Route planner questions
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Of late I have been trying to convince the US National Weather Service and the Aviation Weather Center, to embrace the concept of 7-day VFR weather planning. They are reluctant to do so to say the least. I am disappointed with them because they have a fantastic Aviation Graphical Weather planning tool that allows you to easily add your route of flight, and keep that route visible while using all of the features of the other tools. Windy has a similar route planning tool, but it is more difficult to use and while it is open other tools have reduced capabilities.
To be fair, the route planning tool Windy provides does have some capabilities that are improved over the AWC Graphical Weather tool, but there seems to be no way to lock the route on the screen while using the pointer with other tools to spot check the weather at various other points on the map.
To add the route of flight in the AWC Graphical Weather tool, simply open the Route window and add the NAS identifiers in order, separated by commas. An example is KCJR, 3G4, 44G, 3TE, 2E8. Once the Route is displayed simply close the route window and the visible route remains while any other tool is used. In Windy the route must be added by clicking on each point on the map, in order, but first you need to find each location and save it to favorites so you can can see where it is to click on. This route cannot be locked on the map and while the route is displayed the pointer cannot be used with any of the other tools. I find this to be a disadvantage, because I want to know details of the weather outside of the route to determine if route encroachment of deteriorating weather is likely.
Having said all of that, I will likely be using Windy for route planning more often because it is of value as it is. I do wish I could use the pointer with the other tools while the route is visible on the screen.
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@petehdgs Thanks for the feedback. The development of Route planner and other tools is always in progress, so we value your feedback.
