Info - Weather/Other/Apps

Below are links to information that you may find useful, in three sections:

Weather Sites - to help you decide when it may be flyable.

Other Sites - for flight planning and other tools.

Apps - mobile phone apps that may be of interest to flyers.

Please let me know if there are any broken links, or if you have any suggestions for additions or deletions from these lists.  Thanks - Richard Darling

 

Weather Sites

  • Wyche weather- The clubs' own weather station.
  • Blipcharts BLIPSPOT Forecasts for today and tomorrow for Malvern and other flying sites
  • BBC Weather for Great Malvern, and Weather for the Week Ahead
  • XC Weather - provides current wind speed, directions, temperature, etc. Mostly from airports and aerodromes. Good forecasts for several days ahead.
  • RASPTable 'desktop' or RASPTable 'mobile' (Regional Atmospheric Soaring Prediction ) Shows thermal updraft velocity, wind, xc potential, etc.  (Also, try Lazy Rasp to see a quick view of the week ahead, and this tutorial - Interpreting the RASP)
  • The Met Office
  • Windy - great wind and forecasting site.  Also available as an Android and iOS app.
  • XCMeteo - A nice view of the Global Forecast System weather model, aimed at paragliders.
  • Long Mynd Soaring Club have some great Webcams and Weather information, as well as a useful Forum with regularly updated weather information
  • Metcheck - Selections can be made by region and over various time periods.
  • Sat24 Satellite images
  • Meteoblue - detailed local weather, including webcams.
  • Weather Online- Lots of good stuff if you can work it all out!
  • Accuweather Hourly forecasts for several days ahead - Just enter the nearest Postcode to where you want to fly.
  • XC Skies - Soaring forecast maps and tools.  30 day free trial, then $40/year.
  • Sids Weather - gliding weather information from Bristol and Gloucestershire Gliding Club
  • Lasham Weather - information from the gliding club in Hampshire.  You can opt to receive email forecasts.
  • HOLFUY - automatic weather station information on flying sites, includes Blorenge, Clatter, The Lawley, Sarn, and Bell Hill.
  • Flybubble Weather - Great freeflight forecast tool that combines data from RASP with data about the flyable conditions of all the popular PG/HG takeoffs in the UK.  Also includes XC Planner option.
  • Paragliding Map - Paragliding sites with live weather, forecasts, webcams & photos.  See where you can fly right now.  Worldwide.  Free months trial.  Android/iOS app available.
  • SkySight - Subscription based (with free trial), Soaring Weather web site.

Other Sites

  • Check NOTAM's before you fly:
    • NOTAM Map - airspace map with NOTAM's for the week ahead.  UK only.
    • airspace.xcontest.org - airspace map with UK NOTAM's for today and tomorrow, NOTAM's can be downloaded as text files.  Worldwide airspace.
  • PG XC Flight Browser - a visual way to see all the data in XCLeague
  • Simple Flying Weather Forecasting - Great video from FlyBubble
  • FlyXC - planning tool for XC flights (replaces XC Planner - which no longer exists, although same functionality is available at Flybubble Weather)
  • SimpleAirMap - easy to use airmap for Southern UK, by Ben Freidland.  Shows only what is relevant for PG/HG.
  • XC League - UK paragliding XC league.
  • Logfly - a free open source paragliding logbook management software for Windows OSX and Linux. 

Apps

Android

  • XCSoar - tactical glide computer and navigation for paragliders and hang-gliders.
    • XCDeclare - companion app for XCSoar, to automatically declare the current task, by email.
  • LK8000 - alternative tactical glide computer.
  • XCTrack - flight computer for PG pilots.
  • OsmAnd - (Open Source Mapping for Android) Detailed offline mapping, including footpaths.  Useful for finding your way out of places where you don't have a mobile phone signal.
  • Locate - Simple Ordnance Survey tool to find your Grid Reference.  Useful if you need to communicate your position by phone.
  • what3words - communicate your location easily, to 3m accuracy.  Emergency services are starting to use this.

iOS

  • Flyskyhy - tactical glide computer and navigation for paragliders and hang-gliders.
  • Locate - Simple Ordnance Survey tool to find your Grid Reference.  Useful if you need to communicate your position by phone.
  • what3words - communicate your location easily, to 3m accuracy.  Emergency services are starting to use this.