Welcome Guest. Sign in or Signup

1 Answers

Can you use Foreflight winds aloft for flight planning?

Asked by: 6077 views General Aviation, Student Pilot, Weather

I once failed a stage check because I used Foreflight's winds aloft data for my navlog calculations instead of the winds aloft on aviationweather.gov. The reasoning was foreflight's data is based on an algorithm and isn't "official data." 

I'm now working with a different instructor part 61, and he teaches to use the foreflight winds. Is there any truth to what I was originally told at the 141 school?

Ace Any FAA Written Test!
Actual FAA Questions / Free Lifetime Updates
The best explanations in the business
Fast, efficient study.
Pass Your Checkride With Confidence!
FAA Practical Test prep that reflects actual checkrides.
Any checkride: Airplane, Helicopter, Glider, etc.
Written and maintained by actual pilot examiners and master CFIs.
The World's Most Trusted eLogbook
Be Organized, Current, Professional, and Safe.
Highly customizable - for student pilots through pros.
Free Transition Service for users of other eLogs.
Our sincere thanks to pilots such as yourself who support AskACFI while helping themselves by using the awesome PC, Mac, iPhone/iPad, and Android aviation apps of our sponsors.

1 Answers



  1. John D Collins on Aug 24, 2020

    A 141 school can develop its own policies and require their students to follow them. It is not a legal question, you can brief the winds aloft from either source. Regardless, the winds aloft are a forecast and apply to a time and location. The ForeFlight winds aloft are presented graphically at every degree of latitude and longitude and are interpolated for each airport location on the globe. The AWC product only selects a relative few specific airports for its forecast and leaves it to the pilot to perform any interpolation for the airports not served by the product. The AWC product has lower precision than the product used by ForeFlight, meaning that there are fewer points where the AWC forecast applies and the wind direction is to the nearest 10 degrees vs ForeFlight supplier is to the nearest degree.

    +1 Votes Thumb up 1 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes


Answer Question

Our sincere thanks to all who contribute constructively to this forum in answering flight training questions. If you are a flight instructor or represent a flight school / FBO offering flight instruction, you are welcome to include links to your site and related contact information as it pertains to offering local flight instruction in a specific geographic area. Additionally, direct links to FAA and related official government sources of information are welcome. However we thank you for your understanding that links to other sites or text that may be construed as explicit or implicit advertising of other business, sites, or goods/services are not permitted even if such links nominally are relevant to the question asked.