Volmet
 

Quick question for those flying around in Europe:
- Is anyone still using the "VOLMET" broadcasts?

Many thanks for any comments!

Yes, quite often as some airports don't have an ATIS (eg CIA in Italy) its a handy way of updating the arrival met without bothering the tower and its cheaper than ACARS (if you fly for a loco!) The only drawback is having to sit through half a dozen METARS until you get the one you want.

Atis/volmet
 

On this subject anyone else getting a bit fed up with the slowness and repetitivness of ATIS broadcasts? Arriving in a terminal area normally NHP will say"off box 1" will get ATIS on box 2. He can be away for up to 2 minutes. Not safe in a busy ATC enviroment. Who cares if it is DAMP DAMP DAMP we just want to know the relevants quickly. Not " runway in use is 26l expect vectors for an ILS 26L" what is wrong with just saying "ILS 26L". ALso some of these automated ATIS broadcasts are virtually unintelligible so I have to listen to it 3 times so the poor P2 is flying the A/C, doing the R/T coping with the hostie saying "how long to go" for the 18th time.....sorry must be getting old as I am sure it never used to bother me......... remind me to get the hostie a BIG watch for Xmas

With the VOLMET you can usually obtain a recent destination METAR (often with TREND forecast) over half an hour before landing. This gives you time to insert figures into the FMS in level flight, and conduct the pre-descent briefing.

ATIS is often unreadable until you are well into the descent, particularly in mountainous areas like northern Italy. Although it should be fresher than the VOLMET - and provide info of the duty runway and any major unservicabilities - they rarely give a trend forecast.

The pilot who is copying a semi-audible ATIS in the descent can easily find himself out of the loop when he has completed the task.

Plenty of us still use it by the sounds of it. As well as having trends appended to them it saves waking up the poor chap on the relevant information frequency, after 10pm that'd be rude :ok:

definitely yes......

use volmet every day.

Especially look forward doing battle with Athens volmet. Breaaaaak!

60's ACARS
 

Shannon on HF fantastic especially when you have taken off from the middle of no where with no met info available. Even get it on the ground. METARS and TAFS. Almost as good as the old teleprinter on VC10's which was a sort of 60's technology ACARS. noisy so the skipper got really irritated when it started clanking away and woke him up at 20 West!

I just think it's nice that Stephen Hawking takes time out from his no-doubt busy schedule to spout out a few weather reports.

And you've got to love Cairo VOLMET; only broadcasts every 10-15 mins, sometimes just "no report" (with every station), a man who barely speaks English, or if you're very lucky an "automated" VOLMET.

While we're on the subject of Volmets, can someone please crank up the gain on the Scottish Volmet as on numerous occassions it is quite weak.

Of course some people use it.

Even if you have ACARS you can sometimes be out of coverage (very eastern parts, Black sea, Turkey) and then you listen to Volmet.

Another question: Does anyone know which Volmets are available via ACARS? Copenhagen is and maybe also Vienna?

I believe the Cairo volmet has recently had a makeover by a company from NZ
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Thanks for all the replies, guys.
Good to hear it's still serving its purpose.
Cheers.

All the time, all over Europe.

Hi,

I use the volmet every Time I fly. When Flying to certain airports I even use RAF and Shanon HF, to check how the wx is progressing especially in marginal conditions.

I try not to use ACARS, I will only use it when I cant get the wx for Alt's anywhere.

Lambo

Yes use VOLMET when required.

The variability of the wind direction gets to me, especially when the wind strength is only 2 kts or so!

But perhaps a better question is should we HAVE to be using such an antiquated system to get essential weather information?

The world seems to have a surfeit of brilliant technology now but aviation has a lot of catching up to do!

As has been previously said on this thread, in the current ATC environment throughout many parts now and the fact that most a/c are "two crew", both pilots should really be on ATC at all times and it seems to be at the more critical times that we have to be "off watch" attempting to copy the garbled ATIS.

Even the £50 radio in my car can be set to receive traffic alerts when I want them!

Only when ATIS'ssss will not provide.