What's the weather like

[OCEAN WUN ZERO]

Some help/advice please,

At a little known G/A airfield near you the phone goes;-
" what's the weather like"
Unnofficial obs equals marginal!! is the irritated reply.

" do you think it will improve/ do you think I should come/ please can you make a decision for me"!!

Has anyone had this and if so how do you let the potential customer down lightly, or should we go with the first feeling ie not my problem mate.

:confused:

[Timothy]

I think that you should be as helpful as possible, while not taking their decision. A reply might be:

"The cloudbase is 800', and the clubs certainly haven't got their aircraft out of the hangar. According to the TAFs of the nearby Megaport the cloudbase is expected to improve later, but in my experience, because we are the other side of the hills from them, our conditions can be significantly different from theirs."

That way the pilot doesn't feel short-changed, you have made a slight, but non-directive, contribution towards his decision to cancel, and you have covered your posterior.

JMO

W

[panjandrum]

Never hint at improvements, just deteriorations. You're not a forecaster, and you're not helping anyone if the improvement doesn,t occur.

[Spitoon]

If the observation isn't official I wouldn't rely on that too much either! :rolleyes:

[enzo]

apparently the met office have a very good web site - and it's free!! you could direct them there :rolleyes:

[FlyingForFun]

From a pilots point of view (yes, I know no one asked for a pilots point of view:p ), any information you can give us is better than no information at all. Most likely, all we're going to use it for is to decide whether it's worth giving it a try or not. Obviously if we get up there and find it's crap, we'll turn around - but often we'd rather save ourselves the effort, and jump in the car (or go to the pub) if we know in advance that it's crap.

Enzo - as a very-low-hours PPL, I took off with a forecast of 5km vis improving throughout the morning. Sure enough, when I took off, the vis was around 6 or 7km, which was more than enough for me to navigate my way around the local area and head north. I'd read the forecast, and I knew that it would be steadilly improving throughout my flight. Then I lost sight of the M1, which was strange, because the M1 is a bl00dy big road. I realised that I was lost, and followed the procedures I'd been taught when this happened. A few minutes later, and I'd figured out where I was, and realised that the reason I couldn't see the M1 was because the vis had reduced to 2km, and I was about 5km away from it :eek:

I diverted safely, and called my flying club to tell them that I wasn't bringing the aircraft back that night. About 1/2 hour later, my instructor called me. The first thing she said to me was "Why didn't you call your destination airfield for a weather report?"

FFF
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[OCEAN WUN ZERO]

FFF

You sound like a competent sord of chap and it is not folk with your attitude that are causing probs.

The issue hear is that after giving the UNNOFFICIAL ob and indicating that no forecast is available some insist on asking if in our oppinion the Wx will improve etc etc

If you look at the posts on ATC and the legal system and remember that all tel calls are recorded the worry is that is if the wrong words are exchanged out of courtesy we end up in front of the Wig.

AAK10

[vintage ATCO]

Giving an unofficial observation is not a problem, just ensure you annouce it as unofficial. NEVER get into a discussion about what you think the weather may do, just give the TAF or nearest TAF. ATCOs were specifically instructed not to do this.