Golden State Ercoupe Owners Club, Region 7, California
WX & Flight planning
>Dan Caliendo shared this weather related tip with the Ercoupe Tech list; 'Since several of you seem interested in this site, I'll offer another that you might check out. I like the following site better and it gives me ability to edit what I see (radar, clouds, temps, forcast, etc)'
>Need aviation weather, an automated 'briefing', or flight planning for CA? The best source I've found is on a web site set up by an programmer / RV builder (Dan Checkoway, 'Sharpie'). It has all the current airport weather observations, at a glance, and also has area weather radar, forecasts, terminal forecasts, etc. Try his web site @ http://www.weathermeister.com/free/
New toll-free # for giving feedback on Lockheed-Martin FSS service: http://www.airventure.org/2007/6fri27/feedback.html
Linda Abrams asked
about how to locate G.A. Airports nearest some specific tourist site.
Larry Snider offered this; "...use
skyvector.com . Also, Airnav.com will show all airports
within a certain distance from a town or city." John Cooper offered this;
"This site works the other way around: find the attractions near a particular
airport...
http://www.adventurepilot.com "
The trip planner on that comes free with an EAA membership lets you do all that planning online. It's totally web based, so you need no software on your PC (or in my case, Mac). It will check weather for you, compute times using winds aloft, and so on. I have used it countless time to plan trips. It hasn't failed me yet! The one drawback is that you must have a web browser to use it. I think you may need to get to from www.eaa.org the first time, I don't know. Larry Snyder N99340 http://www.aeroplanner.com
Try this web site. You put your beginning airport and ending airport in the sheet, add interim airports and it will give you airspace and MOA's on the route. You can adjust your interim airports to avoid restricted air space. It will give you the skinny on all MOA's in the flight vicinity. Fred
Here are some web
sites that are useful for planning flights around
fuel costs.
http://www.airnav.com/plan/fuel/
http://www.airnav.com/fuel/greatdeals/long?type=1
The last time I checked Hesperia, Big Bear, & Corona appear to have some of the best fuel prices in SoCal.
Suggestion; if you're going to OSH or any long cross country where weather or winds could be a factor (most flights); Flight Watch on 122.0 is a GREAT resource! Just listen in and you are likely to get what you need however; if not, give them a call. The Flight Watch name goes with the center in your area Oakland center = Oakland Flight Watch. Note your nearest navaid (vor) and your position relative to it. When you call Flight Watch, be prepared to provide your type (Ercoupe), N #, position relative to a NAVAID or airport, & altitude. Remember, they each cover 1/2 a state or more, have transmitters and receivers all over, and really need to know where you are when you call (otherwise they have to guess which transmitter to use). Keep in mind that they could already be talking to someone so far away that you cannot hear the other conversation, so be patient. Once you have them and get what you need, it's always nice to pass along a Pilot Report (PIREP) to Flight Watch if there has been any significant weather for the next pilot. Be prepared to give them your aircraft type (Ercoupe = ERCO), departure point, destination, cruising altitude, and report any turbulence (light, moderate, or severe), the estimated in flight visibility in miles, cloud cover including cloud tops if able, outside air temperature, and (if you are able) an estimate of the winds aloft. The pilot behind you will appreciate it ! Information about conditions in the passes (Tejon / Gorman, Cajon, and Banning) is often very useful to other pilots, particularly in marginal weather or windy conditions.