BETA

Windy IFR Planner

IFR route planning, weather profile, and decision support — right inside Windy.com.

Real FAA routes through real fixes, weather-correlated route segments on the map, vertical profile with terrain + icing + turbulence + winds, prioritized advisories at your cruise altitude, and cruise altitude recommendation for your aircraft.

Install Instructions Read the Beta Guide
Windy IFR Planner showing a KDFW to KATL route on the Windy map with weather-colored segments, vertical profile chart, advisories, and pilot summary.
KDFW → KATL in a PA46-350P Mirage at FL180. Route polyline colored by hazard at cruise altitude; vertical profile shows terrain, clouds, icing, turbulence, winds aloft; advisories panel surfaces the trip's biggest concerns.

Install in 5 Steps

Why developer mode? Windy's regular plugin install only accepts URLs from their reviewed gallery (windy-plugins.com). During our beta we host directly so testers can get the latest builds without waiting on Windy's review cycle. Once the plugin graduates from beta, it will be submitted to Windy's gallery and installable from the regular plugin menu — no developer mode required.
  1. Open Windy. Visit windy.com in any modern browser (Chrome, Edge, Safari, Firefox).
  2. Enable plugin developer mode. Go to windy.com/dev. The developer panel appears.
  3. Paste the plugin URL. In the plugin URL field, paste: 
    https://snickitybit.com/windy-ifr-plugin/plugin.js
    Click Install & open plugin.
  4. Approve the plugin. Windy may ask you to confirm. Click through; the plugin is open source and read-only.
  5. Open Windy IFR Planner. From Windy's plugin menu, launch Windy IFR Planner. Enter your departure + destination ICAOs, pick an aircraft, set a cruise altitude, click Find route. You're flying.

Windy plugins run client-side in your browser. We don't see your routes, your aircraft, or any other data. Plugin source is open and inspectable.

What's in the Beta

Real IFR routes

FAA Preferred Routes with confidence scores. Each route is parsed into actual named fixes from the FAA NASR database — your polyline kinks through FORCK, MERDN, ORRKK like a real flight plan, not a great-circle line.

Vertical profile

Terrain, cloud layers, icing zones, turbulence bands, freezing level, winds aloft. Hover anywhere to see what you'd encounter at that point along the route at any altitude.

Prioritized advisories

Critical / warning / info advisories by category — icing, turbulence, terrain, clouds, freezing, aircraft. Capped at 5 most-actionable. Plus a 3-5 sentence pilot summary.

Aircraft envelope

Magenta climb-cruise-descent overlay on the chart driven by your aircraft's POH data. Service ceiling enforcement, short-route truncation warnings.

Cruise recommendation

"Recommended: FL250 — +19 kt tailwind, no icing, cloud tops FL220." Scoring weighs wind benefit, icing/turbulence avoidance, terrain clearance, and aircraft ceiling.

Route comparison

Compare all candidate routes by tailwind, icing exposure, turbulence exposure, terrain margin. Alternates render as gray dashed lines on the map alongside your active route.

Map ↔ chart sync

Hover the chart — a yellow marker tracks the position on the map. Hover the colored polyline on the map — the chart's crosshair moves with you.

Real Windy weather

ECMWF, GFS, ICON, and Windy's other weather models. Switch models from Windy's normal controls; the plugin re-samples from whatever's currently active.

Feedback Welcome

This is a beta. Bug reports, feature requests, and general feedback are the most useful thing you can send us.

Email feedback@snickitybit.com

Privacy & Beta Telemetry

During the beta the plugin sends a small amount of anonymous telemetry so we can improve it:

  • Usage events — when you open the plugin, compute a route, switch aircraft, change cruise altitude, click Compare routes, or accept a recommendation. Plus the plugin version. Goes to Firebase Analytics (Google).
  • Crash reports — JavaScript errors and unhandled promise rejections, including the message + stack trace + browser user agent + plugin URL. Goes to our Firestore database.

We do not collect your airport ICAOs, route strings, aircraft type, cruise altitude, location, or any other identifiable information. Telemetry is sent without an account or cookie ID — anonymized at the source.

Don't want to participate? Don't install the plugin during the beta. We'll publish an opt-out toggle in a future release. Questions: feedback@snickitybit.com.

Aviation Disclaimer

Decision support only. The Windy IFR Planner is not a substitute for an official weather briefing, current charts, NOTAMs, ATC clearance, or any other approved flight planning tool. All routing data, weather correlations, and recommendations are advisory.

Pilot in command is responsible for verifying all flight planning data, complying with applicable regulations, and operating the aircraft safely. The plugin is provided as-is, without warranty, in active beta. Data sources (FAA NASR, Windy weather models) have inherent limitations and update cycles.

Bug reports to feedback@snickitybit.com.