Article is timely for me (I’m just reading today), having just spent a night on a friendly FBO’s couch Sunday night after refusing to continue VFR into IMC. Though I’m IFR, aircraft was not, so I spent some time working the available weather info to come up with the best wx info beyond the standard “VFR not recommended”. I believe the pat answer of “VFR not recommended” has stymied progress on getting all the available weather info into the system. As I built my own picture, I was reminded of a continued oversight in the readily available weather info. AWOS info to briefers/online is not as fresh as it could be.

When dialing the AWOS tel#’s the data is at most a couple minutes old, online (XM too) some was an hour old (or days old if the briefer/briefee doesn’t notice the zulu date)…even an hour is forever in fog/mist conditions. Now that LockMart has the contract and probably the capability…shouldn’t we push to improve the latency of AWOS derived info in the system?

My opinion is that in some number of the VFR into IMC mishaps, the failure to have the latest info leads folks into thinking conditions are better than they are (time late info is useless even in XM linked glass cockpits; I’ve seen the cheerful symbols, only to curse the report time when digging deeper). In researching this further, there look to be several back door approaches online, but our target audience is going to be using the official weather products and may not have that insight.

The info is already collected, the sites are already there, it just needs a technology push to match our other 21st century capabilities.

Thoughts?
Rich Romaine

Thank you.

Now if we could just figure out how to make the MSM, whose understanding of aviation stops at the terminal concourse window, understand this.

Not that we haven’t expressed this lament before…