Update — 2 weeks in: fuel & range, and a much better icing model
Quick progress update for anyone following along. Thanks to everyone who's tried it and sent notes — a lot of this came straight from tester feedback.
What's new since the original post:
Fuel & wind-adjusted range. Enter your fuel on board and see how far you can actually reach along the route — a reachable-area ring that accounts for winds aloft, plus a "reserve point" marking where you'd hit your 1-hour reserve.
Much-improved icing. A tester compared the plugin's vertical profile against a trusted reference on a real winter route and found it was over-calling "severe." He was right — I rebuilt the icing model so temperature (not just humidity) drives severity, validated it against that case plus several North American winter routes, and reserved "severe" for genuine freezing-rain setups. Far fewer false alarms now.
Smarter cruise-altitude recommendations. They now stay within each aircraft's normal operating altitudes — no more suggesting 4,000 ft for a turboprop or the service ceiling for a piston.
Compare Days weighs hazards by how severe they are, how much of the route they cover, and whether they sit at your cruise altitude — so a single patch of weather no longer tanks a day's rating.
Smoother fuel entry and a few other refinements from tester reports.
Still a free private beta, installed via Windy developer mode. Desktop browsers and Safari on iPad are supported. Beta page (install steps + the full aviation disclaimer): https://snickitybit.com/software/windy-ifr-plugin/
Decision support only — not a substitute for an official briefing, charts, NOTAMs, ATC clearance, or pilot judgment.
I'd still love more pilots testing real routes, especially around icing and altitude calls. Thanks!