PVT airfield TAF

[nomorecatering]

According to the AIP the Met people can provide you a TAF for just about anywhere, such as you private airfield. For a fee.

Cant find what that fee is, does anyone know?

How much would it cost to get a 24/7 365 days a year TAF service. Ive heared 100 grand plus mentioned.

[ForkTailedDrKiller]

Nah, it ends up costing nothing cause they refund 1/365th of the fee for every day they get it wrong! :ok:

[Shagpile]

Cool so you'd make $273 in a leap year!

[27/09]

Why would you bother unless you had an instrument approach there and even then it probably doesn't make sense?

[catseye]

No more catering.

Cost now has to include provision of an Automated Weather station both for the forecasters but it is also used to QA the TAF produce. This process has resulted in the adjustment of some forecasters as the AWS provided a reality check on their forecasting.

Most accurate was when an observer was on the ground inputting the obs every half an hour. some regionals took up on this at aerodromes with a high diversion rate due to Wx.

Cost for an AWS was 45000 for an easy site but more at comms limited sites vis no mobile phone coverage. You may get a taf for a medivac or sar op but
it will be conservative.

27/09
In some instances if the TAF is forecast below landing minima eg 100M in fog some people won't even start an engine at the departure aerodrome. Holding at the gate is cheaper.

There was a review running that aligned, in NSW, where fuel TAF and lit aerodrome lined up industry agreed to pay. Eg Forbes lost the TAF but Parkes kept it. Some TAF's were also converted to 24 hour as an underlying net for night EMS ops. Can't remember the rest.

Same logic was applied to keeping navaids where an underlying structure remained as altn to GPS approaches. Eg loose the Bathurst NDB but keep Orange NDB as Jet A was available. Eventually ASA hijacked it to suite their own needs and the discussion turned into a WOFTAM.

:rolleyes:

Catseye

[ContactMeNow]

TAF is around $65k a year. You will need to provide the BoM the relevant WX information. This is done through a BoM approved weather station. This weather station setup normally costs $150-350k.

METAR service is around $3k a year if you have the TAF service.

Great system the BoM have. You pay for the equipment and phone line to send them the raw data; they receive it, interpret it, use it free of charge for their weather modelling and then charge you a small fortune to get the information back. Plus you need to maintain the equipment yourself and report to them if there are any faults. If there are faults and you fail to report them, then you are liable for a fine.

CMN