Ground Protection

Both use the same weather engine — same data products, same advisory logic, same aircraft wind/cold thresholds. They answer the same underlying question: is my parked airplane safe on the ground? They differ in when they run and how they reach you.

PlaneWX evaluates trip stays first. If a tail already has an active trip stay covering it, that path owns the hazard watch for that airport so you aren't double-alerted for the same threat.

Most weather tools stop caring once you land. PlaneWX keeps watching the ramp — hail, tornado risk, damaging wind, freezing rain, hard freezes, and extreme heat — so you know when the airplane needs a hangar, better tie-downs, or a preheat. Ground Protection is that watch when you're not staring at a briefing: overnight at home base, parked away for a few days, or based temporarily at another field.

Like While You're There, Ground Protection is informational. It never changes your WX Score, GO/NO-GO status, or any flight scoring category. It only answers: will my plane be OK sitting on the ground?

1. Open Profile → Aircraft and edit the tail you want watched.
2. Under Ground & Automation, turn on Monitor ground weather for this aircraft.
3. Set a Home airport (where the plane lives when not temporarily parked elsewhere) and Home storage (ramp, tie-downs, shade, hangar, etc.).
4. Optionally set Currently parked at if the airplane is away from home for a while — airport, until-date, and storage there.
5. Set Max Ground Operations Wind and Minimum Operating Temperature from your POH when you know them (see thresholds below).
6. For texts: add a phone number on the Pilot tab, then opt into ground-weather SMS under Notifications (or accept texts when the activation dialog appears).

Pro Plus can watch up to 3 aircraft at once (Enterprise is unlimited). You can still keep more tails in your fleet — only the ones with monitoring on count toward the cap.

When monitoring first turns on with SMS enabled, PlaneWX can send a one-time confirmation text so you know the watch is live and which airport/storage it's using.

PlaneWX picks one watch location per aircraft, in this order:

U.S. airports only for now — NWS and SPC products don't cover international fields the same way. FAA LID codes (like 66TE) and ICAO codes both work.

Storage tells PlaneWX what threats are already mitigated so texts and UI can stay quieter when you're truly secured. It never affects flight scoring.

You can change storage in the app anytime — or by texting HANGAR / RAMP after an alert (see SMS menu below).

• An hourly job re-evaluates every Ground Protection–enabled aircraft (and active trip stays) against fresh NWS/SPC/model data.
• Always-on watches use a rolling ~72-hour forecast window from “now.”
• Results are stored on the aircraft as a Ground Protection snapshot (airport, storage, advisories, day forecasts, last evaluated time).
• SMS fires only for new Urgent or Alert advisories you haven't already been told about — not every Advisory/Info item, and not the same headline every hour.
• Quiet hours (default roughly 10pm–7am local, configurable under Notifications) hold alert texts until quiet hours end. The threat isn't forgotten — it still sends when the window opens if it's still new.

Ground Protection uses the same public government and research products as While You're There — no black-box commercial weather API for this feature.

Severities are Urgent, Alert, Advisory, and Info. Text alerts send for new Urgent and Alert items only.

PlaneWX classifies the aircraft (light sport, single, twin, turboprop) from its type string and applies class defaults. Two Aircraft Profile fields override those defaults when set:

Example class defaults if you haven't set POH values: light sport ~25/35 kt advisory/critical; turboprop ~40/50 kt. See Aircraft Profiles.

Ground Protection is designed to work from your phone. Reply to any Ground Protection text — or text the PlaneWX ground number from the phone on your account — using the keywords below. Commands are case-insensitive; only the first word matters.

Outbound texts you may receive

PlaneWX: Ground Protection is on for N916CM at 66TE (open ramp).
You'll get texts for new Urgent/Alert threats outside quiet hours.
Reply HANGAR if secured · RAMP if on ramp · HOME if back at base · STOP · HELP

PlaneWX: New ALERT ground-weather advisory for 66TE - High wind — above aircraft limit.
Monitoring your aircraft (N916CM) at 66TE. https://app.planewx.ai
Reply HANGAR if secured · RAMP if on ramp · HOME if back at base · STOP · HELP

Commands you can text anytime

Every alert ends with a footer advertising these replies. You can also text them proactively.

PlaneWX N916CM @ 66TE (hangar):
Thu 78F/55F 20%rain 12G22kt
Fri 82F/60F 15kt
Sat 90F 8kt
ALERT: Strong surface winds expected...

PlaneWX watching: N916CM at 66TE (open ramp, parked)

PlaneWX: Marked hangar secured - N916CM at KGDJ -> hangar. Wind/hail alerts muted while hangared. Reply RAMP if back on the ramp.

PlaneWX Ground Protection: HANGAR = secured in hangar · RAMP = back on open ramp ·
HOME = back at home base · WX = current weather snapshot · STATUS = what we're watching ·
STOP = opt out · app.planewx.ai

If you receive the consolidated morning email, Pro Plus users with Ground Protection enabled get a compact Ground Protection block after home-airport weather. It pulls from the cached hourly snapshot (no extra live fetch in the email job):

• Tail and watch airport, storage, texts on/off
• Today and tomorrow high/low, wind, rain chance
• Top Alert/Urgent advisory headline when present
• Subject line may include Ground alert when a severe advisory is active

This is separate from Follow Me, which can swap your pilot home-airport weather to the last ADS-B landing field. Ground Protection is about the aircraft hazard watch, even when those airports sometimes match.