Transcription
So today, we're going to be talking about some pretty cool stuff. Uh, it's going to be about IMC, or Instrument Meteorological Conditions. This is some of the areas that, as you move into getting your IFR rating, uh, you'll use all this information, uh, to be able to further, uh, that your your quest to get your instrument rating, which is something you would, uh, hopefully want to get. Uh, if your goal is just to get a private, you know, just to fly, that's that's awesome. Um, but getting your instrument rating, especially in Southern California, uh, is pretty important, only because it makes your, your license now a little bit more useful. It also gives you the largest discount, uh, on insurance rates if you have an instrument rating. So, you know, even being an ATP, uh, my insurance doesn't go down anymore because I'm an ATP versus, uh, someone who is a private that has an instrument rating. So, and most of you that, uh, will go through the process of getting your instrument rating, we find out that it's just as intense, but in a different way, as your private, except now you're learning how to control the aircraft without being able to look out at all, and you're relying on your instrumentation, which is actually not a bad thing. Um, but it is different from VFR flying. Uh, so tonight, we're going to talk about a little bit about, uh, what it's like to fly in the clouds as far as like the phenomenon, and some of the things that we will use to anticipate, uh, instrument conditions. Uh, so if you're continuing to be a VFR pilot, you can avoid some of those situations, uh, similar to what we talked about in icing, but in this case, we're, we're more specific to the actual instrument condition. So, uh, I do have in the modules, uh, a video. Normally, I show this during class time, and, uh, you know, our class times are a lot longer when we do these live, uh, because we have the opportunity to be able to not only show the videos, but have, we can talk instead of having a discussion online, we can actually have a discussion in the classroom, which is pretty awesome. Looking forward to that when, uh, we in the spring. But anyway, uh, there is a video, uh, and if I'm correct with this, this case, uh, it is, I think it's the one where a commercial pilot, and he's going to go on a flight, but he's a commercial pilot without an instrument rating. So it's a little bit different, which is unique. Uh, they're typically, if usually you get your instrument rating first, and then you get your commercial. Um, uh, because for your commercial, uh, to be like useful, uh, you need your instrument rating. So just keep that in mind. Otherwise, there are restrictions. You can look those up on the, in the FAA, to find out what the restriction is on a commercial license if you don't have your instrument rating. So anyway, this is where someone goes from VFR conditions into IMC conditions, and what happens when that encounter happens.
So we're going to go over quite a few things today. We're going to talk about weather terms, uh, so you understand the differences between some of the terminology, because a lot of it is similar, but it is different. Uh, the equipment that you use when you fly in instrument conditions, some of the different causes, uh, the different kind of phenomenon that you're going to be flying in. Uh, we're going to focus on the Marine layer in this particular class because, of course, that's something we get in Southern California quite a bit, and it's probably one of the biggest reasons to get an instrument rating, if any, so you can fly through the Marine layer, which is really kind of benign. It's like super easy to fly through the Marine layer because it's just a, a cloud, and it's a stable cloud. Uh, also, so when you fly through it, it's not even bumpy, so you just go right through that big pillow as you, you know, descend through it, then you break out, and of course, because it's a stable area, it's usually hazy below, so you have to find your airport. So that's probably where you get most of your practice, trying to find the airfield that you're actually landing in. So hopefully you're using your instrument approach procedures properly, and, uh, that shouldn't be an issue. Uh, we'll talk, talk about weather information. We'll look at METARs a little bit, so we'll kind of open up that subject area. Uh, I'll also show you the differences between like, uh, you know, with the raw data and like a, a the same METAR. I, I pulled one up today and created the slide so you can see raw versus like the deciphered to decoded, uh, data, so you can get both of those. I'll show you how to do that. Um, and then a couple apps that you can use to practice, uh, which is important because the biggest thing as far as METARs and Terminal Area Forecast, which we'll get into, you know, a little bit more detail later, um, is understanding how to read, you know, that raw data, and it just comes with practice. Some of it's like super obvious, it's like, oh yeah, I know what that means, and then some of it's like, ah, I don't get it. And you'll see today there's French words associated with some of the stuff because you're like, I don't even understand what those letters mean. That doesn't even associate with like, you know, fog or haze or whatever. So we'll talk about that too. Um, let's see, weather information, Aviation Weather Center. So all that's all my official opening up of using the Aviation Weather Weather Center. Uh, typically in a live, I'll, I'll bring it up online in the computer next to me, uh, as we talk through some of this stuff. Uh, of course, since this is a taped class or live online, uh, it's, you know, it's now now it becomes homework, right? So you're going to have to go on to Aviation Weather Center and kind of cruise around, get used to it. Uh, create an account. Uh, it's free, and, uh, it allows you to customize it, which is pretty cool. Um, and then chart symbols, because I think it's module 12, we have a chart symbols quiz, so I give you that stuff in advance to make sure that you're familiar with it. And just like I mentioned earlier, you know, it's all about, you know, making sure you understand this information because you will use it later, not just passing the test, right? So it's truly being able to look at something and go, oh, okay, I know what that thing's telling me. Um, so we'll have a, a quiz on chart symbols, so you get familiar with that kind of stuff. Anyway, we'll kind of move on as we, as we start talking about, uh, some of the, there we go, as we start talking about some of the abbreviations that we have to get familiar with, uh, when we fly in instrument conditions.
So, uh, I give you a little example, of course, just a reminder here, especially for you that are in Stanley's class, when it talks about cloud coverages and and visibilities that you need to be aware of, of course, as a private pilot, especially VFR, um, and as we talk about IMC, there are three different types or or abbreviations you need to be familiar with. So the first one is VMC, right? So that's Visual Meteorological Conditions. That's as long as you adhere to the cloud coverage and visibilities in that little chart that's on the right hand side, uh, by MARMADOW, you will stay in visual conditions, and then you can fly, of course, VFR, uh, in those conditions. So VMC just stands for what the actual atmospheric conditions are that you're flying in, right? VFR is the, the rating that you're capable of flying in. So there's a little nuance difference between the two. IMC, being of course for Instrument Meteorological Conditions, meaning you have to have an IFR rating in order to do that. All right, so, yes, that's a good thing to bring up, Jake. It's, you know, when you do your first three hours of instrument work, uh, in, as a VFR pilot, you know, you put the hood on, and they have you do things like unusual attitudes and stuff like that. It's kind of freaky when you first do it, and that's the reason why it takes a little bit longer, like just as long as it takes you usually to, to your private to get your instrument, because it's, you're training your brain essentially to really rely on the instrumentation that you have, and not only understand the instruments, but being able to understand, you know, when this one doesn't work, this one's my backup over here, or could have a couple different backups associated with it, right? So, but you have to train yourself for that, and then you have to be able to trust the instruments, and to be able to recognize when one of them is giving you bad information. So that's probably the main reason why the insurance gives you such a break, because it makes you a much, much better pilot when it comes to understanding not only how to fly the airplane, but understanding, uh, how the equipment works within it. Um, other things that you get, I have ATC guidelines in the lower right hand corner. So there's a little chart, and I want to be able to help you understand that when we start to look at, and you'll hear it in the video that you guys are going to watch, um, where ATC says, uh, you know, VFR not recommended. Right? Well, when they say VFR not recommended, it's because they're looking at this chart down in the lower right hand corner. So their categories, uh, as far as clouds and visibility and stuff like that, is different from our own that we train to our standards, right? And theirs is a lot more conservative. So, in other words, you know, if we go by three miles, they go by five miles as far as visibility, and the reason why is because they want to make sure that you, as the pilot, think about the conditions that you're going to be flying in, right? So, uh, you can see here, the, if we just look at the top line for Visual Flight Rules, shows a ceiling of course, none or greater than 3,000, uh, of course, that's much higher than the 1,000 that we normally go by, right? And then visibilities of greater than five miles. So if it's less than five miles, ATC will tell you, VFR not recommended. Are they telling you not to fly? No. What they're doing is kind of giving you a heads up. They're not telling, they can't tell you how to fly, right? Only you can, because you are the pilot in command. So you have to make the decision based upon your rating, uh, whatever you're capable of doing. And also, this could be a good heads up, especially if you're a new instrument pilot, and they tell you VFR not recommended, you say, oh, wait a second, what if I just do this one IFR? I can avoid this whole issue altogether and get a little practice. And, you know, you can go and kind of scuddy conditions that are technically VFR, but you wouldn't necessarily be comfortable flying VFR. You have an instrument rating, so why not use it? So, uh, I used to do that quite a bit, you know, and kind of the marginal days is, is usually the way we look at it as pilots, and it just makes things a lot safer, which is nice. So, of course, we can go through the list of how marginal and instrument and low instrument conditions that the, uh, that they use in order to determine how to give like warnings to pilots or heads up, is probably a better word for it, because they can't, you know, shake their finger at you and say, you're only a VFR pilot, you know, it's, well, it's, it's your choice, and, uh, hopefully you'll be legal, uh, or safe, is probably the better word for it.
