How does the pilot know which way the wind is blowing?
At many airports, the pilot can get this information over the aircraft’s radio. For example, weather information is broadcast continuously from a ground-based weather device, in a synthesized voice. Or sometimes there is an airport employee on the ground who can respond to pilot radio calls for such information. But Healdsburg doesn’t have these services. So the pilot must often fly by the airport, perhaps at 1500 or 2000 ft AGL. He looks down at the orange windsock or the wind “tetrahedron”, located on the ground near midfield, to determine the wind direction. There are sometimes other ways to determine wind direction while airborne, such as ripples on a nearby pond or smoke from a chimney. If Healdsburg had its own aviation-weather broadcast, there could conceivably be less air traffic, as pilots would not need to make a preliminary pass over the field to look at the windsock.
