Once again, the government should not be responsible for every whim and wish. Let the government concentrate on things like defense, roads, education etc.

This problem (weather cams) could best and easily be resolved by the relevant community (aviators). The infrastructure (internet network of weather cams) is already in place.

You obviously think strongly about it, why don't you contribute directly to pay for it?

Peter.
I already have and do. It's called taxes.

I am aways surprised that you miss the point about Dick's comments. As a businessman (and leader) his job is a) to get you to think about new ideas and b) to TEST and get you to prove why his ideas are wrong.

In this case it is hard to argue against what he says. Why not get CASA (the only body we answer to) to assemble a list of all the cameras (there are hundreds) and / or fill in the gaps and install a few. Sure, it might not be their role now, but things change. For example, CASA used to be quite ok, now they are not !

I fly helis, and always check the cameras that I know of out of Sydney (in addition to the other sources) like Scenic World and Bathurst Flying School, if I am flying west...it makes sense and you would be stupid not to. The aviation weather is not always right...but a picture tells a thousand words.

Cheers,
Arrrj

CASA has a budget to travel around Australia and talk to a tiny percentage of pilots.

This is to help improve safety.

Why not spend a bit of this on a proper formal camera network. May save more lives.

Had a guy from BOM in the jump seat today. Said that BOM intend installing cams at every airport where a TAF is issued. He did not mention when this will start, only that it will happen.

Typical. Here's the hated, despised regulator getting out and about and you're ripping in to them!

Glad he didn't have one...

I don't think "the hated, despised regulator" is accurate.

"Expensive joke" might be more accurate.

Online Camera access good idea. Better idea, urge BOM that a wxrad installed around Cobar would fill a very obvious hole in coverage between the Gundi and Mildura radars.

I dont see pilots being allowed to access or use any of the cameras mounted on the aircraft, so how would they use cameras located around an airport?
Given the randomness and internet access around AUS, how reliable would the cams be anyways. When there is an outage, who is responsible? As soon as they put them up, they are responsible for them.

For winds, aircraft around the world use an anemometer at 10m, that is it. So, I cannot see a pilot using weather cams in flight planning, even the meteos who stare at this stuff 24/7 get it wrong...

underfire, these sorts of webcams (Actually IP Cameras are what we're talking about in this scenario, but I'll just be using the term Webcam here) are actually very low bandwidth, generally updating only every few seconds and don't need to be high quality either, heck, having them update once every 15-30 seconds is more than adequate, the size of the image only needs to be about 150-200kb so uploading one of those every 15-30seconds requires a very tiny amount of bandwidth. Generally costing between $100 to $200 for an all inclusive IP Camera that is ready to be hooked up to a network, looked after by whomever looks after the Airport but they don't require a lot of maintenance, generally the most required is a reboot once in a while and replacement is of course relatively cheap, just need to replace the actual unit.

You can also buy some pretty good set ups for more like $1700 but these are fully controllable (Pan, Tilt, Zoom), have Wifi and 3g built in along with a Solar Panel and Internal Battery to run it as well. Of course these would be idea as they'd require very little effort to get up and running in terms of on-site installation.

Some quick numbers, say you take an image every 30 seconds, about 150kb each, running from Sunrise to Sunset that would amount to usage of about 230mb a day or about 7gb a month, which is not a great deal so cost of Bandwidth per year would be very limited, perhaps $40-50 a month?

I lived in Vanuatu for a few years and they had some great webcams setup on a hill over looking Port Vila which were absolutely brilliant (Sometimes even essential) to get an idea of what the weather is actually doing and I know a great deal of GA Pilots would use them around Australia if given the ability, especially with access to them inflight through various devices readily available now.

I also don't see what you're point is about Pilots not being allowed to acces or use cameras mounted on Aircraft? What exactly are you talking about with this point?

