The single most important aspect of flight planning is weather management. That means being as aware as possible of the weather picture along your route of flight and then making smart decisions about your flight accordingly. After years of visiting lots of weather sites I discovered Weathermeister.com.


My normal flight planning process was to use either general mapping software, such as Microsoft Streets & Trips, or AOPA's flight planning software to do my route planning (distance, time, waypoints, etc.), then hit the list of several weather sites. Before Weathermeister.com it was actually a fair amount of work to hit all the sites needed to assemble the full picture of weather for my route. Weathermeister.com assembles all the data you need from many of the same sources I was using separately, then adds additional functionality with its Flight Optimizer. Frankly, it is so easy it makes me feel guilty!

For me using Weathermeister.com before I take off and XM weather in the air provides a complete picture and lets me complete my cross country flights with maximum efficiency and safety. I haven't done justice here to all Weathermeister.com can do so be sure and click on the logo for a full description. Oh, and there's a "mobile" version too if you want to use your smartphone for updates along the way.