This weekend I attempted to Fly to Spa EBSP. I was only able to find METARs on SkyDemon. I tried the following sources which didn’t have it:
- Autorouter
- Google
- German AIS (Over the radio)
- Aeroweather
- AeroPlus Weather
- Garmin Pilot
Due to trouble getting updates (shaky internet connection and forcing skydemon to reupdate when in online mode), and having to coordinate logistics, I ended up diverting to Bitburg EDRB before even reaching. At that point I had also lost some confidence in the Skydemon info.
Does anyone know what SkyDemon looks at? Had people on the ground and skydemon’s Metar seemed accurate (and I doubt they would be making up something).
AFAIK there is never more than a METAR published for EBSP. I even think they used to be generated automatically, the METARs used to indicate this but they don’t right now. Anyway, EBLG is so near that its TAF will be quite usable – even though EBSP is in more uneven terrain.
BTW the official source for this info is at www.belgocontrol.be – what is not there will not be available elsewhere either, at least if one wants official data. For non-official data there’s no end to options.
For as little as I know about Skydaemon, I feel sure it has the official published data.
BTW why didn’t you call them on the radio and ASK what weather they were having, before deciding to divert? Life can be easy, sometimes … 
But it would seem to me you were very certain that a TAF had to exist, and be available – what made you so sure? EBSP is not a public airport, after all; they have no obligation to publish any kind of meteo info at all.
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
BTW why didn’t you call them on the radio and ASK what weather they were having, before deciding to divert? Life can be easy, sometimes …
Airport pick up was passing nearby the Diversion airport, so it would have been a huge inconvenience for them to be notified later on. The diversion airport was also bang on my route to Spa. Spa wasn’t in radio range either at the time. I would have preferred to land there, but at some point Logistics dictated diversion. Reaching the ground pickup was also tough. I tried to have them call Spa and come back but even texting was hard.
\\Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
But it would seem to me you were very certain that a TAF had to exist, and be available
Jan_Olieslagers wrote:
EBLG is so near that its TAF will be quite usable – even though EBSP is in more uneven terrain.
I wasn’t sure of that. I’ve been to the airfield and saw that 1) there is terrain, and 2) it’s at a higher altitude than EBLG, so didn’t want to get it wrong on an extrapolation and cause pain to the ones on the ground. They were driving back Via Bitburg the next day, so Liege was also less practical as a diversion than Bitburg
Well, you did take your own decisions according to your own criteria, well done!
Still I can’t help feeling you made life harder on yourself than you needed. Whatever service you were talking to (Brussels arrivals? if above 4500’ ? or Brussels Information FIS if lower?) would merrily have contacted EBSP for you, to give you the local weather. These Belgian controllers and FIS operators are really good! At least that is what I experienced, again and again. If you don’t ask you’ll never get anything.
But, err, EBSP requires prior permission… so I suppose you gave them a little polite phone call before take-off, so why not inquire about the weather at the same time? Like as not, you’d not even have to ask.
[[ edited to add: I certainly wasn’t suggesting EBLG as an alternate destination, only as a good source for meteo info! ]]
I’ll try next time, but:
Diversion decision had to be made about 30min before reaching Bitburg (logistics!), and the German control service I was talking to (I must have been between Stuttgarg and Bitburg) couldn’t get the weather. I wasn’t in range of Liege ATIS, at least.
I took off with reasonable weather, but It degraded and last update I got (from SkyDemon) was SCT004. I could have had a got but might have felt tempted and it wouldn’t have been a great idea, and in case it didn’t work people on the ground wouldn’t have been happy :)
I was mostly wondering why only SkyDemon had the weather out of all the sources I tried
To be clear, I think all of Jans suggestions are very useful to know.
Next time go somewhere small I’ll probably check that the metar is on something else than SD, otherwise it seems it might be difficult to get from the air though. I’m still very curious as to what source they use!
I tried to register with the Belgium AIP and will see if can solve the mystery of the METAR source.
This site also has it: https://www.vyncke.org/resa/metar.php?format=html&station=EBSP
The Autorouter Webcam feature comes in handy:
I still wonder why you are so fixated on having a METAR. There are plenty of ways to have an idea of the local weather – the webcam not the least indeed.
BTW I don’t think Bitburg publishes any, either?
