New Met Office Aviation Access
 

When I went to my Aviation Met link this afternoon, I was asked to sign-in to a new service. The old service will be discontinued in October. Will the free information remain free? I was warned my subscription would expire in July and encouraged to sign-up for premium services.
I'm not sure the new metar and taf system is more user-friendly for getting a quick picture of the area weather.

Like you I signed up to the new system today.
When you sign up you get a months free trial of the subscription services, I had a quick look around the new website and my initial reaction was that it not as functional as the old. I basically want the F214/215 and TAFs and METARS for a variety of stations around the UK and near europe forecast surface charts and current surface analysis Anything else Tfi grams sat pics and rainfall radar I can get free from other sites. I really don't see why I have to pay again for something I pay for with my taxes.

A complete redesign of the Met Office GA briefing service has been long overdue. It seems unclear what will be provided free of charge as standard and what is provided as part of the subscription, hopefully the same services will continue to be free - but I quite like some of the new features, sunrise/sunset times, regional QNH, airfield elevation, etc.

ABZ777: If you study the new site there is a clear table showing what will continue as free service and what is provided in Premium service.

For me far too much clicking on multiple links:

I've already paid for a very good service for the last 20 years and this new Met site doesn't encourage me to change anytime soon.

Cusco

There is also the sharing of the information you provide for marketing purposes. The "opt-out" link opens an email address, with blank email. I've refused permission to share my information for marketing purposes.
I couldn't find the "clear table" Cusco refers to, but the FAQ does say the previously free services will remain free.

yet another website screwing about to make "mobile access better". Why are they all doing this? Even Pprune keeps defaulting to a mobile friendly format when accessed from my Android devices meaning I have to scroll down to the foot of the page to hit the button to reset it to normal. It's pants. There has never been more phones and tablets in circulation which can do a good job of accessing normal websites and suddenly everyone wants to have a special format for phones. Usually they reduce the content and miss off something vital. A car dealership I went to recently failed to have it's address on the mobile friendly site!!!

I would prefer that the same site appears on my mobile devices as on my desktop machine, one where I know how to navigate quickly and easily to the stuff I want to see, one that looks the way I know and love, familiar and comfortable.

If it aint broke don't screw around with it, please.

Rans6......

The new Met Ofice website is just diabolical and IMHO virtually unusable. Information is scattered all over the place and most importantly you can no longer get full regional TAFS/METARS all listed on one page.:mad:
I have exchanged emails with the Met Offfice on this 'new site' fiasco but we all need to voice our thoughts in order to get it changed before the existing Met office site is dismantled in October.
Please register your thoughts and concerns by email to:- [email protected]
They say they will respond within 6hours.

I re-registered last night, using a new username and password. What I saw of the site last night, I echo previous comments here. Not anywhere near as user friendly as it was before with regard to a list of UK METARs and TAFs.

But no matter, because today the new password wont allow me in. I tried to use the old login....same problem, it won't let me log in..

I'll use alternative websites.

So, you run an organisation that has two mutually incompatible requirements:
1. you have to provide free access to the GA community to aviation weather data
2. you have to sell your services so that the organisation can stand on its own feet commercially.


What do you do? You do 1. because you have to do it, but you make it so useless that your customers will buy the premium service instead.


As you are an ex-civil service organisation you do not have the commercial smarts that you really need, and cannot see that this is actually a really stupid thing to do when there are alternative suppliers out there.

I haven't used the old service so don't know what went before, but with the exception of the area forecasts everything they offer is easily found on other sites for free, including up to date rainfall radar.

Two in particular are:

allmetsat



rain-alarm

Also tried it and sent my feedback to Met Office. They confirmed that, as of yet, there is no way to see all TAFs for a given region on screen at the same time on the new system, and therefore no easy way to print off a list of TAFs relevant to a flight. I would really miss this feature. :{

BUT Met Office did reply promptly and sounded like they understand this is a big problem and are working on things. Hopefully it will be fixed, but if other people also want this feature to be there then perhaps you could also send them some feedback? They do seem responsive :ok:

Looking on the bright side, they have obviously built a new system which allows per-user preferences to be stored. At the moment this is only noticeable in the 'Recent Locations' feature - not very helpful in itself. However if they could be persuaded to extend this to allow us to configure customised lists of airfields for common routes we each use then it would actually be really useful. Combined with the ability to show multiple TAFs on screen this would mean I could quickly see a page with all TAFs relevant to me; rather than having to see all of the TAFs over a much larger region than the one I'm flying in, like we currently do in the old system. If anyone else thinks that sounds good then maybe you could also tell them? :)

I wrote a considered response, telling them what I thought of the new format. I got a stock reply telling me that they'd reviewed it with some private pilots, who liked it. The inference was that not a lot would be changing.

They did say that there had been a number of comments about the lack of TAF and METAR tables.

I'll stick with my old habits - download 214/215 from there, get the rest from the sites on my iPad.

That could cover a multitude of sins! How experienced were these pilots? Did they ask any instructors or examiners?

Quite so.
Extra words to please the counter.

Snotogram sent to Met Office

I am reminded of the old maxim, if it aint broke don't fix it.

Further to my earlier comment about not being able to log in; this is now resolved (must have been a temporary glitch).

However, from a usage point of view, the lack of a listing of TAFs /METARs remains a major issue.

I note the comment about asking "private pilots" who liked the new format - all very well, but "private pilots" aren't the only users of the information and in general they tend to fly to just one destination.

However, if you need to fly from one end of the country to the other, on an ongoing daily basis, having to trawl to and fro through the website piecemeal, as one has to do now to find route information, is a major backward step.

It may be my lack of computer skills but this site is a nightmare. Looking up the METAR for Edinburgh the first choices offered for "nearby" are Inverness, Kinloss and Lossiemouth. A geography lesson for someone?

"If it isn't broken don't fix it " Met Office please note


Went through the rigmarole of logging onto this new site today as prompted , well happy with the old site , the new one is far to confusing and time consuming..... absolutely no need for a change :ugh:

Maybe we need to may representations at a higher level to get the met office to go back to the old platform which is far better.

I believe it is Grants Schapps (Chairman of the Tory Party) who has been tasked to make "bureaucracy" better for general aviation.