Talk To A Forecaster ONLY £17 per call !

[noblues]

I got a 'spam' email from themetoffice web site trying to promote their 'Talk To A Forecaster' service.
Its absurb they are charging £17 per call for this ..... Is ANYONE going to pay that ??

The last time I flew in the USA this service was totally FREE, it was even a TOLL FREE NUMBER .....

I have to seriously question the level of met service we recieve in the UK ..... I obtain Bracknell extended day synopics via US sites becuase I would have to pay for them via the metoffice.
Although things have certainly got better in the last few years and even the free metoffice web based service is useful I do feel we are lagging well behind the US in terms of state funded information for pilots ...



Talk to a Forecaster - Call **********
For those occasions when you need more detailed information for the UK and near continent, why not talk directly to a weather forecaster? There is a per-call charge of £17 - paid by debit or credit card - with preferential rates available for frequent customers.

Plan your flying time more effectively
Talk through your flight plan
Get more detailed information on specific weather events

[Flyin'Dutch']

Dream on!

It is a different world out there.

In the US you pay less for petrol/avgas/landingfees etc.

I think that with the changes over the last few years and the advent of AvBrief things have moved an awful lot in the right direction.

If you want the services you require for free you will have to move Stateside.

FD

[Monocock]

Couldn't agree more but at least they are warning you how much it will cost therefore giving the consumer the choice. Some of these numbers cost nearly that much without prior warning.

Playing devils advocate, if I was stuck and I wanted accurate weather and important business depended on a go/no go decision I might well pay it for accurate information. I would not however use this service to go for a £150 bacon sandwich.

[dublinpilot]

I believe that these is another "talk to a forecaster" service in the UK (Is it AV-Brief?) which charge a per minute charge.

I use the one here all the time, which has a per minute charge of something like Euro 1.75 per minute, and I think it's great.

As for this being free in the USA, remember nothing is free. Everything has to be paid for somewhere, by somebody, just not always directly by the person useing it. In the US this may be those finding themselves attending public schools, because their parents can't afford private schools, and those who find themselves sick, without medical insurance.

It all has to be paid for by someone.

Haveing said that, I think a per minute charge is far better, than a flat £17 which is a bit much, for a 3 minute call, to talk something over with a forecaster.

dp

[BEagle]

You can blame that old handbag-wielding hag for this bolleaux. 'Services must be self-funding and must not rely upon Central Govt. finance' Daft tart!

Just imagine the outcry if you had to pay £17 to find out whether the roads were going to be icy/foggy..... Paying for safety, pure and simple.

But, of course, if you pay, then you're a 'customer'. So you have customer rights - and if the weather-guessers get it as wrong as they often do, then you should be able to recover any consequential losses.

Shirley?

[MLS-12D]

if I was stuck and I wanted accurate weather ...Sadly, there is no guarantee that you'd receive an accurate forecast, or even an accurate current weather report, from this service (or any other meteorologist). :ouch:

[noblues]

I generally think that a Synoptic chart tells a thousand words .....

That combined with a selection of TAFS and METARS, sat rainfall pictures all of which are freely available on the web and anyone with a 'pilots understanding' of WX should be able to self brief.

It does amaze me how many pilots have no understanding of wx systems and launch off into approaching WX, often without even being bothered to check the TAF at destination, or who get a 'verbal actual' from the destination and assume its going to remain like that ......

[FlyingForFun]

I did use a pay-per-call weather forecast once. It was when I was doing Dawn to Dusk, and I needed good weather over a large area for a whole day. The forecast indicated that some good weather was on its way, but I couldn't tell which day out of two was going to be better.

I needed to arrange time off work, book the plane, organise a life-raft, arrange out-of-hours PPR and all those other things that need to be done before a Dawn to Dusk flight, so I called for an expert opinion on which day was most likely to give me the weather I needed. The forecaster I spoke to obtained exactly the same forecasts that I had just looked at on-line, and read them out to me. I told him I already had that information, but asked which day would, in his professional opinion, be better for my flight, and he wasn't able to give me an answer but again read the forecasts which I had already read myself. What a waste of money that was!

