 

I used to fly to Tallahassee, FL. I ended up diverting from there quite a few times. There was many factors that produced fog at that airport. Moisture from the Gulf, low lying areas near the airport and low temp/dewpoint spreads. Understanding how all of these things work is important when the fog is worse than forecasted and you are in a holding pattern making an informed decision about whether to continue to hold or divert.

USN weather for pilots would make someone almost qualified into being a USAF forecaster. Too much information in too little time. We saw this during the change from T-37 to T-6s when the contractor produced academic content was driven by a lot of USN requirements. Students were busting the weather test which almost never happened in the past. Those who did usually were not going to be the program very long due to academic deficiencies. Weather used to be the second easiest test after Aerospace Physiology. It took us a while to get it dialed back to what the AF needed in the CBTs and took some more human instruction in terms of extra reviews and person to person teaching before it was fixed.

When I went to Mather for Nav School, a captain meteorologist from base weather shop taught weather to the padiwan navigator students. When I went to Pilot training 5 years later, it was taught by an Instructor Pilot, but using the same basic course ware I had seen at Mather. The captain we had at Mather did not go too deep, and sometimes the IP could not answer questions beyond what was stated in the book, but we got the appropriate amount of foot stomping before the test.

Now along the lines of what UAL posted, a lot of guys order a brief at outstations from the AF hub forecasters when they are cross country, and do not call back to go over the brief, which is contrary to current AF instructions from the past and today...has not changed in 30 plus years. Everybody looks at the internet and suddenly they are an expert who stayed at the Holiday Inn Express last night. In the CONUS, a pilot well versed in weather knowledge ought to be able to make 95% of the decision to go or not go based on the internet sources out there (ADDS, Intellicast, Weather.com) and then get a better briefing from the briefer because they showed up with a clue, or go get a brief just to make it completely legal even on a severe clear VFR day.

I agree with Flyhayes, Jepp books for Private, or Commercial Instrument do a good job with weather theory.

For what it's worth, I learned most of my weather theory from the old days of the Weather Channel when they would spend most of the day talking about the surface charts and the various features and what caused what. Nav school and private pilot training cemented the aviation portion.

Shout out to some of the original TWC crew Cherly Lemke, Marney Stanier, Jill Brown, Jeanetta Jones and Hurricane Hunter AF reservist Warren Madden.

So it is about critical forecast reading... that's what I had in mind to convey to my students as well, even more because I know from own experience how often one is uncertain and how limited the means are to tell the story to the end user: I still struggle with the idea that a change from FEW045 to OVC020 does not warrant a change group in a TAF.

Don't you plan for alternates anyway? Or would you perhaps even call the forecaster and ask to double check (it may well be that he knows better and simply mistyped the visibility).

Have you ever discussed a TAF (or a METAR) with the forecaster?


Grille

I know the book (as well as the Oxford AA foliant)...
However, I am in the Middle East, so we work from an in-house textbook that meets the linguistic needs of our students.

The problem, as mentioned, is the utility value. What do I say when they ask me "why do I need to know about a Dust Devil"?


Grille

That's what the first paragraph in my textbook says, yet my students ask ever so often why they should bother with the matter. They are sort of afraid of it since it is so diverse (unlike subjects like Engines, Navigation and Aircraft Systems, which all talk about something that is well defined).

The catchphrase I keep using in class is "read the sky", compare your latest weather information with what you see (or experience, as e.g. C.A.T) -after all, mother nature doesn't always follow the forecast- and make a decision.

So you use your weather fundamentals knowledge to make an informed decision whether and how to change your route? Do I get that right?


Grille

So you develop your own idea as to the time of fog clearance.

I should have thought that the forecaster should tell you upon request, or amend his TAF / METAR Trend if things turn out worse than initially forecasted? Don't they do that, or is it easier to produce your own forecast?


Grille