As far as instrument equipment, so as VFR pilots, there's, there's a bunch of, there's a, there's a huge list that you have to understand or recognize as the standard instruments that you need in order to fly the plane. Uh, I know a lot of people memorize them. I write them down because, well, I'm, I'm not going to, I can't remember everything, right? So, uh, looking at some of the important things, because I wrote these down because I didn't want to clutter the slide with both VFR and IFR stuff, um, but just to give you an idea how basic it is to fly visually, just to have for visual reference as far as instruments, simple stuff like, as, as you can look at the, you can at look at the guide, or I'm sorry, this slide, and as you're looking at the slide in the upper right, it has, show like it's called a six-pack, where you have airspeed, attitude indicator, altimeter, that kind of stuff. So go ahead and look at that as I go through this list, uh, for VFR, which isn't listed, and, uh, see how bare minimum this actually is. So, uh, airspeed indicator, well, it's good for everybody to have one of those, right? Um, altimeter, well, that's a good thing, right? We don't want to hit anything. Uh, magnetic direction indicator, that's a fancy term for a compass that's not even shown and on the slide, right? Oil pressure gauge, so some of the instrument stuff, temperatures, oil pressure, all that kind of stuff, a manifold pressure gauge if you have, you know, a constant speed prop, and, uh, fuel gauge, of course, right? That's kind of important. Um, even though they're not that accurate, to be honest with you, for the most part, those float type ones, uh, when you start to get into different types of measuring devices and flow metering and stuff like that, it's better. But, you know, the old school float ones that you see in the Piper Cubs and the Cessnas are like, they're not always the most reliable thing in the world. So, you know, always check your tanks before you go anywhere. Uh, landing gear indicator if you have retractable gear. So most of this stuff is pretty straightforward. Uh, at night, you need red and white lights, anti-collision lights, safety belts, shoulder harnesses, some really basic stuff. Um, and then of course, an ELT, which is required by both. Um, so that's real basic stuff. So really, as far as instruments, you have an altimeter, a compass, and the rest of them are engine related, pretty much. Not much, right? So, yeah, oil pressure and RPM are, uh, very important. But as far as instruments to keep you flying, oil pressure just sucks if it's not showing the number. But as far as like, you're flying the plane, what do I need as far as instrumentation, like a, you know, an attitude indicator? Well, you don't need one of those to fly VFR. So that's why, like Piper Cubs and some of the old school, uh, airplanes, they really didn't have a lot of stuff in them. They were real super basic, right? Now we step into the instrument, uh, equipment that's required, and now all of a sudden, you'll see how much more stuff you need, because you are relying instead of being able to look out and maintain, you know, straight and level flight or climbing or, you know, climbs in sense, all that kind of stuff, all the maneuvering, right, where you do visually. Right now, you're relying 100% on your instrumentation.
All right, so it's representative of what you would see normally outside. So I gave you the reference, the 91.205, so you can look these up. But anyway, uh, two-way radio, of course, is important, right? Because now we need to be able to communicate. You can't use light gun signals when you're in the clouds, right? Uh, gyros are great. A turn indicator. So in this case, we have a turn coordinator, uh, which is great. It's an electrical device, which I prefer these better, uh, because it actually gives you a depiction of the plane versus, you know, the turning bank, which is a needle that kind of tips side to side. Uh, a clock, or I'm sorry, it says a skid, slip, skid indicator, which is the inclinometer, which is the ball that you try to keep in center, in center between those two black lines that are in the middle of it on the turn coordinator. You know, it shows that little plane, and right below the plane, there's that little white area with the little ball in the center. That's the inclinometer, or the skid slip indicator. Uh, the clock. So in this particular case, I had to put a clock in the lower left, uh, that shows you. So you use that for time. Time. All right, so you can time your approaches. Say it's a three or four minute approach into an airport, you want to make sure that you have that time. Uh, using GPS and stuff today, you don't use that as often, but it was one of those things you did back in the day. Uh, you can use it for holding patterns also. Uh, you can also use it for dead reckoning. So if you're flying from one place to another, you cross over a fix, you can start a timer and see if everything else is working out for you. Also, so just in case you don't have any reference to GPS's and stuff. Uh, let's see, what else do you have? You alternator or generator, that's kind of important, right? You got to make sure that the two-way radio works. So unless you have a crank to keep that thing going, which you don't, uh, you'll need, you know, energy for that for that. So gyros, pitch and bank, so the artificial, uh, indicator. So in this case, it's the blue and brown instrument kind of in the center. Uh, that's the main, main one that, that most of us use as reference. And then we go, there's a particular way in this case with a six-pack to be able to scan the instrumentation versus a little different one when it comes to glass, even though the information is the same, it's, it's, it's given to you in a different way. Uh, gyroscopic, uh, direction indicator. So in this case, it's shown. Oh, I have arrows. Forgot to be clicking these. Sorry about that. So there's your radios. Apologies. So, uh, there's the turn coordinator. We'll kind of whip through and catch up here. That's the turn and slip indicator, or the inclinometer, right? That shows yaw actually in the aircraft. There's your clock. There is your instrumentation, of course, that you would have to use. Uh, let's see, what do I have this as? Because this one looks like it's your engine instrumentation in addition to the vacuum source. If I'm, yeah, it's got the vacuum source and the amps. So your altimeter and generator and whoops, what was that? And then now we're caught up. So here we have the gyroscopic direction indicator. This is an HSI, which is a Horizontal Situational Indicator. It's all, all these terms, right? It's basically a compass. That's, that's the bottom line. It's a compass, but instead of getting its reading like you have the compass that's right on on top of your dash or on top of the glare screen typically, um, this one gets its information as far as the, you know, north, south, east, west, its direction from what's called, there's a flux meter that's on the outside, usually of the wings, that keeps it away from the aircraft. It makes it more accurate, and it's electronic, which is kind of nice. So the difference in this particular case, it's, it's essentially a compass. So you have the compass rose that you can see north, south, east, west, and everything in between, um, but this one also shows superimposed on it your actual course. So you have a little course indicator that can go left to right. You also have one as you do an instrument approach to be able to give you a vertical guidance as you start to go down. So a lot of fun to be able to use those if the aircraft that you have has one, but they can be very basic where it just looks like a compass itself. What they call a compass card makes it super easy to, to, to use. You just need to deal with some of the older ones like with precession and stuff, but don't worry about that for now. And then in addition, you also have, in this case, would be a GPS. So if for some reason you were flying higher, right? So if you're in a jet or something that's pressurized up to 24,000 feet or higher, um, you're going to need to have, uh, GPS in order to do RNAV, uh, navigation. In other words, using GPS to navigate. That's kind of just the fancy word for it. So, uh, lot of stuff, um, but really basic stuff. Let's see if we can keep kind of rolling on here, but it's just understanding how important it is, uh, that you understand the instrumentation, uh, as you start to fly in instrument conditions. So most of that stuff you see on the dash on most of the trainers typically will be IFR rated aircraft. In other words, they have to actually have an approved to fly in instrument conditions, uh, and part in in the, uh, the Pilot's Operating Handbook. So pretty amazing how much extra stuff you need to replace being able to just look out the window and fly the aircraft.
