DFC - No, there's no money saving here, we send out the warnings by fax to the relevant agencies according to our distribution list, as soon as we receive them.
We then put it on the ATIS, after all it is there for the purpose of disseminating information. We are required to inform pilots of all relevant information pertaining to the airport including wx warnings which are issued by the met office. By putting this on the ATIS, pilots are informed of the warnings which are in force at the present time. Filling in all the blanks eg windspeed or depth of snow would only serve to elongate the ATIS transmission to such a point that you lot would accuse us of putting out messages which were too long to be dealing with on your undoubtedly very busy
flight decks.
Mike Rosewhich - On the subject of Windshear/Turbulence, I've found at the three units I've worked at , that many pilots haven't got the first damn clue how to differentiate between the two.
Fool's Hole - other than your briefing before you depart to come to Bristol, where else do you receive your met info from? Since the conditions are constantly changing up on the hill, during that little hour it takes you to get from Glasgow or Edinburgh or wherever you're coming from, we could be reporting something completely different than you were expecting. Now, since the CAA has a little bee in their bonnets about keeping the poor ickle lambs in the flying smartie tubes informed of the constantly changing met conditions, then that is what we must do. Now, I'm sure that the BIA management would be only too glad to save money rather than having to buy and maintain expensive ATIS equipment, but then that would mean us ATCO's would have to read out the wx to every Tom, Dick and Fool's Hole who came on frequency, and you would be up in arms that you couldn't get a word in edgeways and how bad the service was at BRS and how the ATCO didn't give you traffic info or avoiding action against that one that just missed you cos he was busy giving out the wx on the R/T to the horrible Ezy/Brt/Bee etc who was number 4 in the sequence.
As for being CATIII, not every a/c or pilot using BRS can land in CATIII conditions, so that warning lets those particular pilots know that they may have to hold or divert. Don't be so hard on those so obviously less fortunate than yourselves. Oh yes, and 09 isn't CATIII so if there's a strong 09 wind,It'll make no difference whether you can fly CATIII or not. Incidentally, I seem to remember in my days at Belfast City that one of the airlines did not let many FO's land or depart with a tailwind of even 1 knot. Thereby increasing the buggeration factor for us as we then had to play "runway roulette" in order to accomodate everyone. So it's not just ATC that has it's odd little rules!
Look guys, as I said on another "Let's all attack the ATC team at BRS" thread the other day, we can only work with what we're given. We work within a set of rules laid down by the CAA and refined by our local unit instructions. If you don't like that answer, then you have two options:-
1 - You can make a written complaint about it to the CAA either yourself or through your higher management.
2 - Bitch about it on Pprune and nothing will get done save for annoying the ATC team at BRS.
There really is nothing worse that pilots who whine but aren't prepared to put pen to paper to express their concerns to the proper authority.
Clear as mud? Good.