PlaneWXHelp
AboutHowTheGettingPlansMore
About PlaneWX
Release Notes

What's New in PlaneWX

Recent feature releases, improvements, and bug fixes — newest first.

Labs

Pilot Self Debrief — How the Flight Actually Went

PlaneWX Labs for Pro Plus. The briefing asked whether you should go. After you land, Self Debrief asks how it went — while the flight is still in your head. It does not change your WX Score.

A structured look back

  • Rate this flight (how you did, not how fun), navigation methods, mental sharpness, PAVE look-back, discipline, weather, and each phase
  • Saves as you go. The first save is enough — the nudge can stop. Find them later under Settings → My Debriefs
  • Open squawks show the next time you pick that tail. Night landings and approaches feed currency on Insights

Private unless you grant it

  • Private notes never leave your account — not mentors, not Trip Watchers, not your public profile
  • One My Crew flag for a mentor or CFI. They see the debrief except private notes, and can leave one note for you

Where to start

  • Self-Debrief chip on the past-trip card, Trip menu on the briefing, or Debrief This Flight on the existing review email
  • No second email. No debrief SMS. Turn the reminder off in notification settings if you want
Learn more:Pilot Self Debrief guide →
Casual+

Briefing Fuel Plan — FOB, Required FOB, and Add at Origin in Your Briefing

You already know the route. Now you can add your personal fuel plan directly to any briefing — no separate tool, no mental math at the FBO truck.

New — Route & Fuel card on every briefing

  • Enter your current FOB and see Required FOB (burn + reserve), exactly how much to add at the departure airport, estimated burn, and estimated landing fuel
  • Save auto-promotes your departure fuel to the required FOB if you're short — so you never accidentally save an underfueled plan
  • One-tap shortcuts: Use Required (fuel to the minimum safe load) and Fill to W&B Max (maximum margin for challenging weather or a potential divert)
  • Weather tip reminds you to consider extra fuel when destination weather looks challenging

Dashboard fuel line

  • Each trip card on the dashboard now shows a single-line fuel summary: FOB · FOD · add N for next leg — the full picture without opening the briefing
  • Works for both Fuel Advisor trips and Briefing Fuel Plan trips

Multi-leg carry-forward

  • Save the fuel plan on Leg 1 and the return leg's departure fuel is pre-filled automatically
  • Mid-journey legs show FOD · add N for next leg; the final leg shows FOD · add N to restore home-base FOB
Learn more:Briefing Fuel Plan guide →
Paid

WX Score History — See the Scores You Actually Fly

Idea from Wayne (@waynemcc). After a season of flying, the question isn't whether one briefing was right — it's whether you fly the scores you think you fly, and what you did with the low ones. Score History plots your archived WX Scores over time: VFR and IFR as two series, your PAVE decision on each point.

New — Settings → Score History

  • Sky dots are VFR. Cloud-grey dots are IFR. A faint line between two dots on the same date is a VFR/IFR twin pair
  • A check is PAVE GO. An X is NO-GO. Clock hands are POSTPONE. A triangle is MODIFY. A plain dot means no PAVE was recorded
  • Dashed lines at 50 and 75 are WX Score bands — not a fence you should not have flown below
  • Default view is flown trips. Switch to All past or Cancelled. Last 12 months, or all available
  • A 0% WX Score is the weather picture against your minimums, not a command to stay on the ground. 0% with a PAVE GO is the intended pattern — file IFR, wait, change altitude
  • Casual, Pro, Pro Plus, Enterprise, and admin. Free stays without the tab
Learn more:Read the full guide →Wayne (@waynemcc) →
WX Score

See the IFR WX Score on a VFR Briefing

Idea from Wayne (@waynemcc). If you're instrument-rated and the airplane is IFR-certified, a VFR WX Score crushed by ceilings or visibility isn't the whole story. PlaneWX now shows what the same weather would score under IFR — and lets you switch the leg with one tap. It does not flip you automatically, and it does not verify that you are instrument current.

