I had forgotten about the webcam feature.
How do you get the local weather in a fairly standardised way (other than METAR), if you:
- have to have reached a diversion decision about 80nm before your destination
- have sporadic internet connection (to the point pretty much every messaging software fails)
- have no phone connection
- are out of radio range from the ATIS / Airfield / National Airspace (I was in Germany at the time)
- are not confident enough that the weather at a nearby airfield will give a sufficient indication of the weather at your target airfield (In my case, due to hilly terrain and superior elevation, I considered that I would give much consideration to Liege unless I saw extremes (bad or good).
?
I tried:
- Many apps (until I figured i had SkyDemon in offline mode when flying – I managed to get the weather 15min or so after changing that). They simply had no data for Spa
- Texting someone to call the airfield and find out cloud ceiling (only got the reply after the diversion and apparently it also took a very long time to get to them)
- Asking the german controllers if they could get the cloud celiling at destination.
For Bitbug, I had the weather of the (very) nearby USAF base telling me it was very likely OK. I only picked that airfield because it was on the route of people picking us up (to then drive to St Vith in Belgium), so logistics in the case of an early diversion decision were extremely easy.
It was also exactly on my route to Spa. If weather had been bad, I would have tried Spa and then if that hadn’t worked out either, I would have gone to Liege, but then logistics would have been much more painful (taxi into town, rent a car, next day drop car, taxi back to the airfield etc)
There use to be a MET office at Spa — one of the last face-to-face wx briefings I ever got. Has that closed now?
I think so. Both EBSP and EBSH have been publishing automated METARs for a good while now [[edited to add: and never a TAF]. This may well have to do with the responsability for them having passed from federal Belgium to the Wallonian region, in one of the countless episodes of the Belgian regionalisation soap opera.
BTW last time I visited EBAW tower there still was a human meteorologist there, and available for a chat. One is however supposed to first consult the automated wx info, which seemed very complete to me.
I’ve got the login of belgocontrol and the METAR is there. I’ll make a mental note that different tools use different sources and have potentially different aiports available.
METAR EBSP 200750Z AUTO 15014KT CAVOK 24/14 Q1016=
What I use is the Cirrus ProFlight app, plugging in EBSP as start or destination and clicking on METAR, it shows me either EBLB (9NM SE) or EBLG (19NM NW) as possible options. I flew into Spa a few weeks back to watch the Classic Superbike racing at the track nearby, lovely airfield, very helpful and friendly people. Totally recommend the airfield, fuel was relatively cheap as was the landing fee…..
