I have been reading some old issues of Pilot magazine recently and
read a reference to NOTAMs being published on British Telecom’s
Prestel.
I believe that these days the CAA have no online presence. Does
anyone know who we should lobby to get something like this on the Net?
I fly a group airplane, and find it a real pain to get NOTAMs because
I don’t really have access to a club that collects them. Surely
publishing such air-safety info on the internet would be ideal, as
well as cheap?
If they did it then why can’t they do it now, when the technology is
much more capable of doing a good job.
Dave
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Dave Farley
SSA Object Technology Ltd.
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Dave Farley (da…@iosltd.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: I believe that these days the CAA have no online presence. Does
: anyone know who we should lobby to get something like this on the Net?
: I fly a group airplane, and find it a real pain to get NOTAMs because
: I don’t really have access to a club that collects them. Surely
: publishing such air-safety info on the internet would be ideal, as
: well as cheap?
: If they did it then why can’t they do it now, when the technology is
: much more capable of doing a good job.
I think this is only a matter of time.
Skytrak provide TAF and METAR information that can be accessed via my
web page at http://www.avnet.co.uk/tmdg/weather.
The AAIB have a webpage though it is out out date at
http://www.open.gov.uk/aaib/aaibhome.htm
I hear that GASIL are to be seen on the web shortly.
So I guess that NOTAMs will follow.
You could try asking sky…@avnet.co.uk if they would provide NOTAMs.
The big problem as I see it is admin and getting a program to display the
relevant notams.
Tom.
> Skytrak provide TAF and METAR information that can be accessed via my
> web page at http://www.avnet.co.uk/tmdg/weather.
Yes, but the CAA don’t accept this as reliable, they’d rather we obtain
low resolution possibly corrupt and difficult to read faxes from the met
office. I imagine that their view is the same for NOTAMs. Though I do
agree. What about filing flight plans too? We need to be careful here,
we are in danger of asking for something useful and up to date!
David.
David Taylor (djtay…@cix.compulink.co.uk) wrote:
: > Skytrak provide TAF and METAR information that can be accessed via my
: > web page at http://www.avnet.co.uk/tmdg/weather.
: Yes, but the CAA don’t accept this as reliable, they’d rather we obtain
: low resolution possibly corrupt and difficult to read faxes from the met
: office. I imagine that their view is the same for NOTAMs. Though I do
: agree. What about filing flight plans too? We need to be careful here,
: we are in danger of asking for something useful and up to date!
I agree that the information is not reliable. From time to time the system
has problems and sometime a bug shows up in the programs and it take me time
to fix. But then it’s free and I don’t get paid for doing the work.
Since pre-flight is self briefing then I would think as along as you can
read a TAF or METAR you can tell if it is the current weather.
One of the things that I have found is that the TAF and METAR have format
mistakes that can cause my program to have problems.
Tom.
t…@uksr.hp.com (Tom Dawes-Gamble) wrote:
>I agree that the information is not reliable. From time to time the system
>has problems and sometime a bug shows up in the programs and it take me time
>to fix. But then it’s free and I don’t get paid for doing the work.
I know the Met office is obliged to charge for this stuff by
government, but I still find it unbelievable that the Met service is
so poor here in the UK compared to other countries. It’s not the info
itself of course, but it’s accessability. I am not prepared to pay
the ridiculous costs of Mist or Mini-Mist for my relatively small
number of recreational flying hours. The fax service is a pain,
because I can’t find fax software that I can cost justify that will do
the dial back, so I rely on the telephone AIRMET service or get TAFs
and METARs over the phone from my local met office. It’s ridiculous
that I can’t ask these people questions and am only allowed to listen
and try and jot down the info which is usually delivered at high speed
(I ahve got used to the speed now, but it is still obviously an error
prone process).
It’s not that I object to paying for the info given the current
political climate, though I would prefer not to, it is that the
service seems to be designed to be complex and error prone and that it
is targeted at flying businesses and makes it a pain for private
pilots.
Tom’s page is invaluable, and I recommend it’s use to anyone (I have
no association with Tom or Skytrack, I’m just a grateful user) of
course with the proviso that the information shouldn’t be relied on
etc etc.
The sooner the CAA and Met office join us in the 1990′s the better.
Sorry to go on, but this is one of my major irritations with aviation
in the UK!
Thanks again Tom,
Dave
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Dave Farley
SSA Object Technology Ltd.
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> and try and jot down the info which is usually delivered at high speed
> (I ahve got used to the speed now, but it is still obviously an error
> prone process).
I’d not really considered this but you might have seen in the current
Flyer mag that they are after people to compare Metfax with info from the
Internet to prove to the CAA that the Internet stuff is as (more)
accurate as a garbled fax.
I wonder which is most likely to result in the wrong information, the
Internet or hand written transcribed stuff from a telephone call? I know
where I’ll put my money!
David.