New Met Office Aviation Access

[robin]

I think Grant Schapps has another job since his demotion

[fireflybob]

I think Grant Schapps has another job since his demotion

Am always a bit behind on political appointments - much of a muchness

[Maoraigh1]

"Nearest" seems to work on your GPS location, not the airport you have most recently chosen. No GPS location - no "nearest" result. My device GPS is normally off to conserve the battery.

[Captain Jock]

Point taken Maoraigh1 but I was within 15nm of Edinburgh at the time!

[Manc]

Looking up the METAR for Edinburgh the first choices offered for "nearby" are Inverness, Kinloss and Lossiemouth.

At least they exist! Anyone fancy a trip to Woodford?

[TheEnthusiast]

Yeah I'm thinking that the location summaries are pretty nice...if they could replace the useless 'Nearby Locations'/'Recent locations' with some ability for me to configure my own lists of locations this would be a helpful improvement over the old system...BUT only if they can show TAFs in a similar way too.

(And yes I realise you can't express a TAF in exactly the same format as it could have any number of TEMPO / BECMG parts to it. They could show it in its raw encoded form or to show decoded they could extend the box with extra decoded lines for each TEMPO / BECMG bit).

And we need it to look nice when printed out.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it"....well true but there's nothing wrong with adding new features that are helpful...that's a good thing...I think the problem is they've also thrown away features we need!!

[Gertrude the Wombat]

there's nothing wrong with adding new features that are helpful

Have they added any new features?

I looked for the old features, that I need in order to make safe decisions, and couldn't find them, and didn't look any further.

[ericferret]

Met office: looks like another internet scam to me

Perhaps I wasn't on my guard, since you don't expect the Met Office would try and con you: when I obediently signed up for the new service I was unaware that it's month's free trial of a premium service. Surely that's not allowed?

AND it's unusable as far as I am concerned. Can't find a working link to TAFs and METARS ("aerodrome Speific Forecasts" looks like METARs but it doesn't work), let alone the TAFs and METARs by region, which I use all the time.

I complained, a week ago, but no reply.

Hot tip: don't delete the old address from your Favourites, it still seems to be working.

[Captain Jock]

Good advice ericferret. I will be continuing to use the "old" format as long as possible.

[robin]

Just seen the changed header on the Met Office Briefing site

Please note: This product has now changed and we have launched a new mobile accessible GA briefing service.

YOU CAN CONTINUE TO USE THIS PRODUCT AND IT WILL BE SUPPORTED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

Well that's a start

[VictorGolf]

Like you "ferret" I use the area list of METARS and TAFS for my planning and can't find them on the new service. I therefore used their comments link to complain but unlike you got a very speedy response (55 minutes) to say the Aviation managers are reviewing my comments along with all the others so there may be some hope.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

got a very speedy response (55 minutes) to say the Aviation managers are reviewing my comments along with all the others

I got something similar, on a Sunday.


It also seemed to say that many other people had made the same points as me.

[Captain Jock]

Still not enamoured of the new site but I have overcome some computer problems and it is not quite as bad as I first thought. Prefer the "old" one.

[piperboy84]

I used to subscribe to the MET GA but don't bother now, For VFR flights in the UK I use OGIMET for simplicity see example of a flight from Aberdeen to Newcastle at 3000

Display GRAMET

or newcastle to Inverness at 5k

http://www.ogimet.com/display_gramet...&submit=submit

[Maoraigh1]

F215 0200 - 1100 is available updated on the old site, but not on the new one, which also lacks the small map with the next prognosis. Looking at EGPI metar, the new product has in red, below it, the message that the TAF has failed to load, and to refresh your browser. The old product TAFs has "no TAF available", which is much more helpful.
Situation at 20.25 local on 14/07/2015.

[Broadlands]

I have just had a reply from the Met Ofgicer to say TAFs and METAR bulletins will be added back.

"We are planning on adding this functionality back into the new product in light of the feedback, and you can expect to see this in October"

A good result from all the complaints they must have had.

[robin]

I hope they don't think that will fix all the issues

So much wrong with that site........

[Maoraigh1]

I can get Lossiemouth Metars and Tafs on the old site, but they are not now available on the new site. I think they were originally.

[Maoraigh1]

The old site is to be removed at the New Year. I tried entering all my local airports, (whose METARs and TAFs I glance at to check after F215,) into the new product. I think only a max of 5 came up under the "Recent" button.
The new product seemed clunky and liable to go back too far for easy use.

[Maoraigh1]

On Oct 20 at 09:34 I was emailed:
"New GA features launched today.Thank you for subscribing to our new General Aviation Briefing Service. We hope that you are enjoying using this new mobile and tablet friendly product.
We wanted to let you know about some of the latest content and feature updates released today:
TAFs and METARs bulletins – regional listings and function to print."


I still haven’t found them. Has anyone found them on the new site?