AOPA Air Safety Institute releases weather planning videos

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Air Safety Institute (ASI) has released the first in a multi-part video series covering aviation weather, with an emphasis on preflight planning and en route weather evaluation.

As the most complex variable in any flight, weather, and a pilot’s understanding of it, play a critical role in flight safety. The video series is designed to provide “real world” techniques and an understanding of the resources available, association officials said.

Many weather-related accidents are attributable to inadequate preflight planning. In 45% of fatal weather-related accidents investigated in the past 10 years, there is no record of the pilot having received an official weather briefing. While these pilots may have obtained information from unofficial sources, the fact remains that failure to gather and properly interpret weather information has a significant impact on safety, officials add.

The first video in the series, “Weather Wise: Gathering Information,” covers critical preflight planning skills, including how to sort through the many sources of weather information to pinpoint what’s relevant to a particular flight.

The video also shows pilots how to effectively integrate official reports, forecasts, weather briefings, personal observations, and online weather tools to better cope with evolving weather during flight.

Later videos will cover additional weather topics, including an exploration of the resources available through aviationweather.gov, conducting preflight weather assessments for VFR and IFR flights, understanding the most common weather-related mistakes, making the go/no-go decision, maintaining weather awareness during a flight, and the ways technology is changing weather flying.

The video series is made possible with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service.