New — Switch to IFR

  • A green X% if IFR* appears next to the VFR WX Score when IFR would improve the number by 20 points or more — and that improvement comes from ceiling, visibility, or IMC rules, not from ignoring ice, turbulence, or storms
  • Switch to IFR & re-brief on the briefing and in Path to Favorable. Confirm, and the leg becomes IFR at that score
  • Same weather, IFR minimums — not a second briefing. Ice, turbulence, and convection still count
  • Owner-only. Shared, public, and group views never show the dual score or the switch
  • Assumes you are instrument current. PlaneWX does not verify currency
Learn more:Read the full guide →Wayne (@waynemcc) →Watch the walkthrough →
Scoring Honesty

One Isolated Cell No Longer Hides a Gap

On a scattered, organized route the score asks one question: are there at least two segments you could steer through? It was answering that by treating any segment with a convective signal as blocked — including segments carrying nothing but a single isolated cell. On a summer afternoon that is nearly every segment, so the gap count collapsed to zero and the route was billed the gapless 35 points even where scattered coverage sat on only 3 segments of 15. Gaps are now counted from the segments actually at scattered coverage or heavier.

Changed — Gaps Counted from Real Coverage

  • A scattered, organized route with genuine gaps now bills 20 points instead of 35 — one rung of one tier, roughly three or four briefings a day
  • This is not a general convective softening. Isolated, widespread, embedded and line routes are unchanged, as are unorganized routes already capped at 10 and every terminal, SIGMET, METAR and TAF convective deduction
  • It can only lower a deduction, never raise one, and a route with genuinely continuous coverage still carries the full 35
  • Your briefing now cites the coverage figure the score was actually derived from. A route with scattered coverage on 3 of 15 segments was being described as "15/15 segments" — a claim that was never true
  • If the coverage detail isn't available for your route, the stricter old count still applies
Learn more:Counting the gaps →
Scoring Honesty

An Unstable Airmass Is Not a Line of Storms

A humid summer afternoon could cost 40 points for storms that hadn't organized and wouldn't — while a forecaster's PROB30 at your destination, a real human-issued probability, cost 27. The route-coverage labels the score was reading (isolated, scattered, widespread) come from instability alone — CAPE, lifted index, cap strength — with no measure of how much sky the storms actually fill. Without wind shear to organize them, that environment makes short-lived pulse cells with room to fly between, not a wall. The score now says so.

Changed — Unorganized Convection Caps at 10 Points

  • En-route convective coverage deductions now cap at 10 points unless there is real evidence the storms are organized: deep-layer wind shear at or above 20 knots, an active Convective SIGMET on your corridor, or radar actually showing scattered-or-worse coverage on the route
  • The shear figure is not new — PlaneWX has been computing it along your route and showing it to you all along. It just wasn't reaching the score
  • Organized convection is untouched. Multicell, supercell and squall-line environments keep the full 20/35/40 ladder, and a Convective SIGMET on your corridor restores it immediately
  • This can only raise a score, never lower one. Roughly one briefing in three that carried a hard convective deduction moves; the other two were organized and do not change
  • Missing shear data does not buy relief — if storm mode can't be determined, the full deduction stands
  • Your briefing's wording moves with the score, so the narrative no longer argues for a hazard the number doesn't reflect
Learn more:Convective Watch scoring →
Scoring Honesty

One Storm System No Longer Costs You Twice

When your route-coverage assessment and an active Convective SIGMET both flag the same en-route storm system, the score was charging for both separately — sometimes over 50 points for one air mass. Thunderstorm and nearby-SIGMET deductions are now capped together at 40 points, floored at whichever single charge is worse, so the score never argues a hazard below its own worst assessment while still refusing to double-bill it.

Changed — En-Route Convective Deductions Capped Together

  • Thunderstorm route-coverage and nearby Convective SIGMET deductions are combined and capped at 40 points instead of stacking — the strongest of the two always keeps its full weight
  • This only raises a score, never lowers one, and only touches those two en-route categories — terminal convective deductions at your departure or arrival airport are untouched
  • The reduced line stays visible on your score breakdown with a note explaining why, rather than disappearing
Learn more:WX Score — How It Works →
Scoring Honesty

An Empty Radar Corridor No Longer Costs You Points

High CAPE with nothing on the radar was still reading as a thunderstorm problem. When live radar finds the corridor you actually fly through empty, the route-coverage thunderstorm deduction now goes away entirely instead of leaving a few points behind — and the score stops asking you to consult a meteorologist about storms that aren't there.