So some of the causes for IMC, we'll kind of walk through these. Uh, fog and low stratus, something we deal with here in Southern California. Uh, precipitation can cause, uh, instrument conditions. Uh, weather systems, right? We'll talk about a particular weather system, uh, mainly for the purpose of when you do your oral, hopefully this will pop up in your head when you start looking, causes Brian C when they talk about why the clouds are here and why their visibility is well, so crappy, and there are certain weather systems that will give that to you. Um, smoke and haze, we get that here in Southern California. Uh, dust, less here in Southern California, more like in the Phoenix area, or if you fly in the Middle East or, or anywhere around big deserts, yeah, the possibility of getting these are, are pretty big. So let's break each one of these apart, uh, one by one. So fog, fog's pretty simple. I mean, it's really unfortunate when it happens. If you guys have been watching the news lately, if you, uh, wake up early in the morning, we've been getting a lot of fog, and because of that, you notice that normally the guys to give the traffic reports are sitting like inside their helicopters giving the reports from the ground, let's say at Van Nuys or something like that, because because they can't fly, you know, uh, but fog is simple. It's just a cloud on the ground. That's it. So wherever the cloud forms, that's where it's at. In this particular case, it is on the ground. And one of the biggest things for you to remember to that defines what fog is, is the visibility associated with it. So the thicker it is, of course, the worse it is, right? Um, and in this case, they use 5/8 as the number as far as statute miles, because when we look at visibilities when we fly an aircraft in the United States, we use our vision and what we are used to seeing. So when we're driving a car and we say, well, it's about a mile down the road, we can generally speaking have like, oh, okay, I have an idea how far that is, right? If we drive, well, same thing when we fly a plane. They use the same distance references when we fly an aircraft. So in this case, we're using five statute miles because that's what we are used to seeing. And in this case, of course, it's just a tad bit better than a half a mile, which is not a lot of visibility, right? So when it gets worse than that, uh, it will go to what's called RVR, which we'll talk about later, which is the Runway Visual Range, and it gets more precise. But for the test and for the FAA, remember 5/8. And there's one tip, and I'll probably say it a few times, that when you see a fraction like this, 5/8, do not reduce it. Now, you can't reduce 5/8, right? Well, but you can reduce like 4/8, right? And boy, I'll tell you, most of us are like, we want to reduce it right away. Don't, when it comes to this class, when it comes to weather and the FAA, they put everything in eighths, from 1/8 all all the way up to 8/8, and they do not reduce it. Okay? So remember that when you're looking at a test, if it gives you an option of instead of, let's say, 4/8, it gives you one quarter, no, no, no. Just make sure that denominator stays an eight, and then you, that's the correct answer, right? So this is how they can mess you up, uh, in in answering these questions. Do not reduce eighths when it comes to describing a phenomenon like fog. All right, so moving past that, now I kind of brought that home, and I will remind you again, so you don't do it, and I still ask the question on the test, people still get it wrong. So I don't know how many times I have to say it, but anyway, if let's say it's better than 5/8, right? Uh, then it goes into mist. Right? So it's still kind of foggy, but it's not heavy enough to be fog. So they consider it mist. And this is one of those, uh, terms or letters that doesn't make any sense. It's like Mist, BR. Where does that come from? Uh, if you do the King Instrument or the, the King Schools, uh, when they start talking about METARs, they use the word baby rain, which, you know, think about it, when you go out, it's misty, and you know, you get wet, it's not raining, but it's just heavy mist, right? So that's why they call it baby rain to help you remember. And, uh, and but it comes from a French word, like I, I mentioned earlier, and, uh, so I mean, French, think about it, like aerons and all empenage, so they're involved. So the French word broom, meaning mist, and if I said that wrong, well, sorry about that. And, uh, but it forms in stable air. Of course, there's not a lot of air movement. When as soon as you start to get the atmosphere moving, a lot of times because of friction and movement, a lot of the stuff will burn off. But it's cool to saturation with contact with cold ground. So just remember, most fog or phenomenon that that forms is typically, right, will be a cold surface with something warm above it. Okay? There's only an exception, which I'll show you later, where it's the opposite, but for the most part, whenever you're looking at phenomenon, whether it's like ground fog or radiation fog, all that kind of crap, right, it's always going to be something the surface is cold, and the air is warmer above, and the clouds form when that warmer air that usually has a little, can holds a little bit more water vapor, gets in contact with the colder conditions, and it creates a cloud, right? It starts to, that lifted condensation, except in this case, it's on the ground, uh, where it starts to condense.
