My point is that glancing down a list like that it is easy to be fooled. Maybe autorouter or Telegram should add filters?
I thought about that before — possibly mark old METARs/TAFs.
Why would you need filters? Doesn’t the PPL training still emphasise the need to always check the dates on weather reports? It was one the first things taught to me many years ago when learning to fly and trying to interpret all the alphabet soup. It is pretty easy to spot and identifies the airports which do not yet have any reports for the day in question. Weather in the UK can be very localised and this could be useful information.
Or make the time in colours? Red for older ones?
JohnR wrote:
Why would you need filters? Doesn’t the PPL training still emphasise the need to always check the dates on weather reports?
Yes, and a good darwinian sieve to weed out bad pilots 
User interfaces should be user friendly and not punish mistakes.
Alexis wrote:
Or make the time in colours? Red for older ones?
Unfortunately Telegram does not allow colors, only bold and italic. I will probably put it in italics.
Why would you need filters? Doesn’t the PPL training still emphasise the need to always check the dates on weather reports?
Because we are humans. It’s easy to overlook an expired METAR or TAF.
I must confess that Autorouter “Final Check” page, which also displays the EOBT in human readable format “A day from now on” or “Two hours from now” has saved me once or twice…
Perhaps list METAR/TAFs that are older than x hours, at the end of the listing, with a divider in between?
I must confess that Autorouter “Final Check” page, which also displays the EOBT in human readable format “A day from now on” or “Two hours from now” has saved me once or twice…
That is version 3 already because we get countless tickets along the lines of “tower did not have my flight plan, autorouter is just SAD.” and the user filed for another day. The last revision made the “3 hours from now” appear in bold. The next version will make it blink and then we will add sound.
I’ve implemented the suggestion, putting METARs older than 3h and TAFs older than 25h in italic and inside parentheses.
Maybe I am being dim again, but why not just redact them?
