Walkthroughs

Crosswind finder

The crosswind finder is for any pilot who wants to find a runway with a particular crosswind component for currency or training — student, private, instrument, instructor.

How it works

You give it a starting airport and a search radius (or a maximum flight time at your cruise TAS). The finder looks at every airport in that range, pulls the current METAR — or the TAF at your planned departure time — and walks each runway. For every runway it computes the headwind/tailwind and the crosswind component from the reported wind direction and speed. It then keeps the runways whose crosswind falls inside the range you asked for and that meet your runway length and surface filters.

Walkthrough

1. Enter your departure ICAO (US three-letter identifiers like JFK are auto-prefixed with K).
2. Set the crosswind range you want to practice — for example, 8 to 15 kt.
3. Filter by minimum runway length and surface (hard or soft).
4. Choose Filter by Distance or Filter by Flight Time. Flight time also lets you set expected altitude and TAS.
5. If you're planning ahead, tick Input Departure Time (Using Forecasted Winds) and enter when you'll launch. The finder uses the TAF active for that time.
6. Sort results by distance, wind speed, crosswind, or headwind.

Reading the results

Each row is one runway at one airport, with distance, wind, the crosswind and headwind components, and the METAR/TAF observation time. The wind diagram on the right shows the wind direction relative to the runway heading. Click an ICAO link to open the official METAR or TAF at aviationweather.gov for the same airport.

Glide-aware flight planner

The planner builds a cross-country route that prefers staying in glide range of a qualifying landing airport. It's aimed at single-engine VFR pilots who want a clear picture of how much of a route is reachable in a power-off glide, and where the gaps are.

How it works

From your departure to your destination, the planner samples points along the route and asks, for each one: given your altitude here, your glide ratio, and a safety margin, can you reach a runway that meets your runway-length and surface filters? It then bends the route through nearby airports and navigation fixes to keep more of the path inside that reachable corridor, within the off-course distance you specify.

The planner runs as a background job so longer routes (for example coast-to-coast trips) can get the extra time they need. While it works, a small translucent run panel floats over the form with the current phase, a percent-complete bar, elapsed time, and the latest planner notes. Tap Cancel on that panel if you want to abandon a long run — your inputs stay in the form.

Inputs explained

• Departure / Destination ICAO — four-letter codes (e.g. KJFK, KLAX).
• Cruise altitude — used together with glide ratio to compute reachable distance.
• Glide ratio — best-glide ratio for your aircraft (e.g. 10:1 for a typical light single). The planner subtracts a safety margin off the theoretical maximum so the picture is not best-day-in-the-cockpit-with-zero-wind.
• True airspeed — used for time estimates only.
• Min runway length / Surface — which fields qualify as a glide-safe landing option. Tighter filters give a stricter — and shorter — list of reachable airports.
• Max off-course distance — how far the planner is allowed to bend away from the great-circle line in order to keep you in glide range.

Route style

Pick how aggressively the planner should detour to stay glide-safe:

• Conservative — keep as much of the route inside glide range as possible. Accepts larger doglegs (turns up to about 45°).
• Balanced (default) — modest doglegs of about 30° with most of the route inside glide range.
• Direct — stay close to a straight line. Turns capped near 20°. Expect some legs outside glide range.

Climb and descent (Pro)

The planner uses a conservative light-single default for climb and descent (500 fpm at 90 kt climbing, 500 fpm at 110 kt descending) so the glide picture during climb-out and descent is realistic. Pro pilots can enter the actual climb rate, climb speed, descent rate, and descent speed from their aircraft's POH so the profile matches what they fly. Saved aircraft can store these and reapply them with one click.