Changed — Quiet On Route Now Means No Deduction

  • A corridor with nothing in it deducts nothing. Previously the most radar could do was reduce the deduction to a small residual, so a clear day under a loaded airmass still scored as a partial no-go
  • "Quiet" is strict: no echo at or above 30 dBZ within 10 nm of any waypoint, no lightning, and nothing at or above 45 dBZ there in the past hour. A single moderate cell on your course is not quiet and still costs points
  • The prompt to seek expert weather consultation follows the same reading, so it no longer appears over an empty corridor

Fixed — The Cap Now Comes From Your Corridor, Not the Cone

  • Two radar figures exist: what's on your route now, and what could reach it by the time you arrive. The deduction was being capped by the second one, which widens with leg length — so on a long flight one distant cell read as widespread and held the score down over a corridor radar had found empty
  • The deduction now follows the on-route reading. The wider figure still decides whether radar may move the score at all, and lightning inside it still holds back full relief
  • Radar can still only reduce a thunderstorm deduction — it has never been able to add one, and that hasn't changed
Learn more:Live Radar Corridor →Convective Watch scoring →
Synoptic Intelligence™

Your Local Forecast Office, In Your Own Briefing

Four times a day a meteorologist at your NWS office writes out what they think the weather is doing and why. PlaneWX now reads all 123 of those discussions and tells you what your office said — the boundary they're tracking, their timing, and their own sentence, quoted verbatim. It shows up on your home airport card, in your morning digest, and in how your briefings frame frontal timing.

New — Your Local Forecast Office on the Home Airport Card

  • Names the boundary your office is tracking and where it stands: approaching, moving through, or already past
  • Shows the forecaster's own sentence, checked against the published discussion before display — if the text isn't in the product, the quote is dropped rather than shown
  • Carries the issuance age, and shifts to past tense once a discussion has been superseded instead of presenting stale reasoning as current
  • The office name links to that office's own weather.gov page so you can read the whole discussion
  • Available on every plan, including Free

New — Frontal Timing in Briefings Comes From Your Office

  • Frontal timing now comes from the office responsible for your airport rather than a generic assumption about how fast fronts move
  • A front's position is resolved against your departure time, not against the moment the briefing runs — a front approaching this afternoon may already be past by tomorrow's departure, and the briefing says so
  • Departure window suggestions are framed around the real boundary — leaving ahead of it, or waiting for it to clear
  • Your morning digest carries the same read, so you have it before you open the app

Fixed — A Front That Never Arrives No Longer Reads as Arriving

  • Forecasters often write about boundaries they expect to stall, weaken, or slide by to the north — a front near your airport is not a front coming to your airport
  • We now read whether the office actually expects it to reach their area, and say so plainly when they don't
  • Previously a card could report a front "still to come" while quoting the same forecaster saying it would stall short of the area — a contradiction that's now gone
  • In that case your briefing describes the day-to-day airmass change instead of putting you on a side of a boundary that never passes

Fixed — 45 Airports Could Not Reach Their Forecast Office

  • Our office list was missing 13 real NWS offices and contained identifiers for offices that don't exist — Omaha among them, mapped to a code the NWS doesn't use
  • Airports served by the missing offices had no discussion available at all; they do now
  • Coverage is all 123 offices issuing Area Forecast Discussions: the continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa
Learn more:Your Local Forecast Office guide →
Scoring Honesty

Honest Icing & Convective Scoring — Same Products, Clearer Judgment

Icing and thunderstorm scoring now show their work when they disagree with a raw chart: cloud-top physics can clear impossible ice, climb/descent use real hybrid peaks, Convective SIGMETs are time-aware (not just corridor hits), the same storm is not double-counted across SIGMET and TAF, and the Summary names convection the score actually deducted.

