Hello and thanks for reading the 11th edition of EZNews!
As EZWxBrief comes up on its one year anniversary in April, we really appreciate those that have joined, renewed their membership or signed up for auto-renewal. For members new to EZWxBrief, you won't find EZWxBrief in the App Store or Google Play store. For the best user experience, EZWxBrief is optimized to run as a progressive web app (PWA) and must be installed on your device which takes just a few seconds. Please see the Pilots Guide for more information on how to install EZWxBrief as a PWA. Version 1.0.9 was released at the end of February. More details of the changes are provided below.
The Daily EZ Weather Brief begins on March 1st
Are you interested in listening to a quick weather overview each day of the week? If so, you are in luck. Starting Tuesday, March 1, the founder of EZWxBrief, Dr. Scott Dennstaedt, will be hosting a 7 to 10 minute live video broadcast every weekday for the general aviation community. The goal is to provide general aviation pilots with a quick weather overview of that day's weather impacts across the conterminous U.S. and southern Canada. Therefore, if you have a flight planned sometime during the day, we hope you will take a few minutes and tune in.
How can you watch? If you get up early, the actual broadcast will be live on the EZWxBrief YouTube channel (https://youtube.com/avwxworkshops) beginning around 7-7:15 a.m. eastern time (assuming there are no technical glitches). If you have not done so already, please take a moment today to subscribe to the EZWxBrief YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/avwxworkshops and turn on this channel's notifications to be reminded of the live event when it happens. With a few exceptions for illness, holidays and travel, there will be a live broadcast every weekday (Monday through Friday) morning with Friday's broadcast offering a brief weather outlook for the weekend. If you miss the live broadcast, the video will be published on the EZWxBrief YouTube channel shortly thereafter. Any changes to the daily schedule will be posted on the EZWxBrief social media sites including the EZWxBrief Facebook page.
Here's where we need your help! If you are enjoying these daily videos, please feel free to post a link on your social media accounts, forums and other outlets as well as sending a quick email to all of your friends who you believe will benefit. If you have any specific feedback, praise or other constructive ideas, please feel free to contact us. We'd love to hear from you. There's no doubt that this concept will evolve over time as feedback is received.
For now, there's no fee to view this broadcast or watch any of the recorded videos. It would be awesome to see hundreds if not thousands of pilots tuning in every day. Having said that, we are also looking for a sponsor for these daily videos. Please understand that this daily weather overview is being offered for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not substitute as a formal weather briefing for a route of flight as required by 14 CFR § 91.103.
We hear your feedback!
We are grateful for the feedback we have received over the last 10 months and continue to strive to make the app more user friendly and intuitive to use. At this point we have been working with a new UI/UX designer to build a user interface that is easier to use and is greatly simplified across all devices. This will take many months to develop and we hope to have a new major version of the progressive web app released by early next year. These new features will likely be implemented in multiple phases throughout 2023 to make the rollout more seamless.
Going to SUN 'n FUN in April?
EZWxBrief won't have a booth at SUN 'n FUN this year, however, Dr. Scott Dennstaedt will be holding four presentations as shown in the table below. In previous years these presentations have been very cramped with standing room only in the smaller rooms of the CFAA school building. So this year we were able to secure the large room (CFAA-01) on the first floor which is also used as the school's cafeteria. There should be plenty of room available if you want to attend. While we do not expect changes to this schedule, you can view the forums schedule here for the latest and greatest schedule. Also, stop by the SiriusXM tent. Scott will be hanging out there from time to time to answer any questions you may have.
Lastly, as part of the Daily EZ Weather Brief mentioned above we will be doing an overview of the weather for those flying to the Lakeland area for this event. This will start about one week prior, so feel free to tune in for that broadcast if you are planning to fly to the event.
What's new in EZWxBrief?
There are only minor changes to the progressive web app this past month. The most significant change was the unfortunate rollback of support for 7-Day forecasts outside of the U.S. Darksky was being used to provide this service, but a few years ago they were purchased by Apple and the product was discontinued as of December 31, 2021. If you enter a town or airport outside of the U.S. in the EZ7-Day forecast panel, an error message will be displayed. This only affects the 7-Day forecasts. We apologize for the inconvenience and are searching for an equivalent interface for cities and airports in southern Canada. You can still request 7-Day forecasts for any city, town or airport throughout the United States.
Most pilots are weatherwise, but some are otherwise™
Dr. Scott Dennstaedt
Weather Systems Engineer
Founder, EZWxBrief
CFI & former NWS meteorologist
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