All right, so different types of fog that you need to be familiar with. Uh, the first one would be radiation fog. That's that eerie kind of, you know, spooky looking fog that you can typically get early in the mornings, kind of cool looking sometimes. On this case, looking over a big pasture, which is kind of neat. Um, advection fog. So we get that here in Southern California. They get it, uh, real picturesque like up in San Francisco, that fog rolls in over the, the Golden Gate Bridge. But in this particular case, we, we can see the fog rolling in or the clouds rolling in through the city, just kind of a neat shot showing a movement or a horizontal movement of a cloud across a surface. Um, upslope fog. We get this here in Southern California. If you ever drive to Big Bear or something, all of a sudden, you know, you're clear weather, you start climbing up, and all of a sudden, boom, right? All of a sudden, you get, you start to go into clouds, and of course, that cloud is usually formed because of upslope, and, uh, and it either dissipates or it will stay. And if you're lucky, it'll be snowing. Uh, steam fog. That's that weird, uh, circumstance. We'll talk about it here in a second, um, and, uh, where why it's caused, and, and I'll give you another reference to it also. And then there is the shallow. This is interesting. So this is real, like faint stuff. Uh, SHOG, or like use, use the word MINT. That MINT stands for MINT. I used to think that was like ground beef, but it's not. MINT meat is what I, I was thinking, but apparently it means slice. So whatever, I don't know everything that's for sure, but, uh, I had to look that up because it didn't make sense to me. But MINTs apparently mean slice or a thin layer in this particular case of fog. Um, there are thicker versions of this, which we'll show you in a second. We talk about like Tule fog and stuff. And then of course, fog is FG. That's one of those, oh, well, that one's obvious, right? So there'll be some stuff that's really obvious. Um, other things, uh, in this case, we see a fog bank. So patches of fog or fog bank. So BC stands for bank, if you can remember that. Uh, this is pretty cool. This happens. It's very unique to, uh, certain inlets. In this case, the Burketown, Australia one, and it looks like a wave. And the cool thing about it is it's like, it's like a wave. It's like the never-ending wave. It just stays in motion, almost like a lenticular cloud. But in this particular case, it's not. So as it's rolling around, the neat thing about this is it creates enough updraft. If you are a glider pilot, you can actually fly right along the tops of this thing for like long distances. You just better hope that the, the phenomenon doesn't go away. But this is a fairly consistent thing when it happens. And so, you know, most of the glider pilots that are, well, adventurous enough, let's put it that way, will actually do that, which is kind of neat. Anyway, but it does eventually get into shore. When it gets all the way into the shore, and it just dissipates. So, and I guess if you were a glider pilot, you'd be, you'd have a place to land, I guess, if it was over the shore. Otherwise, you'd always get that one water landing you all get if we're not in a float plane, remember that. All right, uh, radiation fog. So we, uh, mentioned earlier, but here's another picture. Like this looks like a, I don't know, somewhere really kind of cool. I'm sure if I could read the very small letters that are in the small corner of that picture, it'll tell me where that's at. Some Savannah or something kind of neat looking. But, uh, there's also the Tule fog. So Tule fog is radiation fog that, that forms in the entire San Joaquin Valley. Uh, the amazing thing about this, and it's pretty nasty, is it's very thick. So when the San Joaquin Valley, it's very cold as far as the surface, and then you have the warm air that's above it, you get this, uh, condensation really close to the ground. So, in other words, you can fly from, let's say, LA to, to, uh, Fresno. It's a, a trip we used to take a lot in SkyWest. So you're flying up to Fresno, and when the Tule fog is there, you can have just absolutely beautiful day, VFR, no worries. And then you get up to, you know, Bakersfield or Fresno, and the Tule fog is in there. Tule is actually a place, uh, in the middle of the valley. You can look that one up. Real exciting place, I'm sure. Um, another farming community, but that's where this name comes from, because it usually forms somewhere around that area and then kind of spreads out. Um, but trying to do an instrument approach into Tule fog is gnarly because when you drop down, you, you hit it usually right around 200 feet, 150 to 200 feet from that point down to the surface, so AGL. So you're going through only about 200, 150 to 200 feet of clouds to land. It's just a little slice, which is crazy, but it's like super thick. And they get tons of auto accidents on the 99 and the five driving up the San Joaquin Valley, and you have to be very careful when you get through there. So anyway, um, so that's, uh, Tule fog. So be careful if you're flying up there, because you might actually not be able to get in because of the visibility because it gets that thick. Um, so that's radiation fog. Uh, the next thing is advection fog. So I had mentioned San Francisco, Southern California also gets it. We'll talk about the Marine layer in a second where the clouds move horizontally over the surface, and that's typically caused by, you know, the temperature differences between, you know, the colder surface and the warmer air going over the top creating the clouds, and then a slight breeze that brings the clouds onshore, right? Southern California, we, you know, the reason why we get it a little bit more is mainly because if you kind of could see through the ocean and look down at the bottom, you would see actually some pretty deep ravines. So as the water is traveling down, let's say from the north, and it's very cold, and it starts to upwell, right? So the, the water itself becomes cold, and then the air, of course, above it is warmer, and then you start to get these marine layers. So even though we're starting to warm up or not now, but it, you know, when we start to warm up, because typically this happens in June, July, that kind of stuff, uh, the water is still chilly. It hasn't had a chance to warm up, you know, for our summers when we go out and go surfing and playing in in the beach and stuff. Um, but anyway, here's a really good shot of what the Marine layer looks at looks like if you were looking offshore, usually in the morning, because in the morning it'll burn off, usually around 11 o'clock, it burns off, and then it kind of retreats, right? And as the sun starts to go down, and then temperatures change, when we know when temperatures change, you have pressure differentials, and you start to get those clouds coming back in, and then they move in, and just depends on, you know, how big the pressure differential is, is how far in they go. Go, right? They can go all the way up to like San Gabriel Mountains, you know, the San Bernardino Mountains and stuff like that, get really thick, or it could be, you know, let's say just over John Wayne and Long Beach and that kind of stuff. So it really depends on on on temperatures of how far in they go. But it's essentially flat at the top as far as the Marine layer is concerned, because the, the air that's on top of the Marine layer is that higher pressure that exists in Southern California, which keeps it from becoming unstable, because of course, it's warmer at the top, you know, think inversion, right? And you'll see that the warm, it kind of is kind of a hat, it just keeps it down. Uh, and then of course, you can see if you look really close, that it's very hazy underneath the clouds. So if you were to fly in the instrument conditions, fly through those clouds, you can see as you break out, you'll be able to see, but it's, it's like really hazy. All right, um, and based on how thick it is, we'll tell you how long it will take to burn off. Typically, like if you're at Long Beach or LAX, John Wayne Airport, don't know why I couldn't think of that one, right? I talk, man. Anyway, uh, you'll hear the controllers ask, hey, can you give me the ceilings and the tops? And basically, what they want to know is how thick is it, right? Because if they know how thick it is, they can get a general idea of how long it's going to take to burn off based on the temperatures. So pretty cool. That's, uh, kind of an impromptu pilot report, which we'll actually talk about also. Upslope cloud. So, uh, typical Big Bear. I use Big Bear as an example because most, you know, if you guys go skiing and stuff, that's the local place you go to. And we kind of talked about what this was, as air rises, right? As the air comes in, it starts to get pushed up the side of the mountains. In this case, it's actually probably one of the better pictures of upslope fog or upslope clouds really, uh, that are formed as the air is traveling upwards. So other pictures I've shown in the past where the clouds are a lot higher, you know, that has a lot to do with temperatures, right?
All right, the next one I'm going to show is the one that has a little different, uh, description. So steam fog is, uh, it's actually pretty cool. It is eerie. So think, uh, you're in an environment that's very cold, right? So, in other words, you go outside, it's very cold. Think like, uh, I don't know, some places where I've been where the, the wind goes straight through you, Minneapolis is one of them, Minnesota, place some of those places. I mean, you could be wearing a down jacket and it's like, I, I don't know how the wind gets through it, but it does, right? So it's really cold in the side, but the water is warmer than the air. So we all know that, you know, when, you know, the moisture has a chance to get down to that dew point, right? In other words, the temperature drops, it forms into condensation. So where there's a very cold air mass that's above the top of the water, in other words, you're freezing cold, but the water is warm, you get that steam. Think of, uh, another thing like a Jacuzzi, same kind of thing, right? Where it's colder above the, the Jacuzzi versus the hot water that's within the Jacuzzi, and you get the steam that's formed, right? Uh, another example of this would be, uh, if you guys watch The Deadliest Catch, you know, where they go out and fish for crabs and stuff like that, where they go to, kind of the northern parts of, uh, of, you know, wherever they fish at, right, up in Alaska, um, the same kind of thing where it's so cold outside, right, right, that the water, even though the water is really cold, it's warmer than the air that's above it. So it gets what's, what I wrote it down, they call it sea smoke, same idea as the picture that you see here, except it happens up in Alaska, and in that case, it's kind of scary if you guys are in a boat, because that's where you get icing conditions. That's where all that moisture that's condensing will start to accumulate on the outside of your ship as you're cruising along, and you have to whack all the ice off. Anyway, watch some of those, if you want to see that. I know they, they have a couple versions where they show it, which is very cool. All right, so that's steam fog.
