Preflight weather - iFly Wish-List

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Preflight weather

9/8/2018 11:17 PM

Steven Richard

Joined: 5/19/2014

Posts: 50

Re: Preflight weather

More important for me: I see red/orange in the skyvector and little to none in iFly. This could lead me to believe the storm is not a bad as it really is.

I am not sure how the smoothing is accomplished: Do they fill in colors that are not accurate depictions?

9/8/2018 11:57 PM

Mike D.

Joined: 1/15/2010

Posts: 1213

Re: Preflight weather

>More important for me: I see red/orange in the skyvector and little to none in iFly. This could lead me to believe the storm is not a bad as it really is.I am not sure how the smoothing is accomplished: Do they fill in colors that are not accurate depictions?<

It looks llike these two screen shots are not of the same time. If you draw a line between the middle and bottom green dot/airports you'll see that the weather in the iFly image is well West of the line, while the line in the other goes directly through the depicted weather. That would lead me to believe that either the iFly hasn't yet updated its image, or you caught it earlier in a looped/animated Nexrad, and the other image was caught later in the group. The iFly does show some red and orange, just not as large, but it could be that t he storm was building as it traveled East. I read somewhere, perhaps here, perhaps on some other site, that images like the one seen on the iFly are more technically true to the information actually broadcast from the NWS/FAA. That is, the government puts out the weather images in 1 square (something, maybe a mile?) bits of information. Some companies like the one in the smooth out the sharp square edges and pretty it up a bit. That would lead me to believe that their depiction isn't exactly what is there, it could be better, it could be worse. I'd like to think they'd err towards the worst case scenario rather than enticing us into questionable weather. However I'm far from being an expert, and all of this is my recollection from something I recall reading at least a month or two, maybe more, ago. Like I said before, it would be nice if we could see an Apples => Apples comparison with the exact same map areas, on exactly the same scale, at exactly the same time. These two images were different scales, the depicted weather seemed to be from two different times.

9/9/2018 9:50 AM

Cobra

Joined: 4/20/2011

Posts: 2602

Re: Preflight weather Modified By Cobra on 9/9/2018 9:52:26 AM

A version of this debate has happened here before. Here are my thoughts:

1) iFly presents the radar data at the resolution that it truly exists. This is the "raw" data.

2) "Smoothing" the data does NOT make it "more accurate". It makes it prettier--that's all. Anyone who believes that "smoothed" data is more accurate must also believe that those CSI shows on TV really can "enhance" grainy photos into sharp, clear images. You cannot create more information in the signal than what you started with. (Well, obviously you can, but you do so by making guesses. Those guesses don't make the data better...they just make more data. And anyone who's tried to "enhance" a zoomed-in portion of a photo with photoshop knows that the photo doesn't really get any clearer...the blockiness just gets blurred a little, and not always in a way that makes the picture "better".)

3) One reason iFly doesn't make the data prettier is because that takes processing power. That's fine if you're using the latest-and-greatest high-end tech, but if you're using an iFly 700 or an $80 Android tablet, then you're going to see performance issues. When absolutely necessary, iFly has dropped off capabilities on older equipment (like EFIS), but in general they try to keep the features and experience the same across all supported devices.

The *only* benefit to smoothing is that the picture looks prettier. It is *not* more accurate. You're using a lot of processing to get that result, with no gain other than making (some) users feel like they're seeing a better radar image, when they're really not.

I prefer to see the radar data as-is, unsmoothed.

9/9/2018 1:28 PM

ErgonomicMike

Joined: 9/3/2014

Posts: 2102

Re: Preflight weather

Cobra has it right.

Also, I've noticed that there are times when NEXRAD will show lots of (light) green, yet there won't be a cloud in the sky. (I wass going to post a comparison shot last year, but never got around to it.)

It happens repeatably north of Big Bear. (L35.) It's not a function of iFly. Rather, it's a function of the data being sent to iFly.

I suppose it's safer to paint stuff that's not there than not to paint stuff that's there. But here in the desert SW, we actually get cells with well defined boundaries. In these cases, smoothing paints a false picture. I have found the (blocky) blocks in iFly work well for keeping me outof trouble.

9/9/2018 4:51 PM

greg p

Joined: 2/18/2011

Posts: 237

Re: Preflight weather

We just completed a flight from south Florida up to Tampa area. Needless to say, we are still in the storm season here. iFly depicted the rain cells perfectly, and we were able to see them on the screen, and also see them enroute. I have always been very comfortable using the ads-b derived weather picture on the iFly display.

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