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AIRMETs & SIGMETs
The difference between AIRMETs, SIGMETs, and Convective SIGMETs. The three AIRMET types and what each covers. Plus the question your DPE almost certainly asks.
Stability & Lapse Rates
Why some days are smooth with overcast skies and others are bumpy with towering cumulus. The parcel-vs-environment comparison, the three lapse rates, conditional instability, and how to read a skew-T as a pilot.
Fog Formation
The five FAA fog types by formation mechanism — radiation, advection, upslope, frontal, and steam fog — how to predict each from a METAR, and why some types burn off and others don't.
Thunderstorm Life Cycle
Three ingredients, three stages, and every hazard that comes with them. Types from single-cell to supercell, how to read VIP radar levels, and the avoidance rules that keep you alive.
Aircraft Icing
Rime, clear, and mixed ice — temperature ranges, which is most dangerous, and why. Runback icing, tailplane icing, and the flaps-and-icing scenario that pilots must know cold.
Turbulence
Mechanical, thermal, wind shear, clear-air, and wake turbulence. Where each comes from, how to anticipate it, wake vortex avoidance rules, mountain waves, and turbulence intensity reporting.
Fronts & Pressure Systems
Cold fronts, warm fronts, occluded fronts. Highs and lows. The before/during/after weather sequence for each frontal type, how to read a surface analysis chart, and how fronts drive flight planning decisions.
Winds Aloft & the Jet Stream
Decoding the FB forecast — including the high-wind encoding trap. The polar jet stream, CAT zones, tropopause altitude, and using winds aloft for altitude selection, fuel planning, and finding the freezing level.
Density Altitude
What density altitude is and how to calculate it. Effects on engine power, takeoff roll, and climb rate — with a worked density altitude chart. Real-world scenarios at mountain and desert airports.
Altimetry
How the altimeter works as a barometer, the five types of altitude, Kollsman window mechanics, and the standard atmosphere worked examples. "High to low, look out below" and the legal requirement to keep the setting current.
Weather Charts
Surface analysis charts, prog charts, and upper-level constant pressure charts — the big-picture synoptic products that explain where weather is coming from and where it's going. The chart-first workflow for preflight weather briefings.
Weather Product Ladder
The five-level preflight briefing sequence — from synoptic charts to real-time PIREPs. Which products to check, in what order, and what question each level answers.
PIREPs
How to read and use Pilot Weather Reports. Every PIREP field decoded, turbulence and icing intensity scales, cloud tops, and why a C172 pilot's "moderate icing" PIREP means something different from a Caravan's.
Wind Shear & Mountain Wave
Low-level wind shear, microbursts, and mountain wave — the wind hazards most likely to appear on your checkride and most likely to surprise you in actual operations. Microburst encounter sequence, rotor zone, and when to say no.
Weather Decision-Making
The PAVE and IMSAFE checklists, personal minimums, continuation bias, and how to set in-flight abort criteria before you leave the ground. The "how to think" page that ties every other topic together.