Icing — Cloud Tops, Phase Peaks, ForeFlight VCS

  • Cloud-top vs freezing-level veto: if path soundings show cloud tops at or below the FZL (or a clear column), hybrid icing severity goes to none — no supercooled liquid water, no structural ice
  • Climb and descent tiles use phase-local CIP/IFI/NWP peaks instead of a hardcoded light/trace floor
  • Briefings acknowledge the same DAFS IFI / CIP cell a ForeFlight vertical cross-section shows, then explain PlaneWX’s different job (severity × probability × path, CIP when fresh, physics gates)

Convection — Encounter Timing & Ledger Dedup

  • Convective SIGMET deductions scale by whether you will actually encounter the storm (motion, track, tops, deviation difficulty) — flying away from a corridor polygon is not a full en-route hit
  • Server convective ledger: one storm does not stack full SIGMET + TAF thunderstorm penalties
  • Low model CAPE cannot erase an active SIGMET/TS in the Summary — narrative must name what the score deducted

Live Radar Badge Clarity

  • Radar badge reflects observed corridor intensity; scoring still considers the wider motion cone for cells that could reach your path
Learn more:Multi-Model Icing Analysis →Convective Watch scoring →Live Radar Corridor →FAQs →
While You're There

Heat Advisories, Sunrise/Sunset, and Smarter Hangar Guidance

The "While You're There" ground weather card now watches for extreme heat, not just cold and severe storms — and every day card shows local sunrise/sunset alongside temperature, wind, and precipitation. We also corrected a gap in the hangar-recommended logic: a hangar's shade is a real, meaningful heat mitigation, not just a wind/hail/storm one.

New — Heat Advisories

  • Forecast highs of 95°F+ trigger an advisory: use sunshades/gust locks and avoid topping off fuel on a hot ramp
  • Forecast highs of 105°F+ escalate to an alert and now set the "Hangar recommended" banner, same as any other alert-severity hazard
  • Shade — a hangar or sunshades — is called out as the primary mitigation; an unheated hangar doesn't need air conditioning to help, since blocking direct sun is what matters most
  • Also checks tire pressure before departure at the extreme-heat tier, where an unshaded cabin can exceed 150°F

New — Sunrise/Sunset on Every Day Card

  • Local sunrise and sunset times now appear on every day of the ground weather forecast, including model-preview days beyond the NWS 7-day horizon
  • Handy for planning a preheat, an early fuel stop, or a departure timed around daylight

Fixed — Hangar Recommended Now Accounts for Heat

  • Extreme heat (105°F+) previously never triggered the "Hangar recommended" banner on the theory that an unventilated hangar traps heat worse than the open ramp
  • That undersold the real-world case — shade is the dominant heat mitigation for a parked aircraft, which is exactly why pilots in hot climates hangar specifically for heat protection
  • The softer 95–104°F advisory tier still doesn't trigger the banner on its own, consistent with every other advisory category
Learn more:While You're There guide →
Pilot Profile

Auto-Calculate Your Recent Flight Hours from ADS-B-Confirmed Flights

"Hours (Last 30 Days)" in your Pilot profile now fills in and stays current automatically, calculated from flights PlaneWX has already ADS-B-confirmed you flew. The same real flight history now also pre-fills your PAVE currency question — with full manual control if you'd rather enter hours yourself.

New — Automatic Hours (Last 30 Days)

  • Recalculates every time you visit your Pilot profile — no more remembering to update it by hand
  • Duration comes from actual block time when available, falling back to planned time en route, then a distance-based estimate
  • Only counts trips ADS-B has actually confirmed you flew — not just planned trips
  • On by default for every pilot; your existing value is left untouched until real flown data is found

New — Opt Out Any Time

  • Turn off "Auto-calculate from flights" next to the field to enter hours manually instead
  • While it's off, a "Calculate from my flights flown" button lets you pull in the ADS-B total on demand, as a one-time fill rather than an ongoing sync
  • Manual entries are never silently overwritten — auto-calculation only ever runs while the toggle is on

Also — PAVE Currency Prefill

  • Starting a brand-new PAVE Risk Assessment pre-fills "Hours in this aircraft (last 30 days)" from the same ADS-B data, scoped to that trip's specific tail number
  • The value is always rounded down, so an auto-filled number can never understate your currency risk
  • Adjust the slider yourself at any point — your manual value is respected for the rest of that assessment
Learn more:Pilot Profile guide →PAVE Risk Assessment →
Regional Watch

Pin Your Preferred Region for Regional Watch

Regional Watch now follows you, not just your home airport. You can pin any of the 23 US aviation regions directly from the dashboard — no trip to Settings required. International pilots get the nearest US region loaded automatically, and anyone can hide the card entirely if US weather isn't relevant to their flying.

