Dear Sprite,Can I suggest that you tone done your rhetoric a little. As you are someone who has pronounced yourself to "know a hell of a lot about air regulations", it would be a lot more useful to the mere mortals contributing to this thread if you provided us with reference to the actual chapter and verse where your vast knowledge is founded. As to your questioning whether we have the ability to even pass the exams and obtain an ATPL, on my account that is affirmative. I have 7 different ATPL's from as many countries and they were all obtained on first go. I can further tell you that Australia is the only of those countries where I can even file an IFR flight plan without a nominated alternate, REGARDLESS OF FORECAST WEATHER CONDITIONS, so it is pretty clear to me that Australia has a variation to the recommendations stipulated in the relevant ICAO Annex. So please no more Mr. Smartypants, just give
me a reference to the relevant Australian air regulation where it is stipulated as incumbent on me as a pilot to obtain an updated Weather Forecast after dispatch, if such a forecast gets issued during the validity period of the one I already obtained as part of my preflight briefing. And to re-iterate, this discussion is NOT about "I reckon it makes sense to do x, so I reckon that all other pilots that don't do x are morons". It is about whether there is a LEGAL requirement for us as pilots to obtain updated forecasts during flight and to file an amendment to our original flight plan if our destination is subject to an amenment that introduces a requirement for an Alternate. There are clearly some differing opinions on this matter, so cut us some slack will ya'?