Mobile phone weather alerting facility?

[EESDL]

there must be a facility to set threshold criteria such as minimum Visibility, BCN Cloudbase etc with the aim that an alert is sent to your mobile?
The bank is able to tell me when I'm overdrawn but have yet to find an aviation-related weather site that can tell me when a certain METAR reaches certain limits.................
would appreciate any pointers

[scooter boy]

tried it at Plymouth last winter - fecking phone never stopped ringing ;-)

SB

[LH2]

No market, and relatively speaking quite a bit of hassle to sort out payment, as it's the service provider initiating the call.

Also, I'm not entirely clear on what exactly would be the use for it?

[IO540]

One could do an awful lot by SMS (including weather radar images) and I know various people have looked into this, but as LH2 says one needs to set up an account prepayment system, and the market is probably very small.

One can already get TAFs etc by SMS. Not sure how it's funded - perhaps the ougoing (request) SMS is to a premium rate number which then funds the return message?

Remember that a WAP facility for weather is free.

[Fright Level]

What good would hard limits be? You'd either be above them, below them or spot on them. As pilot's we interpret the weather surely. If the vis is low with low cloudbase and it's an early autumn morning with light winds and high pressure, I'm pretty sure it will be flyable by the time I get to the airfield. If it's a 5th November evening, I know for certain that it will worsen with smoke added to the equation too :O

If a METAR said low vis in heavy rain and gusty winds yet the TAF said BCMG CAVOK in the next hour, again, you can make a decision that a front is going through. Too many variables for a simple SMS task.

[S-Works]

These threads never cease to amaze me. There seems to be an obsession by light private flyers to fill the cockpit with as much clutter as humanly possible in the name of more information. If the weather is that bad that you need constant weather updates in a light aircraft then you should have gone commercial in my opinion. Single Pilot IFR is one of the most demanding tasks in aviation. Adding to it by taking tablet PC's satelite phones, mobile phones for SMS weather is just distracting from the primary task of flying the damn airplane.

I have yet to have a problem with just asking air traffic to give me the latest weather for my destination and alternate. I have always been under the impression it is all part of the excellent service they provide. Although I guess those that see air traffic as the 'enemy' might have a different view to me.

[EESDL]

Hi.
T'was a simple question - not intended for 3rd-party interpretation.

No - would have been simple answer!

As a corporate/commercial helicopter pilot who rarely has the luxury of using runways - I can think of numerous occasions where a discreet text advising me of a change of state or when actual cloudbase at a suitable IFR diversion/location has reached a certain figure could prove useful.

I have found in corporate aviation that if someone with the means foresees a requirement for such a facility then 'supply/demand' is not an issue.

Thanks to those with input so far - I note that US has a vaguely similiar facility for CONUS flights.

[IO540]

You can achieve a regularly updated METAR is various ways. Any 'modern' mobile phone with a large-ish LCD screen can display METARs, and there are websites such as this one (http://www.avbrief.com/pda/opmet.html) which can present these in a compact enough form. The cost of the data is probably only the minimum billing unit i.e. 10k bytes or something like that, which is peanuts even if you are roaming.

Higher up the market, there are PDAs which combine GPRS/3G with normal PDA and web browser functionality and these provide an even better user interface for aviation weather.

In fact the world of phones and the world of PDAs is gradually converging.

I have 'developed' a simple system that can do this airborne, using a satellite phone. I have PMd you the details. Nowadays, this is quite cheap. The problem which plagues sat comms is poor reliability, but it sure works well enough to pick diversions a very long time before one gets anywhere near the destination.

One could implement exactly what you want. One would need a server which regularly grabs the METAR(s), which has a GSM modem attached to it, and which transmits an SMS message if the METAR meets certain conditions. Tricky software but probably feasible. You would have to prepay the account somehow because SMS cannot be done for free, in Europe. I think the market would be very small, because getting this stuff over GPRS/3G is so easy.

[scooter boy]

"As a corporate/commercial helicopter pilot who rarely has the luxury of using runways"

EESDL, I also often land off piste and find a pre-departure phone call particularly at this time of year to be invaluable.

The old couple whose backgarden I use near Torbay tell me whether they can see the Barton aerials from their back window - if they can then I can get in! (500ft and 1 mile.) I don't think they're text friendly though!

SB

[helicopter-redeye]

I use a wide screen HP iPaq with GPRS and look at the METAR and TAF on this. Big enough to see, Small enough to hold and slip back in a flying jacket pocker when read, and easy refresh on the touch screen or thumb mouse.

As noted, no additional cost as its part of the Vodafone package.

For everything else, there's VOLMET .... :p

h-r;)

[scooter boy]

Can you use it when you're flying though redeye?;)

SB

[helicopter-redeye]

what? my thumb? ;)

Its small enough to use but big enough to see (iPaq). Generally I dont need to check METARS that often but sometimes in poor weather one is watching the situation carefully if a front is passing through the route, or the field is close to minima, and there is some 'commercial pressure' to make sure said 206 is back at base for the next day.