FFF
---------------

[IO540]

noblues

What website has satellite rainfall data?

I get radar weather data (clouds full of water, basically) from Avbrief.

The problem I do find is not lack of data for VFR self briefing. The area which is poorly covered is IFR. For example, icing level en-route and cloud tops. One can infer it from various bits of info e.g. GFS but it takes time.

[Chilli Monster]

IO540

I use Avbrief for VFR & IFR, and found no holes in the briefings for either. Are you using all the facilities they provide?

[BEagle]

You really do have to wonder at some forecasts. This is the one currently being pushed out on the Sky News site:

"Fog and ice will be a problem on the roads for a time today, and the fog may linger over some central parts, but most of England and Wales will turn out fine. The soggy south-east will remain rather dull, however, although the rain will tend to die away. Scotland and Ireland, on the other hand, will turn wet and windy."

Fog and ice?? They're forecasting ice in July?? I've heard some bolleaux from weather-guessers, but this has got to be the best yet!

[TonyR]

If the weather is so unpredictable that I need to speak to a forcaster then I would not fly (for fun anyway). Most of us after a few years should be able to make a decision from the charts and taffs.

To me the decision is simple, if it is not a matter of life or death that I fly, then I will not make it one.

Tony

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Most of us after a few years should be able to make a decision from the charts and taffs. Today was interesting. The charts and taffs and metars all indicated that I might or might not be able to carry out the planned trip, as did the instructor who signed me off at the club. Not too much of a clue there then. I decided to fly.

I found a mixture of high vis, low vis dropping to very low in showers, able to wander along at 3000', trying to creep under rather lower clouds, sunshine, black clouds. All, I guess, predictable from the forecast, so no complaints.

In fact I was able to complete the trip, but not via the planned route. Round Colchester way the scattered clound beneath me was becoming more and more solid, so with no instrument qualifications I turned round to look for another saner (and more legal) route to the destination ... and as I did so noticed a few miles away a radio mast sticking out of the top of the cloud layer beneath me! - not seen anything like that before. I think this was my first real-life attempt to re-plan a diversion in flight ... I did make it to the destination, eventually ... without calling 121.5 for a "practice pan" ... and just as I had worked out exactly where I was and exactly how to get to the destination the intermittant radio navaids, which had been dead so far, started working again.

And finally drove home to blue skies and brilliant sunshine.

[noblues]

IO540 :

What website has satellite rainfall data?

At http://www.metoffice.com/aviation/

Register - its free and select 'rainfall radar'
Its every hour delayed by about 20 minutes, plus you can play an hourly animation ..... Great if their are CB's about or an approching front .....Its addictive even when I am not flying !

Also from above site - All the usual TAFs/METARS , 214s/215's, a useful 48 hour animated colour synoptic etc ...

Another very good site I also use is : (no registration)

http://www.phd.nl/aviation/wx/

For TAF's/METARS and some great synoptics (try the USAF colour synoptics for N Europe, these also show cloud cover and perciptiation).

[IO540]

Ah yes that's RADAR rain data, not satellite rain data. I was puzzled how they got satellite rain data :O

I get the weather radar pics via Avbrief already.

The weather radar is priceless if you are stuck somewhere, are ready to jump in the plane and go back home, and you can just watch the storms move along.

[englishal]

The thing I like about 1800WXBrief is the fact that they also diseminate Notams, and other such pertinent info. I'd pay £17 for a service as good as the US one....but not to simply talk to a forecaster (for that I check my sea weed ;) ).

Can you get Pireps in the UK? (such as cloud tops, turbulence etc.?). Its often useful to get such info when doing the pre-flight planning.........

EA

[TonyR]

Student-Pilot-UK, I feel like giving people like you a good F.....g Off!!!

I wonder what all that TAX on fuel does for us??

I used about 12,000 liters of the stuff in the last year, some was duty free but most was at full wack.

