I’m a IFR student and would like tips on decoding the winds and temps aloft. I have my written test scheduled for next week so I need to understand this well.
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Welcome @Gilnolt
Teach me how to decode wind and temps aloft right here in this thread…
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Welcome @Gilnolt some quick and dirty… let’s say at 12,000ft 2725-15 =wind direction of 270@25 knots and temp is minus 15.
Above FL240 temps are always negative so that would be written as 272515. Would mean the same thing as the first example they just omit the minus sign above 24,000.
When wind speed is over 100 knots you may see 772515. In this case you have to subtract 50 from the wind direction and add 100 to the wind velocity. This would turn into winds out of 270 at 125 knots and a temp of minus 15. You may ask, why not just keep the direction correct why do the math shit? Because in a 6-7 digit code, that’s what they thought was the easiest way to tell you the wind is over 100 knots. It’s just a way to say look dumbass, the wind isn’t 25 knots, it’s 125 knots. They don’t want to inhibit their ability to have a minus sign below 24,000 and also have a wind speed over 100 knots. If you were to see 779920, that means the wind is 270 at 199+ knots. They quit counting wind speed after that. Hope this helps man.
oh and if you’re talking the graphical, flags are 50 knots, bars are 10 and half bars are 5 knots.
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It may be the beer but wtf does this mean?
If you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a ball @LeeGriffing!
If you can explain something to someone you will have a greater understanding of it. If you explain it to someone who understands it better than you, it’s easier for them to understand exactly where any misunderstandings are.
With that being said, I was going to do an explanation somewhat like you did at some point today if nobody else did.
Use Shepard Air Test Prep, or even better just use Chat GPT
Shepard Air would definitely help with not having as much stress over the test!
You won’t learn much from Shepard other than how to pass the test but if you are already studying the topics and want to make sure you don’t bomb the test for some reason it’s not a bad idea.
I don’t understand how Chat GPT is even remotely a good idea for test prep…?
@Gilnolt I was giving this some thought that using the terms subtracting 50 and adding 100 to the wind direction and wind speed codes could be off-putting. Here’s an example of a code you may see(I think) 561356 So maybe think more like I was saying this was just their shorthand way of making you aware if the wind direction code is over 50 that you’d have to subtract the 50 to get accurate direction and you knew that the wind was over 100 knots and the wind code had a “one” in front of it. In this example wind direction is 56-50=06(060 degrees) we know we did the minus 50, so we know there is automatically a “one” in front of the 13 so 113. The temp is -56 which depending on what altitude we’re looking on the winds aloft its straight forward. Let’s say we’re at FL300(30,000ft) so it’s definitely negative. All temps are negative above FL240. This would all be decoded as 060@113 temp -56. Not trying to beat a dead horse but want to make sure it’s easy for you and anyone else wondering.
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I like this idea of examples! Try translating this.
8910+80
temperature is 39 wind is blowing towards 176 at 10 gusting 60
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Damn @Dr.Badass thats actually correct!
@LeeGriffing would be proud!!
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I know everything bra
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@Dr.Badass what in the eff…
@RobertBerger to add some context, the highest wind direction code you’d see with a 9 as a 2nd digit would be 791080 so thats 290@110 knots. The 80 temp… positive or negative probably isn’t possible… even for the U2.