FDS Research › Tools
Airport explorer
Input a dropzone's airport code to see general information relevant to jumpers: runway lengths, current weather conditions, and how it compares to other dropzones in various respects (see also Comparing 48 American dropzones). Data is drawn from the public-domain OurAirports database and NOAA’s Aviation Weather Center.
Current conditions
A year at this field: density altitude by month
Typical mid-afternoon (3 p.m. local, 15th of each month), computed from the nearest NOAA station’s climate normals 1991–2020 (named above), recomputed at this airport’s elevation—thirty years of averaged observations, not a forecast. US stations only. The scale reaches full red at 5,000 ft, the level aviation conventionally treats as high density altitude.
A year of wind and sky conditions at this field
Mean afternoon wind by month, in knots; an amber figure means gusts appeared in at least 30% of that month’s observations. Hover any bar for two FDS indices: the share of observations at or under USPA’s 14 mph (12.2 kt) student wind limit, and the share where gusts exceeded the sustained wind by more than 7 kt. Tooltips also carry a third index: the share of observations with no broken or overcast layer (or obscured sky) below 12,000 ft AGL—the skies a full-altitude load can legally descend through (FAR 105.17 forbids jumping into or through cloud). 12,000 ft is the ceilometer’s reach: automated stations cannot see layers above it, so a deck sitting exactly between 12,000 and a 13,500 ft exit—rare, and seldom alone—escapes the count. Compiled from every archived METAR of the last ten years (NOAA ASOS network, via the Iowa Environmental Mesonet), filtered to solar afternoon—12:00 to 17:59 solar time by longitude, roughly the jumping hours—then aggregated by month. Observations, never forecasts.
How this field compares
Each strip spans the range of the 48 dropzones in our dropzone spectrum; the dot is this field, colored by the same scales the spectrum uses. Hover any row for the exact figure, the famous-48 range, and where this field ranks among them. Rows appear as their sources answer—climate normals, ten years of METAR afternoons, six decades of weather balloons, and the national land-cover map—and a row is omitted when no honest record exists for it here.
The year, side by side
Where this comes from. Airport facts are a locally hosted snapshot of the public-domain OurAirports database. The map is built with the open-source Leaflet library. Conditions are the latest METAR observation from NOAA’s Aviation Weather Center—an observation, never a forecast; if the field doesn’t report weather, the nearest reporting station is shown with its distance. Density altitude is computed with the same three-step form as our density altitude calculator.
Reference information, not an official source: airport data changes, snapshots age, and nothing on this page is suitable for flight planning or navigation—verify against current official publications. Nothing here is a substitute for proper training by certified instructors. See, for example, the United States Parachute Association's Integrated Student Program, described in the Skydiver's Information Manual.