Wind-aware routing and forecast planning

Every plan is wind-aware. For each segment of the route the planner looks up the NOAA FB/FD winds-aloft sample at the published altitude closest to cruise from the nearest FD station — that drives groundspeed and time. For each glide-safety sample along the route, the planner projects the local wind onto the bearing toward each candidate landing field and scales that field's glide ring accordingly — a tailwind toward the field extends the ring, a headwind shortens it. The adjustment is clamped to a ±35 % band so a single freak forecast can't dominate the picture. When NOAA's upper-air product isn't available, the planner falls back to the nearest reporting airport's METAR and labels the fallback explicitly in the assumptions panel.

Free pilots plan against the current valid NOAA winds-aloft window — that's what you want for "leaving in the next hour or so." Pro adds forecast planning for future flights: tick Plan a future flight with TAF forecast winds, enter when you plan to launch, and the planner layers TAF forecast winds at the planned ETA on top of the same NOAA FD baseline.

Always cross-check with an official briefing before launch — Flight Service at 1-800-WX-BRIEF or 1800wxbrief.com.

Safer alternate route offer

When the primary route falls below a safe coverage threshold, the planner looks for a meaningfully safer alternative and surfaces it as an offer card above the result. You opt in by tapping Use this alternate; we never swap routes on you. If the safer alternate has to bend further off-course than the limit you set, the card warns you and spells out the extra distance, time, and corridor delta so the trade-off is explicit. Keep my original route dismisses the offer.

Reading the result

• Plan summary — direct vs glide-safe distance and time, overall glide-safe coverage, and any warnings (for example if part of the route could not be checked in time).
• Assumptions panel — every input the planner used: route style, turn analysis, climb/descent profile, safety margin, sample interval, max off-course corridor, and the wind source (NOAA FB/FD or METAR fallback). Sanity-check this before you act on a number.
• Coverage timeline — a colored bar showing where you're inside glide range (green), outside it (red), or unassessed (gray).
• Route fixes table — each fix with its expected altitude (climb, cruise, or descent — derived from the climb/descent profile), its glide status, the nearest qualifying airport, and the bearing/distance to it.
• Map — green segments are inside glide range, red are outside. Switch base layers between clean, satellite, terrain, and street view.

Exporting the route to ForeFlight or Garmin Pilot

Once the plan is generated you can:

• Copy route string — paste into any EFB that accepts a manual route. Free.
• Download GPX (Pro) — open it from the Files app and ForeFlight or Garmin Pilot will import it as a route.
• Download KML (Pro) — for Google Earth or any KML-aware EFB.
• Save to flight bag (Pro) — reopen the plan from your account page later.

GPX and KML are open formats — there is no app-specific deep link required, and no extra setup on the EFB.

Account, aircraft, and personal minimums

An account is optional. Use the free tools without one. With a paid account you can:

• Save aircraft profiles (tail number, model, TAS, glide ratio, runway minimums, climb/descent performance) and pull them into the planner with one click.
• Save flight plans and reopen them later from My flight bag.
• Save personal minimums — max crosswind, min runway, min ceiling, min visibility, max gust, preferred cruise — for use as planner defaults.

Browse to My flight bag from the sign-in dropdown after you log in.

Ads and the ad-free experience

The free tools are funded in part by a single, low-intrusion banner below the fold on the home, crosswind, and planner pages. Anyone paying — Pro or Instructor — never sees ads, on any page. The ad-free check happens server-side, so there's no "loading ads" flicker while we figure out your status.

What this tool does not do

• It does not replace an official preflight briefing or weather check.
• The planner uses station-level surface winds from METAR (current, free) or TAF (forecast at ETA, Pro) sampled at the nearest reporting airport along the route — not a true upper-level winds-aloft (FB/FD) product. It does not model turbulence, density altitude, pilot reaction time, or terrain between your aircraft and the candidate landing airport.
• It does not factor in airspace, restricted areas, or NOTAMs.
• Glide-range numbers assume the published best-glide speed and ratio, with a safety margin. Real-world glide performance varies with weight, configuration, and bank angle.

Use the output to inform a plan, not to make the plan for you. The pilot in command is responsible for the safe conduct of the flight.