Then there's, uh, precipitation and visibility. So this was a big, this, this is something that you, you might see here in Southern California, uh, if you fly during the monsoon weather, uh, in the Midwest, or, you know, like towards Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, that kind of stuff, you can also get these. And basically, it's when you have precipitation that's falling. Can you fly through it? Well, yes, you can. But remember that sometimes, like in this example, I have that picture that's off the left wing, right? Uh, I've had the same situation going on in John Wayne, where all of a sudden, rain started coming out of the cloud. It was just like that, except I was going right at it, and for a brief period of time, it went IMC because I, like, I didn't have any visibility, which was nuts. I mean, I'm, I'm flying the airplane as if I was flying IFR, but I'm like, oh my gosh, I think I'm going to actually have to ask for an instrument approach to get in. Uh, but by the time I, you know, would have made the call, I had already broken out of the precipitation. But, you know, the lesson learned there, of course, is to practice, right? What happens if you fly, accidentally fly into a cloud, if you're a VFR only pilot, that's what that three hours is for, right? To get yourself out, do that one, that kind of stuff. Um, and that would be a perfect example of what you would end up having to do, uh, if you didn't have an instrument rating. Like I could call up and ask for one, uh, because I was IFR rated or an ATP. Um, you know, if you're VFR though, you have to turn around, right? Uh, so just remember, as you're flying through, the, the precipitation could be thick enough that it restricts the visibility, which is really the, uh, the part that makes it go from VFR to IFR is the visibility, uh, which could, it just depends on how bad the rainfall is. Uh, smaller, the, you know, the more mistier it is, and the more precipitation that you get from the rain itself, uh, you know, usually makes it a little bit worse. Anyway, there's also scud or scud running. Gave you the names of the two clouds, uh, that are technically, uh, used to describe scud running. Scud running is if you are flying in VFR conditions, and you were to fly in an area that is really hazy, or it's, it's just VFR, or it might be a little less, and you're below 1,200 feet, right? And, uh, so anyway, keeping that in mind, it's not a good call. Just get your instrument rating. You have to worry about this stuff. Yeah, you know, it's not one of those things you want to flip a coin to see, can I make it? That's always a bad thought to have. So just, just get your instrument rating. That's my, my suggestion. Or fly when it's a little clearer, right? Yeah, ducking under is not a, not a good call. All right, a lot of accidents associated with ducking under.
All right, so, uh, one of the last phenomenon is blowing snow. We don't get a ton of that here in Southern California, not even in Big Bear. Uh, but you will as you get drier snow. So if there's skiers or snowboarders out there that really like powder, that's typically what's going to give you blowing snow conditions. So in this case, uh, we have the, the picture, uh, similar to we used to go into Colorado a lot, like Colorado Springs and Denver and stuff like that, more Colorado Springs than Denver. Denver is a little bit bigger, and they, they can get rid of the stuff faster, but, uh, Colorado Springs, we'd see this a lot, right? So you'd land or take off, or you're taxing, right? And you get this kind of, all the wind, it's, it's, it's like sand, but it's, of course, it's snow, and it blows across the, the airfield. And unfortunately, on a runway, all your markings are white. It's a little bit better on taxiways, because, right, your line is yellow, but anything on a runway is white. So if you have blowing snow going over the runway, your runway actually might disappear as you're, you know, taking off or landing. So you get a lot of training, by the way, so you don't just do this willy-nilly, but it, it is one of those things you truly have to think about, uh, when you get in those kind of conditions. Uh, the conditions can be, uh, worsened in a heartbeat. I've seen literally you taxiing along, and it just disappears. You just have to stop, and you have to, you have to wait until you can see where you're going. Um, it is dry, which is typical, you know, the powder conditions, that kind of stuff. Then of course, there is the blizzard conditions, which hopefully you'll never fly in, because it's kind of nasty. But in this case, you know, I just use this as an example of a blizzard, because we don't get them here in Southern California. Um, but it's when it exceeds, there's a definition for it, then when it exceeds 30 knots, and then snow is falling, or both, that kind of stuff. Smoke and haze, something we definitely have to deal with here in Southern California when we, we're all, you know, the whole country thinks we're burning, um, which, you know, we do have our fire season for sure, mainly because we don't get a ton of rain all the time, and, uh, things dry out. So, uh, let's see, so as the smoke.
Travels, of course. You can see it during the day; it looks kind of bluish and hazy, and that's usually how most of us can tell, "Oh, there's a forest fire going on somewhere." Because you can differentiate that from, like, a, let's say, a building burning, which is more black. Uh, forest fires are typically kind of brownish and nasty looking, and then, of course, as they start to put them out, they get whiter as the more and more they get put out. And, of course, it has that bluish haze also. Um, oh, I had it switched around, sorry about that. Uh, and then, of course, the reddish sky at night. Guess I have to switch my description and the pictures. Uh, and at night, of course, you can see that super cool. As a pilot, if you get the opportunity to fly at night, uh, to be able to see, make sure you stay above the TFR, but you'll be able to see fires. They look pretty awesome at night. I mean, it's not awesome there's a fire, but if you can at least experience being able to see that phenomenon, it's pretty, pretty wild. So, uh, did flying up the Sierras as there have been numerous fires? As you fly up, it's, it's sad but cool at the same time. I don't know how else to put it. I mean, you know, you didn't, you didn't start the fire. So, anyway, so the descriptions that we use when we look at the METARs, of course, is FU. Uh, it's not what you think it is; it means "fumé," right? And I think it's "fumar" in Spanish, unless I screwed that one up too. Um, but FU is obviously just descriptive in both languages, but it means smoke. Pretty simple. Uh, haze, of course, is there we go. Uh, suspension of dry particles. So, uh, you can get this when we get, uh, the inversion layers. Let's see, I have a picture coming up here in a second. So this is haze like during the day when we get like our inversion layers where it's just kind of keeping the haze. So, in other words, there's just not a lot of mixing in the atmosphere, and, uh, that's what we get. And this is really typical, and the worst-case scenario with haze. I mean, it's kind of crappy to fly and stuff like this because it's hard to see landmarks. It's kind of hard to miss the downtown area, but, you know, when you're flying above just the city, it's hard to pick things out in the haze, which makes visibility kind of crappy.