New — Inline Region Switcher

  • Tap the compact region badge (e.g. 'Up. MW ↓') on any Regional Watch card to instantly swap regions
  • Your selection saves automatically to your profile — no Save button needed
  • Smart suggestions group options as Auto (current), Nearby (adjacent regions), and All Regions
  • A 'Not your area? Change region' nudge appears when the region was auto-detected, making the option easy to discover

New — International Airport Support

  • Pilots based outside the US now see Regional Watch automatically — PlaneWX resolves the nearest US aviation region by geography
  • The same smart-suggestion picker shows 'Nearest' + adjacent regions so cross-border pilots find their area quickly
  • If no region can be resolved, a manual picker appears instead of an infinite loading state

New — Hide Regional Watch

  • Click the small × next to the 'Regional Watch' label to dismiss the card from your dashboard
  • The morning digest regional section is also suppressed — you still receive METAR, TAF, and upcoming trip data
  • Restore it any time from Profile → Preferences → Regional Watch → Show again

Also

  • Preferred region preference is honored in morning digest emails — the regional synopsis reflects your saved region, not just your home airport's auto-detected one
  • Profile → Preferences → Forecast Region offers the same smart picker for users who prefer managing settings in one place
Learn more:Regional Watch guide →
Visual Mode

Visual Mode — Live Forecast Imagery in Every Section

Visual mode is a new fourth briefing view that embeds official NOAA/AWC forecast charts and an interactive Windy ECMWF winds-aloft map directly inside each section of your briefing. Every chart is automatically matched to your departure window and cruise altitude — so you see the 18Z turbulence chart for your Wednesday evening departure, not the current-conditions map.

New — Section-by-Section Forecast Imagery

  • The Pattern: WPC Prog Chart (cycle-anchored to your departure window) + WPC Surface Analysis
  • Ceilings: AWC Aviation Clouds Forecast (GFA) + G-AIRMET Sierra
  • Convective: SPC Day 1/2/3 Categorical Outlook — automatically selected by days-until-departure
  • Turbulence: GTG Total turbulence at your cruise altitude + G-AIRMET Tango-H and Tango-L
  • Icing: FIP forecast icing probability at your cruise altitude (CIP for departures within 1 hour)
  • AIRMETs: G-AIRMET Sierra chart time-stepped to your window
  • Multiple charts per section use carousel arrows — swipe left/right to flip through slides

New — Interactive Windy Winds-Aloft Map

  • Embedded Windy ECMWF interactive map in the Winds Aloft section, centered on your route
  • Altitude selector pills show your cruise level plus the two adjacent pressure levels for easy comparison
  • Drag to pan, scroll to zoom — use the Windy timeline bar to step to your departure window

New — Smart Time & Altitude Matching

  • Charts are selected by anchoring to the WPC/AWC model cycle init time and picking the forecast hour closest to your departure — not just 'hours from now'
  • Icing and turbulence charts are snapped to the nearest available pressure level for your cruise altitude
  • Chart labels show the exact valid time (e.g., 'Wed 18Z · F30') so you always know what you're looking at
  • Imagery freshness gate: if a briefing is more than 6 hours old, imagery is suppressed with a stale notice — tap Refresh to re-enable
  • Forecast horizon notices when products aren't yet available for your window (e.g., GTG within 18h, G-AIRMET within 12h)
Learn more:Visual Mode Guide →
NOTAMs

NOTAM Integration — Filtered, Prioritized, and Scored

Your briefing now includes relevant NOTAMs for departure and arrival airports, filtered by time, sorted by priority, and wired directly into your WX Score. Airport closures and TFRs that close an airport are hard NO-GOs. Approach outages and runway contamination carry score penalties. A wall of 100+ raw NOTAMs is replaced by the handful that actually matter for your flight.

