NV33 Farias Wheel Airport

The problem

Farias Wheel (NV33) is a private-use airstrip in Wellington, Nevada, sitting at 4,848 feet with a single 3,391-foot asphalt runway and no control tower. It's a beautiful, demanding little field: high desert, high density altitude, permission required before you land. A pilot inbound to a strip like this has to read the conditions themselves — wind down the runway, temperature, the density altitude that quietly stretches every takeoff roll on a hot afternoon. But NV33 has no certified ASOS/AWOS, and the nearest official station is nineteen nautical miles away over the ridge at Minden-Tahoe — far enough that its winds tell you very little about the valley. The airport needed a clear public face — location, operations, communications, the permission-to-land process — and, for arriving pilots, a way to see real conditions on the field at a glance.

This dashboard is the piece the build gets remembered for. A small weather station on the field, wired through careful design into something that reads like part of a panel: flight category at a glance, the live wind laid over the actual runway, the crosswind already worked out. It runs unattended around the clock, refreshing every five minutes — proof that a private strip doesn't need certified hardware to give its pilots a clear, honest, genuinely beautiful picture of the field.

The approach

Two pieces. First, a clean airport site that answers the practical questions fast, whether you're a neighbor or a first-time transient asking how to get permission. Then the centerpiece: a live weather page wired to a WeatherFlow Tempest station on the field, designed to read the way pilots already think. Flight-category coloring so VFR reads in a glance; an airspeed-style wind dial; a compass rose with runway 16/34 drawn to its true alignment and the live wind laid across it, so the crosswind is a picture, not a calculation — plus a per-runway headwind/crosswind breakdown and a 'best runway' call. Density altitude is derived from live station pressure and temperature, because at 4,848 feet on a warm day that's the number that matters. Below the gauges, fifty-one decoded fields refresh every five minutes. And it stays honest about what it is: a standing notice makes clear this is a personal station for situational awareness only — not an official METAR — and points pilots to certified sources for flight planning. Skillful, custom, and careful about the one thing aviation can't be casual about.