For those of you who fly in Colorado or plan to in the future... The division of Aeronautics recently put out a short video that showcases the mountain AWOS sites and some of the hardships that go in to maintaining them in the harsh environments of the Rocky Mountains.

It's not uncommon while flying around here in the winter to hear the the AWOS broadcast be off-line or all the sensors reporting "Missing" as they get clogged up with ice/snow after a bad storm. Nevertheless, along with good local flight instruction and flight planning- they are a good tool in determining your route of flight over the rocks.



For more Colorado flying resources such as Pass Route documentation, Mtn Webcams, and weather, be sure to check out the Mountain Pass page on FlyCO:
http://www.flycolorado.org/index.php/mountain-passes/

Alec

That video is pretty cool!

I watch the historical data along for our passes and find the sensors (or entire station) go offline more often than I would have expected. For instance, the Monarch wind sensor was down from Sept 29 until October 3rd just recently and I am glad there are teams that can get up there and fix things quickly!

yeah cool stuff - really wish other mountain ranges had mountain awos stations - I was snubbed a couple of months ago trying to cross the appalachians - not being familiar with the passes - and no reference for celings and vis drove the pucker factor way up trying to fly up the passes when you don't know what you are heading into

That was a cool video. What an awesome job those guys have.

Good looking 180 on the FlyColorado web site.

soyAnarchisto wrote:yeah cool stuff - really wish other mountain ranges had mountain awos stations - I was snubbed a couple of months ago trying to cross the appalachians - not being familiar with the passes - and no reference for celings and vis drove the pucker factor way up trying to fly up the passes when you don't know what you are heading into

Soy,

Was gonna ask if you saw me on your way to Nags head. I checked your Spot page and it showed you flying right over Windwood Fly in Resort in the Canaan Valley in West Virginia. I was there (parked on the ramp) the day you passed over. What are the odds!?

Southeastern WV is a no mans land. Especially for airplanes. And the weather is nothing to fool with even in those "little" mountains.

Desolate!

Thanks for posting that! It's really great that Colorado has made the effort to do something like this. Huge benefit for pilots, and I'm sure it has saved some people from embarrassment or worse!