When to buy a Ticket timing

[JayMatt]

When do you make the call to just buy tickets instead of flying as a VFR? I was hoping to fly out the 9th or 10th but right now it's calling scattered thunderstorms all week and I don't know how much faith to put in weather this far out? Is there a rule of thumb? Last time I flew cross country this time a year it predicted clear skies a good ways out and we basically had clear skies so it was a non factor. Just curious peoples thought process on these things. Texas to Kentucky is the trip.

[alextstone]

I buy a refundable commercial ticket 30 days out for all trips that are time sensitive so I don't have the pressure you are facing now... And I'm instrument rated.  

[hubcap]

Fortunately my business travel can be accomplished by driving if necessary.  I recently was forced to drive as my plane was unavailable due to the upgrade. Normally we can make the call the day of our trip if necessary. 

I have only had to cancel as the result of weather 2 times. Once for ice and once for low ceilings. 

[GeeBee]

4 hours ago, JayMatt said:

When do you make the call to just buy tickets instead of flying as a VFR? I was hoping to fly out the 9th or 10th but right now it's calling scattered thunderstorms all week and I don't know how much faith to put in weather this far out? Is there a rule of thumb? Last time I flew cross country this time a year it predicted clear skies a good ways out and we basically had clear skies so it was a non factor. Just curious peoples thought process on these things. Texas to Kentucky is the trip.

This far out is too early. In the Southern states the default forecast 7 days out, (even 3 days out) is scattered thunderstorms. On the flip side,  on April 22 ATL-SAT I was guaranteed clear skies 24 hours before, but I slugged it out into SAT. One thing I have found is if you are a member of an airline's loyalty program, same day purchase is often painless. For instance, in February I was going to use my pass privileges (space available) to fly one way FLL-ATL after dropping off at Wet Wingologists but when I consulted the regular mobile app in the Uber on the way to the airport, they offered me a one way for 11,000 miles. I had 500K of miles so it was a no-brainer. Guaranteed seat for 11k of award points. So often, a "very last minute" ticket can be cheap, if it is very last minute. Bottom line and I am a FIKI equipped IFR pilot is in the south, I don't throw in the towel until the TAF comes out for the travel time concerned. Use the NWS site to look ahead and then bias it with the aviation weather.gov and the TAF's.

[JayMatt]

11 hours ago, GeeBee said:

This far out is too early. In the Southern states the default forecast 7 days out, (even 3 days out) is scattered thunderstorms. On the flip side,  on April 22 ATL-SAT I was guaranteed clear skies 24 hours before, but I slugged it out into SAT. One thing I have found is if you are a member of an airline's loyalty program, same day purchase is often painless. For instance, in February I was going to use my pass privileges (space available) to fly one way FLL-ATL after dropping off at Wet Wingologists but when I consulted the regular mobile app in the Uber on the way to the airport, they offered me a one way for 11,000 miles. I had 500K of miles so it was a no-brainer. Guaranteed seat for 11k of award points. So often, a "very last minute" ticket can be cheap, if it is very last minute. Bottom line and I am a FIKI equipped IFR pilot is in the south, I don't throw in the towel until the TAF comes out for the travel time concerned. Use the NWS site to look ahead and then bias it with the aviation weather.gov and the TAF's.

Yeah the weather is like 2 weeks of the same weather lol. I don't mind buying a ticket and even buying one last minute if need be, although I hate commercial flying with a passion. I'm just curious when people decide that the weatherman is correct and it's a no go. I'm monitoring tickets and there seems to be plenty of option right now so I'm not concerned. I've given myself a 3-4 day window to get there and a 3 day window to leave. I'll probably make the call Tuesday if I can leave between Tuesday and Friday. 

I've watched videos of people flying around scattered thunderstorms, Doesn't look all that enjoyable. 

[GeeBee]

I know the sites you are looking at, like weather underground etc. When you think about, in the case of weather across the southern states, predicting it will be scattered thunderstorms is a no brainer. Considering the amount of heat and moisture available starting from April to October the slightest instability is going to result in a thunderstorm. So it is easy to predict it will happen, not so easy to predict where and what time. Without some external event such as a front, trough there is now way to predict when that instability will really kick off although on a daily calendar afternoon is obvious. So fly early morning.