Uh, this, of course, is a space shuttle being escorted by some NASA jets, which is quite cool. This was like the retirement of it, uh, which is kind of neat. But the other thing that we get, of course, and, uh, Southern California is, oh no, it's not the brown cloud like our video said, but this is smog. So, uh, if you, it just depends on probably the direction you're looking. Sometimes it could look hazy in the other direction, it could look like smog. Uh, and generally speaking, it's just, you know, more stuff that's, uh, in the atmosphere. This doesn't have the chance to, to mix, uh, usually because of an inversion layer kind of keeping a hat on it and, uh, not letting it, uh, circulate. But a good breeze, we, uh, blow that all away. All right, now what do we have? Uh, dust. So we don't get this very often, right? So, uh, dust, the identifier for that is DU. That one's pretty straightforward, right? And blowing dust. Now, now you see it described, it's like, "Oh, that's that should be easy to remember too." So, like I said, some are easy, some are not. Um, anyway, this is kind of cool because when this kind of stuff happens, aviation keeps going, right? So, you know, until it gets to a certain point where visibilities are restricted, uh, you also have to think about the engines that are flying through this. So, if you're flying a piston, you have to think about the air filters. If you're flying a jet, you have to think about their intakes. Um, and, of course, the precision equipment, right? All the blades and everything else that's in a turbine, that all that dust, fine dust is going to go through and turn into like sandpaper, which is not good for a jet.
Couple other descriptions of, uh, you know, the same kind of thing as far as fog. This is what's kind of cool because it's similar to fog as far as its descriptor. 5/8 of a mile. Uh, they're also called haboobs or SOS, and I have an example for you, uh, because we don't get those here, of what they look like. So this is kind of neat. Um, okay, it hasn't started yet, so it's, uh, the setup is it's a helicopter, and the neat thing is, is as this thing's going towards Phoenix, you can see, uh, airplanes still taking off to a certain point, and then they have to stop, uh, because they can't stay in front of the leading edge of this to kind of stay out of it. Even though some penetrate a little bit of it, but most of them, they try to stay out of it as much as possible. But this is kind of a cool little video.
Okay, for, for where to find the weather, of course, I didn't do my setup there really quick, but here's the beginning of some of the fun stuff that we get to enjoy. So if you are a numbers person, um, this is, this is the second half of the semester is all about you. So, uh, when we talk about METARs, right? So if you've got your private pilot's license or if you're working on it, you've looked at some METARs, that's awesome. Some of you haven't done that yet, and, uh, so we're going to kind of break down what the METAR is. And in this case, this is a prime example of one of the best ways to break out a METAR. And the neat thing is, is when you learn where the information is on a METAR, it's always the same. So once you learn it, you're good to go. Because if you look at a METAR and, uh, you know, you learn what all the, the weird terms are as you look at the raw data and you start to get used to it, because of course, when you do your check ride or anything else, right? Or if you're, let's say, if you're working with the airlines, they don't give you information that's all broken out in nice plain English. No, everything is still encrypted in the old-school FAA stuff. So better learn it now because you're going to have to deal with it later until they actually come into the, I don't know, the '90s and actually, you know, write like normal people. That's the way I look at it. But, you know, until that happens, we still have to learn the old-school way of being able to read the METARs.
All right, so each, each piece of information, of course, is important. Tells you all about the airport, its conditions, visibility, weather, temperatures, dew points, all that kind of good stuff. And it's done in, in, I've laid it out for you in blue so you get familiar with, uh, how the information is put into the METAR. And it's important only because if something's missing, in other words, if they don't report something like, let's say, visibility or weather, uh, you'll be able to see that. So you'll get so comfortable reading METARs that when something's missing, you'll go, "It's, it's almost like stubbing your toe." You know, you're like, "Whoa, where's visibility?" or "Where's, let's say, the dew point?" or whatever the case might be, right? Uh, you'll see it, it'll be obvious. And, uh, the nice thing is, there are other ways in which you can get some of this information. And for some reason, uh, in this case, uh, on a particular airport, uh, that, that portion or that sensor isn't working properly. So the METAR might come out, but it might be missing some information. And, you know, being comfortable with the format of a METAR will help you see this kind of stuff. Um, most of the time they'll tell you, and I'll show you how they tell you later when we get into kind of the details of METARs, how they tell you when things are broken, how they need to be fixed. But still, the rest of the information is still good, so they still put it out.
All right, so, uh, this, this is going to, you know, I could talk through each an individual one. We are going to go through METARs in a little bit more detail later, uh, which we'll do that. Uh, but this gives you kind of a heads-up on what you can expect. So use this, uh, slide, you know, maybe print it out or whatever, or look it up and then print it out and then practice. That's the biggest thing I could tell you is just to practice these things, right? Um, I also have, and I'm going to show you here in a second, uh, different, uh, airports to practice. So I have listed on this list, I got what, Santa John Wayne, uh, LAX, Chicago, JFK, Minneapolis, Dallas-Fort Worth, and I'll show you different ways to get this information and ways that you can decode the information. So if you're just learning how to read them, or if you already read them but you want to get better at it, I'll show you a way to do it, which is kind of cool.
All right, um, so that's the Meteorological Aerodrome Report. I know it's a kind of a mouthful. Uh, it was because that International Civil Aviation Organization, that ICAO guy, you know, that's, uh, over in Europe, that creates the overall world aviation, of which there's, I think, 188, uh, participants at this point, maybe more by now, where we all agree on certain formats and stuff. And this is one of them. And accepting the word METAR was part of the deal when we decided, "Okay, that's a good one, so we'll stick with that too." Um, PIREPs are ours, though. So I'll show you PIREPs here in a second, but there's the information. So go ahead and start practicing by looking these things up. And, uh, when it comes to METARs, we'll also talk about like when they come. Usually they come five, five to 10 minutes before the top of the hour. When they, they produce METARs along with the ATIS, if you're actually at the airport, similar but different, right? So here's your example. Uh, there's a couple slides I added today, uh, before class. So, uh, this is an actual report for today. Uh, it's kind of neat. So what I've shown on the left-hand side, I, I gave you the name. If you guys are using Apple phones, uh, there's the name of the app at the top. I think they have a free version of it, uh, which is, I think that's what I'm using here. AviaWeather, AVIA, AviaWeather. Uh, if you have a Droid, there's METAR and TAF for the Droid. So I don't want, I want to make sure you include you guys if you guys are out there using a different phone. Uh, anyway, so in this case, the neat thing is, is on the left-hand side, it shows you all the different airports. So I have different airports that I follow. This is a great example of how to study METARs and Terminal Area Forecasts. You're going to need to know both. So your miles will practice with this one. So, uh, I'm sure there's others like ForeFlight and Garmin Pilot and stuff like that. There's other ways to do this, but this one kind of puts everything like right in your face so you can look at all this stuff. ForeFlight's kind of similar too, but this one's kind of nice because it has all that stuff. FlightAware is good too. There's also, uh, AirNav if you want to look up that one too. There's, there's, there's a whole bunch of stuff. But anyway, this one shows you everything right up front so you can see the, the different airports on the left, and then the center, you can see if you look kind of in the center, it says METAR, and then below it, it says TAF or Terminal Area Forecast. So both of those are things that you'll need to know and practice, right? So if you look at the METAR, if you, hopefully you guys can read this, um, it shows in this case where it's a John Wayne, uh, METAR, it shows you all the raw data for, uh, uh, we'll talk about how to read that later, but gives you all the raw data for, uh, information for, uh, John Wayne Airport. And then below it is the Terminal Area Forecast of what they anticipate the weather to be like. It gives you the times that they anticipate weather to change. And usually the only thing that will show up in a, in a Terminal Area Forecast is when you have a change in weather, right? So if the weather never changes, there really won't be anything in a, in a Terminal Area Forecast. But if they anticipate temperatures or visibilities or moisture, all you know, thunderstorms, whatever, that will show up in the Terminal Area Forecast.
