Show Suggestion: Weather Conditions & Reporting (focus on wind speed & direction)
Back when I was working on my private pilot's license a significant portion of the ground school phase was focused on weather conditions. The FBO in which I worked on my private pilot's license was at a small single strip runway, so wind speed and direction played a very important role, and I believe this translates down to RC as well.
The Cessna 172's that I learned to fly in had a "maximum demonstrated crosswind component" of 15 knots, keep in mind that this is for a very experienced pilot in a brand new aircraft. So as a rookie I quickly determined my personal limitation for not going up in a Cessna 172 when the runway had crosswinds that exceed 10 knots.
Since this was back in 2010 I had my iPad 1st Generation tablet with an app that pulled METAR weather data from various local sources (mostly airports) as well as reports such as winds aloft which were submitted by pilots in the air. There are a number of various free software tools for Windows, Apple, & Linux (Android) which can be used to display METAR data, the Windows app I personally just started to use is called MetarWeather.
I carry a $40 handheld anemometer that I picked up at my LHS wherever I am taking off/landing RC planes. There are other similar devices which can be attached to smart phones/tablets/etc. I also improvised a windsock by using a 1/8ᵗʰ inch rod with a streamer I cut from a stash of rip-stop nylon. Previously I had purchased a $100 weather station from Walmart but this was too much to drag out to the field so its never been used.
So I feel that there is a lot of space to explore around in the whole weather arena for Flite Test to be able to make one or more episodes on. Maybe one on how to find various weather analytics and read METAR data, and maybe even another on home made wind socks (maybe you guys can even sell them in your store).
The only RC scale windsock I've found is on HobbyKing: Hobby King Scale Airport Windsock (rip-stop) But I don't like the HobbyKing branding on it so I never purchased it.
I did go down to my local fabric store and purchased a lot of white & orange rip-stop nylon with the intentions of building my own, using one of several online instructions such as this: Instructables.com - Portable Windsock. However, for various reasons (mostly personal laziness) I still haven't gotten around to actually cutting it up and building it myself.
Back when I was working on my private pilot's license a significant portion of the ground school phase was focused on weather conditions. The FBO in which I worked on my private pilot's license was at a small single strip runway, so wind speed and direction played a very important role, and I believe this translates down to RC as well.
The Cessna 172's that I learned to fly in had a "maximum demonstrated crosswind component" of 15 knots, keep in mind that this is for a very experienced pilot in a brand new aircraft. So as a rookie I quickly determined my personal limitation for not going up in a Cessna 172 when the runway had crosswinds that exceed 10 knots.
Since this was back in 2010 I had my iPad 1st Generation tablet with an app that pulled METAR weather data from various local sources (mostly airports) as well as reports such as winds aloft which were submitted by pilots in the air. There are a number of various free software tools for Windows, Apple, & Linux (Android) which can be used to display METAR data, the Windows app I personally just started to use is called MetarWeather.
I carry a $40 handheld anemometer that I picked up at my LHS wherever I am taking off/landing RC planes. There are other similar devices which can be attached to smart phones/tablets/etc. I also improvised a windsock by using a 1/8ᵗʰ inch rod with a streamer I cut from a stash of rip-stop nylon. Previously I had purchased a $100 weather station from Walmart but this was too much to drag out to the field so its never been used.
So I feel that there is a lot of space to explore around in the whole weather arena for Flite Test to be able to make one or more episodes on. Maybe one on how to find various weather analytics and read METAR data, and maybe even another on home made wind socks (maybe you guys can even sell them in your store).
The only RC scale windsock I've found is on HobbyKing: Hobby King Scale Airport Windsock (rip-stop) But I don't like the HobbyKing branding on it so I never purchased it.
I did go down to my local fabric store and purchased a lot of white & orange rip-stop nylon with the intentions of building my own, using one of several online instructions such as this: Instructables.com - Portable Windsock. However, for various reasons (mostly personal laziness) I still haven't gotten around to actually cutting it up and building it myself.
