Thursday, June 19, 2008

Sam's Waimanalo Weather Guesser 1.0

Sam, one of our cleverer local hang glider pilots, has created a handy tool to help pilots figure out if and when it might be worthwhile to head out to the east end. It provides the forecast for the Makapu’u LZ for the next week.

The forecast includes surface wind direction, surface wind speed, surface wind gust, surface temperature, cloudbase altitude, and a reasonable guess at the thermal conditions for the current day. Also provided are the last reported and historical wind observations from Bellows AFB.

Though primarily created for hang glider pilots, other types of avigators may also find it useful.

There are two download options:

(1) Download the exe file only. If you already have Microsoft .NET Framework installed on your computer (very likely if you're running Windows) you can go to Sam's downloads page.

(2) Or, download the full setup package (recommended, or if the above doesn’t work). This will automatically check for prerequisites, install Weather Guesser, and put a shortcut on your Start Menu. This option will periodically check for updates. It can be uninstalled through Add/Remove Programs. Get it here.

Weather Guesser is free. Cold beverages (preferably in green bottles) and accolades can be presented to the author every time he is found in the LZ. Suggestions will also be accepted (not in lieu of the above).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

what about mac user? :)

Anonymous said...

Who? What?

Anonymous said...

A note about the setup package. Along with asking you to download stuff from Microsoft, there is a slightly scary alert about Guesser being from an "unknown publisher". That would be me. I can't afford to buy a real certificate so that message shows up. Don't worry. I'm cool.