The BoM already have a fair few cams out there and it makes sense they stick 'em in airports as they are one of their biggest customers. Augmenting forecasts with Visual Weather information is a natural progression. No doubt like their existing cams these would also need to be of hi-res to be of any meaningful use to their meteorologists.

:ok:

Around here, at the top of the world with a tough climate and "land of ice and snow", as the song says, the airport based cameras are a life saver given the difficult forecasting conditions and remote locations with few, if any, weather observations. All we need is some system to dig them out from under snow drifts!

give CASA some slack. The problem for CASA is that once they agree to do this, then the cameras become an official, even if purely advisory, device. That means they have to be attended to, budgeted for and managed across the nation because people will become used to using them and will scream blue murder if they are then unserviceable. You are in effect adding a non voluntary function to government.

to put that another way, it's all right if joe blow sticks a camera on a pole and publishes the URL, nobody cares if it breaks, CASA is not joe blow. once they do it, they are responsible for it.

Oh well, if it is all too hard to do your job, then we should allow the poor folk at CASA to have a rest.
For heavens sake, that can't be an excuse, that it is too hard for them as it gets complicated.

One of the issues is around consumer grade versus commercial grade equipment. We might just buy a camera from Jaycar or the Internet, put it inside a window and point it out. CASA, to do it properly would need to find a suitable 24x7 all weather unit, one with 3G/4G capability, weather-proof it, mount it on a pole, determine best direction, arrange a contractor to mount pole, arrange a suitable location on the realestate, power the unit be it solar or otherwise, then maintain it by cleaning the glass, updating the firmware, etc etc. Then there's the contract for the 3G/4G connection. If you ran up a tender for say 80-100 of these, it would be a fairly significant spend for installation and maintenance.

Absolutely we would love to have these available but also need to understand the cost implications and that these things take time once initiated and I don't think we are even at that point yet.

Squawk7700, as I posted before, it's not terribly expensive, you can buy ready to go units that are weather proof, have tilt/rotate control so they can be aimed in multiple directions, solar powered, 3G and wifi built in for about $1700, if you consider that each site should really have a back up that would be equipment at $3400 each. Worked it out at about 7gb of Data a month required, so say a $50 Plan, another $600 a year and allow for at least 5 years of operation, so another $3000, add no more than $600 for sundry installation costs (It's a Pole in some cement, not exactly rocket science) which seems fair considering some sites will be very straight forward and others will require a little more work and you're looking at about $7000 for each site.

It shouldn't be too difficult to get someone to pony up a million dollars for a project like this (Hell, in my local area they just built a 75m bike over pass for $10 million just so they could avoid waiting at a set of traffic lights!!), this would allow for about 100-140 sites to be fully funded depending on some admin costs. Doesn't seem terribly unreasonable to me.

I was recently out in WA, weather forecast when I got up was showing CAVOK for the day, "Great!" I thought, let's go get some work done.... ooops, someone didn't forecast the heavy fog that had settled in and lasted for about 2-3hrs, a weather cam could have saved a few people a lot of hassle that day.

Heck, CASA have spent how much money on a fancy website in the last few years? Least they could do is actually make it useful and have someone post up some links to Webcams that could help us all.

Those costs are more realistic and not the fanciful $60 webcam comments suggested. Add a feasibility study, project management, RFQ's, tenders and it might blow out a bit :-)

.....and don't forget the indemnity and insurance. It's not a trivial exercise once it's public money you are spending, there is always the possibility that the auditor general may take a look, all the paperwork has to be there, you can't just wander down to JB hifi, there are protocols to be followed. squawk is right, it's not a trivial exercise

If AWIS can be implemented, with adequate attention to the various requirements of gov implementing an aviation weather tool used by pilots, then surely Weather Webcams can be as well.
It seems to me to be the difference between looking for reasons not to do something vs looking for ways to achieve something.

AWIS is usually owned and maintained by the airport in most cases. I highly doubt CASA have anything to do with a single AWIS