[Danb]

Since you have a three day window you’d most likely be able to fly part ways stop and then finish. Time is your best friend. I just flew from Texas to Delaware. Weather has been nasty every day on one end or another. Flew up to Memphis camped out in a hotel flew rest of way next morning. I’m instrument rated with new IPC but with different plane I took no chances and camped out. Welcome to general Avaition 

 

[Fly Boomer]

5 hours ago, Danb said:

Since you have a three day window you’d most likely be able to fly part ways stop and then finish. Time is your best friend. I just flew from Texas to Delaware. Weather has been nasty every day on one end or another. Flew up to Memphis camped out in a hotel flew rest of way next morning. I’m instrument rated with new IPC but with different plane I took no chances and camped out. Welcome to general Avaition 

 

Time to spare?  Go by air!

[211º]

I usually put the route in Weather Spork app and then (in profile view) use the slider to watch the weather progress through the 3 or 4 day view.

My written down IFR minimums (includes icing forecast) are high enough that I can see if it a possibility or not fairly well.

I also find that it is possible to fly around many lines of thunderstorms or to land and wait two hours for them to pass over (and grab a nap).

[Will.iam]

On 5/4/2023 at 9:08 PM, 211º said:

I usually put the route in Weather Spork app and then (in profile view) use the slider to watch the weather progress through the 3 or 4 day view.

My written down IFR minimums (includes icing forecast) are high enough that I can see if it a possibility or not fairly well.

I also find that it is possible to fly around many lines of thunderstorms or to land and wait two hours for them to pass over (and grab a nap).

Big plus 1 on weather spork app! I especially like in the route view showing what altitude the cloud layers are especially if you are trying to stay vfr or if below the freezing temperature to stay out of visible moisture a.k.a. Clouds and the sliding 3 day bar allows you to see when the best time to go or if it’s not good to go at all. Really an awesome app and they give you 2 free weeks to try it before you pay a subscription. Warning, to have so much weather data presented in a pilot friendly intuitive way is highly addictive!

i also use the weather channel app as it’s the last weather app i know of that still offers future weather radar computer model predictions for free and up to 2 week daily forecast . Everyone else i know went to a premium fee for these services. 

[0TreeLemur]

I use miles to buy airline tickets well in advance of important trips.  Cancel up to 24 hours in advance, and they just put the miles back in your account.

I use Windy.com.   They show output from several different weather prediction models (NOAA GFS and EMCWF).   With an 16 hour time forecast lead time you can browse output from NOAA's High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model run, giving you a pretty detailed forecast of tomorrow's weather tonight.  That will show you how organized the convection will likely be.  You can watch forecasts diverge as you increase the forecast lead time. 

Beyond 5-7 days forecast lead time- forget it.  Just because a model gives a forecast for days 7-14 doesn't mean that it has much if any value.

[kortopates]

A bit surprised to hear we have 2 Weather Spork app users. Don't get me wrong but Scott D, the meteorologist behind Weather Spork, divorced the developers and developed yet his next generation aviation weather product that he's continuing to grow. I encourage anyone to try it out  https://ezwxbrief.com/ Its a website, but is easily setup to run just like any app. Scott also put out daily morning weather briefs on youtube which highlights using his app. The only limitation for me is that it only covers the US.  

[Danb]

I’ve used ezbrief since Scott announced it, awesome tool. Although I pay amount requested Scott allows you to pay what it’s worth to you.

[Will.iam]

Oh and I completely forgot about weathermap for iphone or ipad, although it’s $3 for the app it’s a one time purchase which is very rare these days and has 5 day forecast at 3 hour intervals for the WHOLE WORLD! it is excellent for seeing major weather systems anywhere in the world.  Used it extensively when i was flying in europe and the middle east and oceanic crossings. But also great to see where at a glance it will be vfr and for how long on your route. Just remember the further out you go into the future the more possible the error in accuracy but good to see the overall big picture and weather systems and how fast they are moving across the area, great for seeing hurricanes and typhoons and where they are going and at what rate they are moving. Highly recommend. 

[The Other Red Baron]

I was trying to figure out how to pick up our plane this week from annual when the forecast was looking like thunderstorms on both ends of the flight all week.  Green stuff on the radar still spooks me.  I decided I'm going to fly down commercial and just hop back from BFE airport to BFE airport if needed to dodge pop up storms, crash on couches, etc. Turned out to be completely VFR the whole trip. 

