South Africa - wind reporting.

[Otterman]

I have a question in regards to the wind reporting in South Africa. I have been told that for some reason the tower in Cape Town provides a wind readout in True degrees this is not the ICAO procedure and with a variation of 30W is essential to know if you are flying in and out of that airport.

The ATIS wind is magnetic, as it should be. The question is; Is true wind the normal way of reporting the wind direction at all tower facilities in South Africa?

Thanks for any useful answers given.
Regards, O.

[smirnovoleg85]

I don't know about Cape Town,but in George,where I did my training,the Tower used to give true wind direction and ATIS wind was true aswell...We had this discussion once during MET lecture for com and our ground school Instructor actually called TWR to confirm that the wind provided on take off and landing was true,the controller said it was magnetic,but we found out later that they were actually using W/V from METARs,which is true,as you know ,so it looks like a lack of education or simple misunderstanding ,but thanks God always worked out right for me,even when I had to land in 20 G 25 kts crosswind coming from solo nav :E

[Propellerpilot]

Tower should always give magnetic, as well as ATIS - true bearing does not make sense in terms of safety standards - if the wind suddenly changes direction on short final, it would be better for interpretation, when everything corresponds to the aircrafts instruments. Especially if variation is high. As far as I remember flying from Cape Town, Towers wind is magnetic.

Metar is True.

[smirnovoleg85]

Tower should doesn't mean it does :) My post is 100% true...I had checked many times METARs and compared it to ATIS,it was the same,but it was half a year ago,I had a discussion with ATC controllers about it,so I guess they've changed it now...I know that it doesn't make sense and it can even be dangerous,but...Maybe in other areas they have the same problems,I don't know.

[verreaux eagle]

:ugh:People you have it wrong! Wind on ATIS and given by tower to an aircraft is magnetic! Where there is zero variation it might be the same as True, however this is not the case in South Africa. Wind on TAF is magnetic and Metar is true.
Where is the ATC's from FACT and FAGG? What do you guys do?

[EladElap]

Printed METARS are always in true degrees, but are converted to magnetic whenever they are spoken on the air to pilots, whether it be via ATIS or directly from ATC.

The same is also true of a TAF, always in true.

[Hot Shots]

I have never heard ANY tower or ATIS give wind in deg true. Cape Town and George gives the wind in magnetic. They don't read it from a METAR either, they get it from the actual wind direction and speed measured at that moment. If they read it from the metar, they will tell you.

[olirindis]

Whatever you read is TRUE, whatever is spoken or heard is MAGNETIC....

[Goldfish Jack]

I just read the wind off the anemometer and it is converted, so what u get is the magnetic wind.

And of course it is not unusual for the wind to fluctuate up to 30deg in direction when the south easter is blowing because of the mountains around the airport.

olirindis is right -