If you key your transmitter on short final and say, “wind check,” Tower Alexa replies with cheerful wind direction and speed. Try that at a non-towered airport, and a CTAF lurker might snarl, “Check the windsock yourself!” Rude perhaps, but the jerk makes a point, because as Dylan Thomas never said, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Given that, what’s your recourse when the non-towered airport lacks AWOS/ASOS or a low-tech windsock near the runway? Are you stuck, unable to land? No, or as the motto inscribed above the entrance to the ATC Academy in Oklahoma City reads: “Habemus adhuc relinquo unus autem illic!” Meaning: “We’ve yet to leave one up there!” Truer words have never been mistranslated.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/insider/wind-check-please