Severe Weather Flying

At the outset of Severe Weather Flying, author Dennis Newton reminds readers that this book is not about flying in severe weather, but rather how to detect and therefore avoid it, with advice on how to escape it if you become caught in it accidentally. Newton is a meteorologist, weather research pilot, engineering test pilot, ATP, and flight instructor. He speaks pilot-to-pilot in this valuable guide on how not to fly severe weather. He believes that given the knowledge, pilots can truly lessen their chances of being caught in thunderstorms and other extreme weather conditions.

The emphasis is on types of weather that are potentially hazardous to flight; with each type of weather discussed, the author provides rational answers to a pilot's very sensible question, "And then what? How does this affect me?" He also discusses the capabilities and limitations of airplanes and equipment in avoiding and in dealing with severe weather.

Meteorology can be a tough "language" and not always clear to the lay person. The author translates and brings across the most crucial principles pilots can use to fly more wisely in weather. Covering weather fundamentals, the atmosphere, and the stability of the air, he then digs deeper into the individual aspects of severe weather situations: air mass and nocturnal thunderstorms, downbursts, lightning, icing, turbulence and wind shear.

In print for more than 30 years, this book in its Fourth Edition blends in good coverage of detection equipment for the cockpit, and the weather briefing information available to the pilot for decision-making in flight planning — even the enroute phase. Details on aircraft icing certification, critical aircraft icing information, and high altitude ice crystals are also included.

Dennis Newton holds Airline Transport Pilot type ratings in eight jet and four turboprop airplanes, and is instructor-rated in single- and multi-engine airplanes and gliders. He has been honored with the FAA's Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for his 50+ years of safe pilot operations. The author of many papers and aviation magazine articles on icing and weather topics, Newton is also a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and an Associate Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Mr. Newton is also a past recipient of several Aviation Space Writers Association Awards, and the AIAA Losey Atmospheric Sciences Award.