SURVEY WINDSPEED-COMMENTS

3 =========== ---------- *AT* Chicago GLider, IL
FSL provides nice complement

32 =========== ---------- *AT* Menomonie, WI
Quite accurate

38 =========== Martin Hellman *AT* Hayward, CA
The B/S ratio seems more important. I sometimes look at wind speed as well.

39 =========== Tom Saunders *AT* Blairstown, NJ 1N7
I usually look at the MAPS & RUCS data to see the speed at different altitudes. Don't know what Blitmap altitude is.

46 =========== Gale Winnett *AT* Marion Municipal Airport, Marion, OH
Had not seen reference to this info before.

51 =========== George Morford *AT* Mission Peak, Fremont, CA
Priority #3

53 =========== Terence Honikman *AT* Santa Barbara, CA
Get my winds elsewhere - still model data, but presented more usefully for soaring.

57 =========== ---------- *AT* Sterling, MA
I rely on my GPS/Computer for wind data, once I'm in the air and FSS reports before.

59 =========== Frank Peel *AT* Fremont, CA
The local site here is virtually in the epicenter of where three different microclimatic regions intersect (Bay, South Valley and Central Valley). This location often makes predetermining wind speed difficult at best and there are better tools.

62 =========== Matt Gillis *AT* Hollister, CA; Truckee, CA
This compliments observation of long range wind forcasts, FSL-MAPS forcast soundings. I look at the forcast sounding to view a profile for presence of wind shear and gradient in the atmosphere at various locations. This provides a good regional view of where the strongest winds are expected.

71 =========== ---------- *AT* Manquin Flight Park, Manquin, VA
I don/t find the BL/s mean wind speed particularly useful for flight planning purposes. I am more interested in the vertical profile. I assess MAPS/RUC forecast soundings/vertical wind profiles at the FSL site. I have noticed MAPS/RUC wind fields are frequently too strong and have been too strong since the RUC was released in the early 90s. This is one of eight graphics I routinely use.

91 =========== Chuck Stoltz *AT* Gregory, MI (69G)
FSL Skew-T plots usually give enough info to judge wind damage to thermals.

117 =========== ---------- *AT* Caddo Mills, TX
Also useful during the winter months when high winds can be a problem

135 =========== Harry Fox *AT* Hollister, CA ; Truckee, NV
I don't pay a lot of attention to this, although I do look closely at the winds-aloft predictions in the BLIP forecast. Those are very helpfull for seeing if thermals are likely to be sheared at a given height. Also very helpfull for planning the return from Panoche to Hollister, or returns back into Truckee.