A few days before I'm still watching weather channel forecast.  The day/night before I read the forecast discussion on ForeFlight and check this https://beta.aviationweather.gov/gfa and it turned out their forecast within 24 hours was pretty darn accurate. 

When to buy commercial tickets, well I should have bought a day earlier so I could sleep in a couple more hours getting down to the shop.

 

[Danb]

Consider the ticket(s) you may incur driving, my untarnished drivers record is untarnished no mo..

[carusoam]

I bought a Mooney, because the fast driving was getting too expensive….. 

Weather forecasting has been getting better and better with the invention of decent fast computers…

@Scott Dennstaedt, PhD is always a great resource for aviation weather products…

He has a few videos posted on YouTube…

Gives great presentations at the usual big fly-ins…

And stops by for conversations like this often….

 

Refundable tickets are expensive, and refundable…

Some people have a million miles because they also fly in the back of a lot of commercial flights… lots of free flights available on demand that way…

 

If you are new to GA… use extra caution… the flight out is easy to choose…. Getting back home can be several days away before your flight even starts…

include weekends in your plans…

 

Other people have a nice work from home situation… or work from a hotel when you can’t get back home because of weather…

Just don’t get stuck trying to fly at night, in a thunderstorm, in icy conditions, with low fuel… because the weather forecast messed up….

Having an IR is also nice for half of the weather situations we may encounter…

Ice and thunderstorms can give any GA plane a day off…

Decades ago… it was hard to go away for a weekend and be back on Monday to work… with the weather forecasts that were available at the time…

 

Start choosing your favorite forecast mechanism… and keep track of how well it works for you… start today…

Start watching the H and L as they travel across the country…

Watch how the fronts move with them…

Know where the storms are going to cause problems…

Some days the forecast has crummy weather where you want to fly… and it turns out to be crummy weather the day you are flying…

Some places it is crummy in the morning… others it is crummy in the evenings…

So picking time of day may be really helpful…

Start with short flights… with an Uber option if you need it.  Or driving your own car…

PP thoughts only, not a weather bug…

 

So much of this equation is personalized… equipment, ratings, experience, and weather knowledge…

Having ADSB in onboard is always helpful… a strike finder is another resource to consider…

Best regards,

-a-

[Scott Dennstaedt, PhD]

On 5/6/2023 at 6:18 PM, kortopates said:

A bit surprised to hear we have 2 Weather Spork app users. Don't get me wrong but Scott D, the meteorologist behind Weather Spork, divorced the developers and developed yet his next generation aviation weather product that he's continuing to grow. I encourage anyone to try it out  https://ezwxbrief.com/ Its a website, but is easily setup to run just like any app. Scott also put out daily morning weather briefs on youtube which highlights using his app. The only limitation for me is that it only covers the US.  

Yes, I wasn't happy with the way WS was being developed and given that it wasn't scientifically valid and had other issues that I found to be dangerous, I developed my own progressive web app that uses your personal wx mins so you can quantify your risk for icing, turbulence, ceiling, vis, wind, thunderstorms...since we know that flying is all about identifying and quantifying risk...none of the heavyweight apps will do this automatically.

Moreover, WS relies on a single model (GFS) using relative humidity which is a horrible and unscientific way to determine clouds. It also now uses the NBM for it's station-based forecasts - the NBM isn't ready for prime time as of yet in my opinion...the LAMP MOS is much, much better especially for ceiling, vis and wind so I don't know why he changed from LAMP to NBM.  LAMP has been around for nearly two decades whereas NBM has just started to cut its teeth. Depending on the forecast element (e.g., ceiling, icing, etc.) I utilize a dozen or more models to make that forecast. Relying on a single model is not a good strategy in my opinion. 

And for the route, WS uses the "nearest" station which can be 20 or more miles away. My app uses 2.5 km resolution data which is much more accurate especially in mountainous terrain where stations are sparse and often local conditions are extremely important.         

[Pinecone]

One thing to remember, is that refundable tickets are refundable.

So, book a refundable ticket for things you have to get to.  But as you get close and look like you will use those tickets, check fares and if you find a cheaper fare, book it and cancel your refundable.   Lots of times there are cheap tickets on short notice as they try to fill seats.