Taxi into Position

After a bit of investigation I found out that the meteorological feature stretching north-south across central Texas was the Dry Line and it has some unique effects on the weather in the south west.As I described in a previous post, I have a variety of current weather charts from the NOAA National Weather Service displayed on my desktop, a number of which come from their Prognostic Charts page…. The venerable FAA Aviation Weather textbook (AC00-6A, p76) did have this to say on the subject:”Dew Point Front or Dry Line: During a considerable part of the year, dew point fronts are common in Western Texas and New Mexico northward over the Plains States.

One of the side benefits of aviation is a greater interest in the weather.

Mr Robinson developed this e-book from his experiences teaching meteorology to pilots and his desire to spread his knowledge of his field to as many people as possible. Its written in a very readable style based on real world examples rather that the traditional theoretical approach found in other texts.There are any number of excellent texts discussing aviation-related weather, some of my favorites being Robert Buck’s Weather Flying, Thomas Horne’s Flying America’s Weather and Jeppesen’s Aviation Weather is also a very well illustrated text book.

A question from yesterday’s Sport Pilot quiz highlighted one of topics that isn’t difficult but requires a bit of memorization to make it stick - weather minimums in different classes of airspace.The question was as follows:Light Sport Pilot Question: 0205_15During operations within Class E airspace at altitudes of less than 1,200 feet AGL, the minimum horizontal distance from clouds requirement for flight is: A - 500 feetB - 1000 feetC - 2000 feetThe correct answer is B. During operations within Class E airspace at altitudes of less than 1,200 feet AGL, the minimum horizontal distance from clouds requirement for flight is 2000 feet.

Thunderstorms are a fact of life during the summer months and whilst the various FAA knowledge tests provide a theoretical background to thunderstorms, how and why they form (remember you need moisture, an unstable atmosphere and a lifting action) and best course of action to deal with them (avoid by at least 20 miles), they can’t cover more real life situations…. ATC is a vital partner in dealing with weather aloft so its well worth knowing more about how they can help should you need to call on them.The ASF has a number of other online courses that are also well worth investigating, covering topics such as Mountain Flying, Airspace, Runway incursions, ATC and IFR operations.

We’ve been running the 10 question daily quizzes on PrepareToTest for the various exams and as part of this we track the overall performance on each question - how many times it was attempted, how many times it was answered correctly, which answers were selected, etc. By looking at the scores its very obvious when people are having problems with a particular question or topic…. Today’s Private Pilot quiz had a good example related to Convective Sigmets.Private question 3495 had the following results:”What is indicated when a current CONVECTIVE SIGMET forecasts thunderstorms?”A - Moderate thunderstorms covering 30 percent of the area.