After 9 years, WindCheck is back on iOS

WindCheck was the first iOS app I developed, which may be quite evident from the screenshot above. After nearly 9 years without updates, it is now back with a big refresh and plans to help general aviation (GA) pilots in their decision making.

The longer software goes unmaintained, the harder it is to go back and update it. That’s pretty much why 9 years went by, but that’s a topic left for another post!

Aviation Apps #

Historically aviation apps have focused on gathering data from many sources, and making it all available in a convenient place. This ranges from real time weather, to airport and runway data, weather forecasts, charts, maps, and more.

The innovation really was to digitize what was on paper, and to combine what was spread across many places. Keep in mind that aviation data tends to change quite frequently, hence the disruptive nature of digitizing it all and making it available conveniently.

WindCheck – Purpose & Vision #

My vision for WindCheck is to go a step further and actively help pilots in decision making. It’s one thing to surface all the data, but it’s an entirely other thing to analyze and correlate that data into answering ambiguous questions and making decisions.

The most fundamental question a GA pilot tries to answer before every flight is “Is it safe to fly?”. That sounds simple but it’s really hard to answer. The challenge of collecting all the data from all the sources has been solved, while analyzing the data has not. Additionally, the answer to this question may be different for each pilot based on their skills, personal limits, the limits of their aircraft, and more.

With WindCheck I aim to help GA pilots answer key questions such as… “Is that runway long enough for me to land 6 hours from now, in my current airplane?”, “What are the risks to look out for on this route from A to B?”, and essentially answer the big question of “Can I safely go to my destination?”.

For now WindCheck shows you the current METAR (current weather conditions) and TAFs (forecast) but there’s a lot more to come.

New iOS Features #

WindCheck is also taking advantage of new iOS features such as Widgets to surface critical information:

There are 3 sizes of widgets available and they update as frequently as METARs are issued. It’s an easy way to view current conditions at a glance without even opening the app.

What’s Next #

You can expect new features to be introduced in WindCheck in the near future that will surface more and more data. As more data is introduced, more analysis and productivity features will also be provided.

Stay tuned for more as we work on releasing new features in the coming months.