Flying the Weather Map

Richard has an excessible way of writing and this book is easy to read (but takes a while to digest!). Some information is tedious and requires more than "Weather Channel" knowledge, but may be supplemented by many of the free books at faa.org. I recommend it to all my flight students, as weather knowledge is usually more deficient than we all would like!

I've always been a Richard Collins fan -- even when I was 11 and bought "Flying" magazine off the drug store rack and pored over every article -- understanding maybe 15%. The percentage is higher now, but I still need to read and re-read to fully comprehend all the material presented. The chapter on Lows is worth the price of this book. Every IFR and VFR pilot should buy and read this book. If you find you don't understand half of what Dick is talking about, it's time to go back to the basic Aviation Weather texts and get up to speed. Nothing is more critical to GA flying safety than the PIC's complete understanding of the Weather picture before launch and during flight.

This is one of the best books that I've come across. Richard L. Collins does a great job of covering the basics of weather and what is really going on in order to build on real useful knowledge. Once he completes that, Richard takes you on 40+ actual flights where he talks about the briefing that he got, what the weather is really like and what the NOOA maps showed after the flight (since they always look at the past). You learn more than just about weather. You learn about how to work with FSS, what to ask, and why forecasts are sometimes so different than actual when they shouldn't be. After reading this, I felt a lot more confident about my IFR weather planning and flying and look at the weather with a whole new mind set.......2-- C --