New — Smart NOTAM Filtering

  • NOTAMs filtered to only those active during your flight window — with a ±4-hour safety buffer for critical items
  • Cancelled NOTAMs (type C) hidden entirely — they're not a factor and shouldn't add noise
  • Three priority tiers: Operational (Tier 1, always expanded), Awareness (Tier 2), and Lower Priority (Tier 3, collapsed by default)
  • Procedure NOTAMs (approach amendments) grouped by runway direction — expand just the runway family you'll use
  • All TFRs except airport-closing ones shown as a single reference line with link to tfr.faa.gov — no more walls of TFR text
  • NOTAM count in the card header breaks down as total · operational · awareness so you know exactly what you're looking at

New — NOTAM-Driven Scoring

  • Airport or primary runway closure → hard NO-GO (0% WX Score)
  • Airport-closing TFR → hard NO-GO (0% WX Score)
  • RWYCC below your aircraft's hard minimum → hard NO-GO
  • IFR approach outage on a planned IFR flight → 5–15 point penalty
  • GPS/RAIM outage affecting planned RNAV approach → up to 10 point penalty
  • RWYCC below your aircraft's soft threshold → 10–20 point penalty
  • All NOTAM deductions appear in the score breakdown alongside weather deductions

New — FICON Field Condition Card

  • FICON NOTAMs (US) and RSC reports (Canada) render a dedicated Field Condition card with a visual RWYCC 0–6 gauge per runway surface
  • Hard and soft RWYCC thresholds configurable per aircraft in your Aircraft Profile
  • Inline text highlighting calls out the most important values (DA, HAT, RVR, contamination type) directly in NOTAM text

New — Canadian NOTAM Coverage

  • NOTAMs for Canadian airports (CY-prefix ICAOs) fetched live from Nav Canada's public NOTAM service
  • ~80 major Canadian airports (CYVR, CYYZ, CYUL, CYYC, CYEG, CYWG, and more) seeded nightly
  • Smaller Canadian airports fetched on demand at briefing time — no gaps for north-of-border flights
  • Canadian RSC runway condition reports parsed and mapped to the same RWYCC 0–6 scale as US FICON

Heads Up

  • PlaneWX NOTAM data is not a certified pre-flight briefing under 14 CFR 91.103 — always obtain an official briefing before flight
  • NOTAM data may be delayed up to 30 minutes — time-sensitive items (pop-up TFRs) should be verified with ATC or 1800wxbrief.com
  • European and other international NOTAMs are not yet supported
Learn more:How NOTAM filtering works →Setting your RWYCC minimums →
Trip Planning

Paste a Full Route String

Copy a route directly from ForeFlight, Garmin Pilot, or your printed flight plan and paste it into the New Trip dialog. PlaneWX resolves the waypoints, strips airways, and auto-fills Origin and Destination — including international routes across Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean.

New — Route String Paste

  • Paste a full ATC/FMS route string (e.g. KROG ZORLA WALTO FST J42 ELQ UJ10 CUL UJ32 SJD MMSD) directly into the Waypoints field
  • Airways stripped automatically — US jet (J), victor (V), and high-altitude (Q) airways, plus international airways like UJ and UM
  • 5-letter GPS fixes and 2–4 letter VOR/NDB identifiers resolved using live AIRAC data
  • First token auto-fills Origin; last token auto-fills Destination — including overwriting your home airport when the route starts somewhere different
  • International VORs and navaids resolve correctly — Mexican (SJD, CUL), Canadian (YVR, YYZ), and Caribbean fixes all supported
  • Unresolvable identifiers (procedure names, airline codes) are silently skipped without breaking the rest of the paste
Learn more:How to paste a route →Watch the video walkthrough →
International Coverage

Phase 1 & 2 International Airport Support

PlaneWX now supports flights to and from international ICAO airports worldwide. Two phases shipped together bring ECMWF model weighting, regulatory context, runway condition codes, worldwide navaid resolution, and a new suite of international hazard detectors.

