I posted about this a while back, but it’s happening more often and got me twice over the last two days. I use simbrief to build real world flight plans, and it usually does a decent job of picking runways.
If there’s ever a question. I double check on flightradar24 to make sure the runway is in use. Yesterday at MCO and today at CLT the wind was basically direct crosswind. Simbrief chose the runways that were being used in real life verified on flightradar24.
However, those runways were red on IF, and pilots were landing in the wrong direction because of it. I feel like maybe there’s a better way to highlight the preferred runways, because this leads to unrealistic scenarios and conflicting traffic.
I would honestly ignore the runway colours. As long as the winds don’t exceed the limitations of your aircraft - it’s fine.
A lot of the time as IFATC if we are controlling for a while - the runways we are using become “red” - we keep using them (particularly if busy) because the “tailwinds” are still within limits.
I’m with you, but newer folks really use them causing lots of conflicts on uncontrolled airports. It seems like there might be a way to do it where they are all yellow unless they are really bad?
I wonder if there’s a way to connect to simbrief’s data in IF.
For any newer pilots that read this thread, if there’s a grade 5 landing in the other direction, there’s probably a good reason for it. Take a moment during descent and check flightaware or flightradar24 and see what runway they are using in real life. It’s more fun for everyone when we’re all going the same way!
There are two main things to get the used runway in IF if you are not alone at an airfield.
IFATC, ATIS tells you, or in rare case there is no ATIS at the specific airport the pattern entry tells you.
At Unicom there is a call “request traffic advisory” you could use. That asks all other pilots already at the field to give information on their operations.
Beside that checking not only the wind direction but also it’s strength is crucial for ever serious (expert) pilot. Getting some real world information didn’t hurt, many airports have a calm wind runway that they use no matter of wind direction if the wind strength allows.
It depends on the aircraft size, but everything below 5 kts should be fine as a tailwind.
it depends on the length of the runway and the plane. you could probably land an a320 at LAX with 10kts of tailwind, but an a380 with a slightly shorter runway might now work out as well.
Precise source…😉
That still covers “everything below 5kts”
As I said it depends on the aircraft type, for a C172 a 5 kts tailwind is uncomfortable, where for a A380 the same 5kts tailwind are barely remarkable.
It also depends on the individual airport, some are in stable wind areas where others are in gusty regions. The later would have a lower tailwind limit then the other.