Patrick wrote:
I always get the ATIS in flight, usually on the second COM. In Germany, I find that controllers more often than not pass the QNH to me anyway, even if I let them know the correct ATIS code.
Not only in Germany. I believe they are required to but unable to provide reference. The QNH may have changed since the ATIS was recorded. Not by much, but still.
Aviathor wrote:
Not only in Germany. I believe they are required to but unable to provide reference.
They are, but they haven’t always. I remember the change — it was somewhere around 1990.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Of course there is no law that requires you to take the ATIS. As Aviathor says, it’s a question of airmanship.
I disagree. It is a question of what information you need to land safely at a controlled field. Why do you need the whole ATIS? The only thing you “need” to do is to set the altimeter, and this is already known and updated. You are entering a controlled airspace, you have no choice but to do what the ATC tells you, and you are flying a light aircraft, you are not flying a B-747 and need to know the moisture content of the tarmac.
Having to listen to ATIS before landing is just yet another self induced pain that serves no real purpose. It is also an extremely clunky (incompatible in reality) method of transferring information to a single pilot with a single radio who is flying in an airspace where two way communication at all times is a requirement.
I view ATIS as a Desirable and not an Essential.
LeSving wrote:
I disagree. It is a question of what information you need to land safely at a controlled field. Why do you need the whole ATIS? The only thing you “need” to do is to set the altimeter, and this is already known and updated.So you do not e.g. need to know the wind to avoid a limiting crosswind? The wind check you’ll be given on short final is not the right time to to discover that you should really have asked for a different runway.
You are entering a controlled airspace, you have no choice but to do what the ATC tells you, and you are flying a light aircraft, you are not flying a B-747 and need to know the moisture content of the tarmac.
Of course you have a choice! If the ATC instructions are unsafe or in other ways inappropriate you have the full right — indeed the duty — to say “unable” and request something else.
Having to listen to ATIS before landing is just yet another self induced pain that serves no real purpose. It is also an extremely clunky (incompatible in reality) method of transferring information to a single pilot with a single radio who is flying in an airspace where two way communication at all times is a requirement.
You seem to be making incorrect assumptions about what information can and can not be in the ATIS. Try flying VFR to Friedrichshafen during the Aero exhibition without getting the ATIS!
Airborne_Again wrote:
Of course you have a choice! If the ATC instructions are unsafe or in other ways inappropriate you have the full right — indeed the duty — to say “unable” and request something else.
The point is that you will not do that based on the ATIS! The ATIS means nothing. As I said earlier, there could be showers etc. and you want to land in between them. There is nothing the ATIS can do to help you with this.
On un-towered airfields, ATIS could potentially be a help to tell about the traffic, the kind of traffic and so on, more like an AFIS unit. No such thing exists though (maybe in Germany?). At a controlled field, what else except QNH is it you need?
LeSving wrote:
The point is that you will not do that based on the ATIS! The ATIS means nothing. As I said earlier, there could be showers etc. and you want to land in between them. There is nothing the ATIS can do to help you with this.Of course I will! If the ATIS tells me that the wind on the active runway has a crosswind component that is too high for my aircraft, I will request an alternate runway. To do this I must know 1) what runway is the runway in use and 2) the current wind. The ATIS tells me both of these.
At a controlled field, what else except QNH is it you need?
I’ve already mentioned some of the things you need beside QNH, but I’ll say more about my Friedrichshafen example. During the Aero exibition a second tower frequency is used for the grass runway. You get this info on the ATIS.
You are expected to get the ATIS which other than runway in use and weather that may be 20 minutes old, will provide:
Sometimes you will be asked whether you have ATIS, and if not, you will explicitly be asked to monitor ATIS
Although valuable to VFR flights, it is even more valuable for IFR flights because it may include information about availability of approach procedures and potentially higher minima (availability of runway lighting).
Whether VFR or IFR, you’ll look stupid if you run into an issue because you did not monitor ATIS.
Aviathor wrote:
You are expected to get the ATIS
If you arrive at a US towered airport and don’t say with ATIS on your initial call, you will be asked every single time. I think after a while, you’ll get the message 
At a busy airport, I view it as inappropriate to expect the tower or ground to give the altimeter setting individually to every single plane, particularly before takeoff when the pilot has all the time in the world to pick up ATIS. Likewise the other useful info: winds, temperature and dewpoint spread, split tower frequencies (as mentioned before) etc.
I think 10 miles out on arrival to an airport with multiple runways the VFR pilot needs to understand the wind, to select and request the correct runway on his initial call inbound. A trivial crosswind for a jet may be quite an issue for a small taildragger. It’s up to the pilot to figure that out based on ATIS, and be prepared to tell the tower that he needs the cross runway. If altimeter setting, winds or anything else change significantly within an hour, the tower should issue a new ATIS. It’s part of the basic system that maximizes ATC communication with minimum radio chat, and needs to be responsibility managed.
ATIS is also useful before flying or even arriving at the airport , I often pick up my iPad and look at all the ATISs and ASOSs in the area, to judge where local cloud phenomena stop on a given morning.
I think traffic density at European GA airports is often in reality so low that the tower and pilots can have little chats between themselves, wasting valuable radio time, but I don’t think that makes it the right way to do business. I think it’s one of the things that leads to controllers ‘locking up’ with a minimal number of arrivals, slots being assigned by airports, and other unnecessary nonsense.
The QNH may have changed since the ATIS was recorded.
I have never, ever had a situation where ATC told me a different QNH than what was on the ATIS. Obviously I have, on occasion, had an ATIS change between me listening and me getting the initial contact call in: “Tower, PH-ABC, bla bla bla information U”. “PH-ABC, Tower, information is now V, QNH xxxx”. Plus, if the QNH changes (and the ATIS with it), there’s normally an all-stations call: “All aircraft, no need to acknowledge, new QNH xxx”
Also, the ATIS is not updated hourly, like some people think or suggest. AFAIK the ATIS is updated as and when required. If the weather is changing rapidly, I’ve had ATIS changes every five minutes. And that’s to be expected: If ATC wants to change the runway, they need to be able to update the ATIS right now, and not wait 55 minutes.
What I have had (on Rotterdam mostly) is that the ATIS is on a VOR frequency and there’s no alternative on any COM frequency. If you’re flying in an aircraft with no VOR receiver, then you simply say “negative ATIS” and they’ll give you the whole package anyway on the Tower frequency.