Now I recon the duty & VAT was well over £6,000 so how much more do you want me to pay for my weather.

So go away until you know what you are talking about.

Tony R

[dublinpilot]

Student-Pilot-UK, I feel like giving people like you a good F.....g Off!!!

So go away until you know what you are talking about.


Tonyr,

I disagree with your comments, but I respect your right to have different opinions to mine. But before I explain why I diagree, I must say that I find your above comments, abusive and unfair.

Just because the poster was a student pilot and probably has less experience than you, and happens to hold a different opinion than you, does not mean that they are any less valid than yours. Furthermore, it does not give you any right to make your above comments.

In particular, you have no right to tell someone to go away, simply because you don't agree with their opinion. PPrune is not your private network, and you have no right to tell someone here to go away. Student_Pilot_UK has everyright to be here, as do you.

When posting, you would do well to bear in mind Danny's comments at the top of this forum.

Student_Pilot_Uk, I hope you don't listen to the "go away" comments, and that you stick around. This place is usually much friendlier.

Tony, as to the point of this thread, this is why I disagree with your opinion (while I respect your right to hold it.)

Is all your flying private? If some of it is commerical, they whey shouldn't you pay for the services you use to help you earn an income?

In anycase, paying duty on fuel doesn't give you a a right to an individual forecast. We all pay a lot of duty on our motor fuel, much more than is annually paid on av-gas, yet that doesn't entitle any motorist to speak to a forecaster for free.

We can all get free weather forecasts (aviation specific), so why shouldn't you pay more if you need it personalised?

Duel on fuel, is not designed to fund developments in that sector. Does motor taxes all go back into motoring? It's simply a way of government collecting in funds.

To put it simply, government collect in a certain amount of funds, and they pay out a certain amount. If they want to provide more services, such as free personalised weather forecasts for aviators, then they must either raise more taxes, or cut other services.

They could raise everyones taxes slightly, for the purpose of giving you and me a free individualised forecast, but why should my neighbour, who can't afford to go flying, have to pay for my forecasts? Particularly when I have non-individualised ones freely available already?

Of course they could cut other services instead, and re-allocate the funding, but again, how would you feel when your father/mother/son/daughter is on a hospital waiting list when you are flying, simply because funding was re-allocated from health to fund individualised forecasts for pilots?

I'm privilaged enough to be able to afford, what is a very expensive hobby. I don't expect anyone else to pay additional taxes, or suffer reduced services so that I can get the benefits of an individual forecast. I'm quite prepared to pay for my own hobby.

I also suspect the met-office service would be abused, by people not bothering to use the current services, if it was free to speak to a forecaster, and thus a charge is necessarry. Not the level of charge is another issue altogether, and I do agree £17 flat fee is a bit much.

While I respect your reasons for holding a different opinion to me, you should also respect my reasons (and Student_Pilot_UK's) for holding a different opinion; they are no less valid than yours.

Regards,
dp

[TonyR]

Ok so I was a bit hard on S P UK,

Why do so many pilots just accept the costs we have, and think that GA gives nothing in return.

We who fly do pay tax, duty and VAT and yes we do have a right to some free service.

I don't mind the Irish Met charging for the phone call which usually just lasts a few minutes and costs 3 or 4 euro.

I just don't like this attitude that "sure flying is expensive, what do you expect"

I expect pilots to fight all unnecessary charges and not to take them as just part of the sport.

Tony

[IO540]

I agree that saying that flying is expensive and one should just pay, etc, is not helpful, but the reality is that in the UK

1. private pilots (especially those that regularly fly in "weather") are a miniscule group,

2. having fun is Not Being Properly British,

3. the GA business has, for the most part, been scraping out the bottom of the barrel for years

4. G Brown couldn't care less about GA

However this doesn't stop some people pulling a fast one and charging £17 for a weather forecast is way OTT. For purely VFR flying there is quite a choice of weather websites that are free.

Perhaps the service is aimed at somebody else?