All right, so if you look at it, it's all raw data, right? So unless you know how to read that, uh, which eventually you will, um, you know, that's usually as far as you'll go. You're like, "Oh, I can read that, I'm good to go." But for those that are still learning how to do it, you can click a button. So if you look, if you look at the top, uh, right about a third of the way down or so, uh, you'll see two little radio buttons, or they're kind of rectangular buttons. One says "raw," the other says "decoded." Right? So, of course, we're looking at the raw data, and if you press the decoded button, voila! So that's what you get, which is kind of cool. So it takes all the information that you were looking at before and it breaks it out in plain language. So, of course, the whole idea is to try and practice as much as you can to get it all in raw data first, see how far you can go, and then when it comes time, you're like, "Ah, I just can't figure it out," just push the button and, uh, you will get your answer. Uh, there are other decoders out there that give you even more detail because there's some weird stuff in, in METARs and TAFs, uh, that you'll see. So that's my reference, uh, for you to, to look stuff up. Uh, also, you can see the list that I have of different airports around the country. So if you put those into, you know, whichever app you want to use to, to look at METARs, pick stuff that's in different parts of the country. So as storms start to move through, as they do at this time of the year, you know, you can see, right? You'll see different METARs, you get to practice with different conditions, that kind of stuff. So get a cold one, get a warm one, you know, think along those lines, be pretty good.
The next thing we need to do, of course, now that we get all this other information, is to back up our information with some real data, right? We use PIREPs. PIREPs are pilot reports. Pretty simple. So when a pilot goes to fly, they just turn around and give you the information, uh, that is probably different or differs from what they anticipated. Typically, that's when you would, like, fill out one of these forms, call it Flight Service, and give them this report. So, in other words, you, you're flying from point A to point B, and you've got the weather, and the weather is anticipated being whatever it is, right? And then you get like halfway through your flight and you're like, "Dude, the, the, it's rainy, I'm getting ice, I can't see anything, blah, blah, blah, right?" So it's way different from what I anticipated in the original, you know, weather briefing. That's significant enough that you want to go ahead and do a pilot report and tell them that information so other pilots that are going to be flying in the same place you are will have real data from an actual pilot. Uh, so different from like guessing, right? So I mean, they try and do the best they can with their computers and stuff, but an actual pilot in actual conditions is way more accurate, right? So, uh, in this case, of course, you can look at the whole thing, and I remember way back in the day where we would fill the whole thing out, we'd call Flight Services, like to practice it while we were flying on one of our, you know, dual cross-countries, and you give the report and all this kind of stuff. Typically, uh, real-world experience is, uh, they just want to know stuff. So they were like, "What are the, like we were talking about earlier, the ceilings and the tops of a marine layer?" They want to know, "Hey, where's, where's the weather that you see in front of you? Let's say thunderstorms are coming through, you know, can you see it? Where is it versus, you know, where you're flying?" And that kind of stuff. Um, so typically, it's a shorter, more abbreviated version of it. But if there's enough change, of course, you can fill one of these things out and, uh, go ahead and submit it to Flight Service. Not ATC. ATC is not, they're not the weather guys. Uh, it's the F, the, the Flight Service Stations is where you would give that information. We'll talk more about that later, not tonight, but, uh, this just kind of gives you a heads-up what to expect, uh, coming up.
Other things. So I am IMC producing weather systems. So those big systems I was talking about earlier, at the very beginning of the lecture, uh, this is it. And it's the warm fronts. Warm fronts, we don't get a ton of these in Southern California, but you get a lot of them in the Midwest and down south, uh, where you get, you know, the warm weather fronts that come in. And when they do, they create widespread IFR conditions, like real nasty fogs, heavy haze, bad visibilities, all that kind of stuff. Which is fine. I mean, that's why those areas are, you know, typically green because they get a lot of moisture, right? Um, but in this case, this is what causes a lot of IMC because if we had cold fronts moving through, generally speaking, it's clear underneath the clouds for the most part because of the instability. Most of that stuff's happening above you, and then there's some areas down below that you can fly, typically, not always, but for the most part. But with these warm fronts, because you have that big lazy warm front going over the top of that retreating cold air mass that's in front of it, you get all these kind of nasty conditions, right? So remember when they say which front is going to give you the crappier conditions, it's going to be the warm front is going to give you crappier conditions as far as VFR reference, or, or low IFR, if you're an instrument pilot and you're going into a place where a warm front is coming up, right? You have to think about it, because that airport you might be going into could go IFR or really hard IFR, uh, quicker than you anticipate, depending on how quick this thing's moving.
All right, um, let's see what else do we need. So now we're going to get into, now we talked about kind of the bigger system. Uh, this is a big overall view. It's called the Ceiling Visibility Chart. This is part of that AWC, right? So, uh, Aviation Weather Center, uh, that you can look up online. This is probably one of the best resources that you can use to get weather information for flight planning. So if you ever plan on going anywhere, put the link on your phone, iPad, whatever you're using, so you can bring this stuff up, because they have a lot of interesting, uh, a lot of interesting information that, and resources that you can use to plan for your flight, right? So, uh, on this, usually this is like the front page. Sometimes you can switch it if you have an account for, uh, this website. Um, you can adjust what you first see when you fire it up. This is a good one if you're VFR and you want to stay VFR because you can just look at this chart and you can see like all the green dots, right? Green is good, good to go, and you can fly Southern California, great, no worries. And then as you look around the country, you can see on the, in the north, Northeast, it's kind of getting crappier over there, and on on the East Coast, well, it's like right in between. Well, there, right in front of the mountains, it's really nasty, and then along the coastline. Um, but it's a fast way to identify where the VFR, marginal, and IFR, uh, information is. So we, we touch on one of the buttons, it pulls up LAX, and LAX has, of course, the raw data that you need to be able to read and try and figure out what it says. So I break out the first one for you a little bit. So it shows you that it is a METAR, which is pretty important, because this is kind of VFR-based. You'll notice that above the METAR, or I should say right below the KLAX or the LAX, right below it, it gives the two important things that you need as a VFR pilot, right? Visibilities and in this case, the ceiling. Because if the ceilings are below 1,000 feet, you can't go. If the visibility is less than three, you can't go. So they put what is going to, you know, kind of eliminate your flight right up front so you can make a quick decision, right? In this case, it's not an issue at all because the ceiling is what, 18,000 feet? 18, 16,000? Oh, 16,000, is it? 16? Yeah, 16,000 feet. I look at it for a couple seconds and look, I even have a cheat sheet. 16,000 feet, and of course, the visibility is 10 statute miles. So in this case, of course, we're good to go. We all already know just because it's in green, so it's VFR. Um, and it's a great quick reference.
Other things that you can see on the Ceiling and Visibility chart is more information. So in addition to it, it also has the flight category. So if you look in the lower right where I've highlighted, you can see VFR, Marginal VFR, IFR, or Low IFR. Low IFR means you're probably not going to get in, even if you are IFR.
