FEATURE PILOT TRAINING SERIES
Next in our series of pilot training articles Michael Townsend looks into the intricacies of flying in and around weather
Meteorology is one of the most fascinating and challenging sciences that pilots learn about. Understanding how weather impacts a flight is critical to flight safety. There are several subjects that pilots learn about in order to conduct safe flights including masses, fronts, highand lowpressure regions, cloud formations, winds and thunderstorms.
For those of us in the PC simulation world, weather, graphics and fidelity have seen significant improvements in just the last few years. Ice on wings can be modelled and the accompanying aerodynamic effects demonstrated. Windshear, turbulence, lightning and other weather phenomena are modelled quite accurately. We can have current weather conditions downloaded in just a few minutes and updated so that we can experience how weather changes over time. There are many weather sources that we can gather information from for flight planning. Radar imaging on the ground and airborne weather radar are well modelled and add to the realism of our flights. The designers of flight simulators are constantly striving for the most accurate and realistic weather depictions possible and the results are stunning.
For those of you just starting on this fascinating journey of PC flight, learning about weather can be a bit of a challenge. Where to start, what you need to know and how to use this information to plan a flight are some of the questions I have received over the years. Even those of us who have been PC pilots for several years know that learning weather is an ongoing educational requirement. So, where to start?
I few months ago, our late editor Derek asked me several questions about weather from an article I had written about mountain flying. Knowing what the weather was doing and possible future weather patterns is critical to safe flying in the mountains. I asked him if he would like me to write a series of articles about weather. Derek thought this was a great idea and encouraged me to do so. To honour him and his great advice, these articles are dedicated to Derek Davis.
Here are some suggestions to help you start learning weather and applying it to your simulator flights:
First, take a look outside. I know this seems kind of odd advice, but I am asking in earnest. Make a seven-day record of what you saw, even if you don’t know the names of the cloud types, draw them. Your chart should have columns in the following order: Place (where you are), Date and Time, Wind Direction and Speed, Visibility, Present Weather observed, Sky Condition (clear, scattered, broken or overcast clouds), Temperature and Dew Point. This is an international format called METAR
Secondly, watch the local news each night and note what is said and what you observed. What were the similarities and differences you noticed? How accurate was the forecast for each day and for the week observed? Did anything happen that was not forecast?
Thirdly, when you fly your simulator, fly in the local area with local real time weather and take note of the flying conditions. Many pilots in flight sim fly VFR, so I don’t expect you to go out during a snow storm or thunderstorm and fly around in your simulator in adverse conditions! Take note of how the winds, turbulence and cloud cover affected your flight. Did the winds hold steady, or were they variable in direction and speed? Try to fly your simulator in real time local conditions at least three hours a week.
Fourthly, it’s worth starting a course of study about meteorology, and your local flight school will be able to provide guidance on this and let you know about associated costs. My suggestion is to start as you would if you were going to obtain a private pilot certificate and study the same material. If you are learning to fly on instruments, this same four step process works just as well.
Fifth, study cloud types. There are several on-line cloud charts you can consult. They explain how each type of cloud forms and why, what type of weather phenomenon that particular cloud generates and where that type of cloud forms in the atmosphere, low, middle or high-altitude clouds. As you look at the clouds for your METAR, start naming the clouds in general terms. Flat clouds are called stratus, clouds that build vertically are called cumulus and thunderstorms are called nimbo stratus. Start with those definitions and work from there.
I live in Kansas in the region known as ‘Tornado Alley’. In the summer we get a lot of thunderstorms, and the week I wrote this, we had thunderstorms every morning. To give you an example of what you can do, I present the following images.
The weather was depicted on Navigraph and then on X-Plane 12 was very accurate, and updates were every 15 minutes. The storm lasted about 30 minutes at its height and the first two pictures (bottom left of first page) is the storm from outside my house, taken from my front lawn.
I have been fortunate to have flown over most of the United States in many types of weather. One of the benefits of having a PC simulator is that I can practice risk management as it pertains to weather situations. Having a process in which I can practice decision making using a weather scenario has its benefits. For pilots learning to fly in IFR conditions, teaching them using a PC simulator about weather radar and avoidance is a valuable learning experience.
These are just a few of the places that you can consult to learn more about flying in weather situations. I have been flying since the 1970s and can attest that I am still learning new aspects about the weather every week. I fly a variety of aircraft on my PC and like to challenge myself by finding interesting weather situations around the globe. In my articles about mountain flying, there wasn’t enough to get into too much detail about weather hazards, of which there are many in this type of flying. I have been in some very challenging situations in the mountains and have had some close calls. As PC Simulation has improved, the benefits of using sim flying for educatio[7] n is invaluable. While there are acknowledged limitations of simulation, it is much safer to have experienced adverse weather on a simulator first to learn how to make decisions in the first place. I hope that you will be able to use this information to make your flying more meaningful and interesting.
In future articles I will explore and discuss how to obtain weather information for flight planning, weather hazards, regional weather and risk management considerations.
Meteorology online resources
GOVERNMENT SOURCES:
Australia: Aviation Knowledge Centre, http://www.bom.gov.au/aviation/ This is an excellent site with lots of information about weather.
Japan: Aviation and Weather Services, https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/index.html weather and earthquake services.
United Kingdom: Aviation Briefing Service, https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/services/transport/aviation Also the magazine for General Aviation, ‘Clued Up’ is great reading
United States: Federal Aviation Administration, https://faa.gov/ handbooks.
The FAA published the Aviation Weather Handbook FAA-H-8083-28, in 2022. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publishes an online learning centre, Jetstream at https://www.noaa.gov/jetstream, which is really excellent.
PRIVATE ORGANISATIONS
Smart Cockpit is one of the real gems online. It has a wealth of aviation information that I highly recommend you spend some time looking at: https://www.smartcockpit.com
The Flight Safety Foundation is one of the most respected aviation safety organisations there is. It has excellent weather information: https://flightsafety.org
Skybrary has hundreds of articles on just about every aviation topic you can think of: https://skybrary.aero/ For my college aviation students this can be a primary resource for papers.
Airbus publishes an excellent safety magazine. For those who fly Airbus aircraft this is fascinating reading. https://safetyfirst.airbus. com/ See Flight Ops. I highly recommend every pilot read the November 2022 issue, Use the Correct BARO Setting for Approach.
ONLINE SOURCES
AccuWeather is one of the most comprehensive weather sites you can consult: https://www.accuweather.com/
United States NOAA operates the Aviation Weather Centre https://aviationweather.gov/ This site has just been updated. I recommend visiting Products then Forecast Discussions for weather planning.
YouTube is a wonderful source for learning about weather and flying. There are some exceptional tutorials that cover weather from basic to advanced. One of the best airborne weather radar tutorials is presented by Bendix/ King.
Garmin also has excellent weather radar courses. Aircraft Science has dozens of videos about nearly every aspect of aviation: https://www.youtube.com/c/AircraftScience
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19th June 2025