New — International Airport Coverage

  • Enter any 4-letter ICAO code worldwide as departure or arrival (EGLL, LFPG, MMMX, YSSY, etc.)
  • METARs and TAFs fetched from NOAA's worldwide ICAO data feed
  • ECMWF is now the primary forecast model for routes outside the continental US — automatically weighted over GFS for non-CONUS routes
  • International SIGMETs (severe turbulence, icing, volcanic ash, tropical cyclones) checked against your route corridor
  • US-only products (G-AIRMETs, WPC discussions) automatically suppressed for international routes — no empty sections

New — Regulatory Context

  • When both airports are outside FAA jurisdiction, your briefing now includes a Regulatory Context block
  • Covers applicable rule sets: EASA (Europe), Transport Canada, and general ICAO Annex 2 VFR minima
  • Alaska (PA-), Hawaii (PH-), Puerto Rico (TJ/TI-), and US territories (PG/PW-) correctly identified as FAA jurisdiction — full domestic analysis applies
  • Disclaimer added to international briefings noting potential data gaps and advising use of local aviation weather services

New — Runway Condition Codes (RWYCC)

  • METAR runway state groups (8-digit ICAO Annex 14 format) now parsed and translated to the standard RWYCC 0–6 scale
  • Friction coefficients mapped to RWYCC using ICAO Doc 9137 Table 4-1 thresholds
  • SNOCLO (runway closed due to snow) detected and triggers a hard NO-GO
  • CLRD (runway cleared) recognized and elevates the RWYCC appropriately

New — International Hazard Detection (Phase 2)

  • Tropical cyclone warnings: active storms within 500 NM of your route are flagged, with intensity, direction, and NHC advisory link
  • Orographic wind hazards: Föhn (Alps), Bora (Adriatic), Mistral (Rhône Valley), Tramontane (Gulf of Lion), Chinook/mountain wave (Rockies), Norwester (Canterbury NZ), and Zonda (Andes) detected by region
  • International terminal forecasts: GFS model-derived hourly forecasts for international airports without TAF service
  • 24-hour METAR history injected into briefing context for non-CONUS airports, helping the AI identify recurring fog, diurnal winds, and ceiling patterns

New — Worldwide Navaid & Waypoint Database

  • International VORs, NDBs, and DMEs imported from OurAirports — worldwide coverage for physical navaids
  • US navaids remain authoritative from FAA NASR (never overwritten by international sources)
  • New source column in navaid database tracks data provenance: nasr, ourairports, or airac
  • 5-letter GPS fixes resolved on demand via AIRAC.net (live AIRAC data, updates every 28 days) with write-through caching — fixes appear instantly for future requests

Improvements

  • Proxy weather station generator now works for international airports (previously limited to US airports in some fallback paths)
  • TAF self-proxy guard extended to K-prefixed 3-character FAA IDs (e.g., O61 and KO61 are the same airport)
  • Headwind, terrain, and icing gotcha thresholds recalibrated for high-performance and FIKI-equipped aircraft
  • Alaska ECMWF bonus now longitude-constrained to prevent misclassifying Scandinavian airports
  • isFullyUsJurisdiction gate correctly handles Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam for regulatory classification

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed crash on long-haul routes (PANC→PHNL, KBOS→EGLL, etc.) caused by single-airport jurisdiction check receiving undefined as second argument
  • Fixed leftover merge conflict marker in briefing route that blocked the Vercel build
  • Fixed RWYCC friction threshold: RWYCC 5 now correctly maps to μ ≥ 0.40 (was ≥ 0.45); RWYCC 2 now correctly maps to μ 0.26–0.29 (was 0.25–0.29), aligned with ICAO Doc 9137
  • Fixed two real RWYCC parser bugs found via live METAR validation
  • Fixed 2 ECMWF bounding box bugs discovered in integration test suite
Learn more:Flying Outside the US →Proxy Weather Stations →

Have feedback on a new feature? Click the Feedback button in the navigation — we read every submission.