Here's the last, almost the last slide of this lecture, and it's probably one of the most important ones that you guys could look at because there's going to be a quiz on this information. Now, I dropped a little hint that we're going to have it in the 12th module. I think that's the 12th module. Um, there will be a quiz on this information. You will also see a quiz in this module about some of the information found on this slide. So keep this handy, maybe print it out, you know, and so as you're going through the quiz, it'll make it a little bit easier. But more important than anything else, it's not just getting the quiz right, it's understanding the data. Because believe me, they'll pull a chart out and it will have like the station plot. The station plot is that area that's in the upper left-hand side that has all the stuff on it, right? And I can, I can just see the, the FAA, whoever the DP or whoever is giving you your check ride, well, "What's that?" And it'll just point at something on, on, you know, a station plot, and you're going to have to have the answer. So I want to make this as hopefully as easy as possible. And, uh, because a lot of it is kind of, I don't know, it was originally made for meteorologists, and then, of course, it's, you know, we use it as aviators because, well, we fly in the weather, right? So we still need to know how to read it. And a lot of our charts will actually have these symbols on it. It won't have as much all the time, uh, but it will have the majority of them. So the big ones are, we'll start at the top where it shows wind direction. So that's that bar, remember it's like the arrow with the feathers on the end. So in this case, the barb is going towards the circle, the circle would be you if you would pretend like you were sitting in there, so you can see where the winds are coming from, right? And, of course, it also gives you two pieces of information: it gives you the direction, right, and the velocity, or in this case, the wind speed is the way they describe it. Same thing, right? So in this case, it would be like, what, 15 knots? So it's two small barbs, or a big barb and a small barb, or a middle barb. If it was two big barbs, it would be 20 knots. If the second one is smaller, it kind of looks like it's a little smaller than the other one, I'd be 15 knots. All right, so practice that because you can look off on the right-hand side and you can see, uh, how many feathers are on your arrow, and that will tell you how fast or the velocity of the air, uh, that's coming at you. So, uh, go ahead and get used to looking at that. Pretty straightforward. Longs are 10, shorts are five, and 50 is, uh, the triangles. So if you can remember just those three, you can probably read any of them, which makes it easy.
We keep going around the circle, we have pressure. Pressure is important. People mess this one up a lot. Don't mess this up. I know I have confidence you guys aren't going to mess this up. So the easiest thing for you to do is when you see the three numbers represented by pressure, it's right underneath the barb. Put a 10 in front of it. They can't put all the numbers on these, these plots, right? So they have to kind of abbreviate it. So really, pressure, when you look at a chart, doesn't change a lot. You know, there's not huge big number changes. So in this case, put a 10 in front of it, and it should make sense. If it doesn't make sense, it's a nine. It's only one of the two, right? And probably 99% of the time, it's going to be a 10 in front of it. So it'll be 10, and then whatever the three numbers are, right? So 10138. So if you remember what the standard is, 1013.25, right? And then you can think of 1013.25 like you remember the standard number. Now look at it, and the period or the decimal point comes after the first two numbers. So it's 10138. That's how you remember. So write that down if you need to. You can also look it up. Um, but for the most part, whenever you look at charts, it'll usually be, you know, in this case, 1013.8. Uh, if that number is a nine, the first number is a nine, it will be a nine in front of it because it doesn't really drop too much below, you know, when it gets into the nines, it's usually 99 something, 98 something. It usually doesn't drop below that. It'll be pretty obvious when it happens. So just remember, put a 10 in front of it.
All right, going down below, uh, pressure is, uh, the pressure tendency. You won't see that on any of my tests, so you don't have to worry about it. If you want to know what it means, it, it essentially is the trend. So is the pressure going up or is the pressure going down? Is that important for pilots? Well, actually, yeah, because if the pressure is dropping, that means the pressure is getting lower, which means it's probably going to get crappier, right? So knowing the trend is pretty important. It's 1013.8, but it's dropping. So, uh, it's, it's something to probably pay attention to, but don't worry about it. Uh, but at least you know what that means. Now, cloud cover, of course, is the circle in the middle, and that could be a variety of different shapes. If you kind of follow, uh, down to the right at the bottom, you'll see a bunch of circles, uh, with descriptions associated with those. Those are what go, you know, we'll take those shapes and place those in the middle to give you an idea of what the cloud cover is. Typically, it'll be solid, or it could be the three-quarters, like the broken, or or few. Those are probably usually the only ones you'll see. And, of course, clear. We know ours is the clear, and clear, uh, so there just won't be anything in the middle. So it's pretty straightforward.
As we continue to go around, we have, uh, the last one is, or the last, uh, kind of grouping of information, which some of us are very comfortable with already, is the temperature and dew point. And we've already talked about that. Of course, we always look at that horizontally, right? So when we read it, we typically look at it in a METAR. In this case, in the, uh, the station plot, it's one on top of the other. So temperature is always at the top, in other words, whatever the ambient temperature is, right? And then below it is the dew point. Really important for you to know which one's which, right? Temperature is always at the top because it always comes first. It comes first in the METAR, it comes first on the top of this, and temperature and dew point. So then you keep watch on those, right? And if they get too close, right, you have potential for fog. So in between those two numbers, we have two little dots, and it shows current weather. You will see this on some of these when you look at the charts, the weather charts. And to find that, you go straight down below. You'll see three different columns describing different, you know, icons that they use. And you can see that the two dots is describing rain. So you go back up, temperature 76, uh, the dew point is 55, and the weather is rain. So it's rainy. There's cloud cover. In other words, it's, it's obscured, or in this case, it's completely overcast, right? So you can just look at this, uh, this station plot and kind of already have a feel of what the weather's like, right?
Okay, so, uh, symbol on the lower left, uh, the circles get used to, you know, as, as you fill in certain parts of the circle. In other words, if we look at the circle, let's see if you guys can get this right. So the first one, of course, is clear, no-brainer, right? Now think of a pie. Thanksgiving's coming up, right? So as we chop, or we slice up our pumpkin pie, or whatever your favorite pie is, I don't really care. So like pecan pie, that'd be pretty good. So you slice up your pie in eight slices, right? So then you go to the next one, it says few. So how many slices of pie? Sounds like elementary school. How many slices of pie do you get with few? Yes, you get two-eighths. It's not a quarter of the pie, it's two-eighths because the FAA is slicing your pie. I don't know if that sounded wrong or not, but I'm sorry. But anyway, so that just, so trying to drive it home, remember, keep everything in eighths. It's really important.
All right, and then on the right-hand side next to it, as some of the, uh, uh, uh, when you look at the weather in the station plot, those are typically the icons that they use, uh, and you need to be able to read those. So look at those. I've made sure that they're correct because in some meteorological circles, some of these symbols are worded differently. These are the aviation ones. So these are the ones that you'll get correct if you take an FAA exam. So mist has two lines, fog has three, haze is like the infinity symbol, right? Smoke is, you know, I don't know, I don't know why smoke is that way, but it is. It's, I guess the smoke is coming up and it's blowing downwind or something. Uh, drizzle, rain, all that kind of stuff. So you will see these again, right? You'll see them in the quiz and on the test that is going to be in module 12. So study that. And that's you going into a storm. Good luck with that. That was kind of a cool picture. Anyway, that's it. We're finished.