I have just watched three excellent videos by Bonanza pilot Martin Pauley on You Tube, where he prepares for a 1000nm flight in the USA. He has ADS-B weather via a broadcast service to his tablet, plus weather (with picture) on his ADS-B transponder. This is provided by the US government (I assume) to help GA pilots.
Why don’t the EASA people do something usefull for us, apart from rules about licences and what aeroplanes we can or can’t fly without their say so? Somebody said it is because the various national weather services in Europe are not prepared to cooperate with each other, as they are more concerned with protecting their turf. Well if EASA is all about aviation “safety” surely the provision of an in-flight weather service is a must? Maybe there are moves afoot on such a service that I don’t know about so perhaps any posters who have any insights could let us know.
Above post moved into a previous thread on the topic.
It looks like there is some UK activity; see previous posts. But nothing approaching the US ADS-B wx delivery system.
My feeling is that the vast majority of GA does very short trips and can adequately brief before the flight, and those who longer ones, especially IFR, end up buying the various iridium satellite based products (Garmin, Avidyne and Golze are three I can think of, for light GA) and are no longer in the market. And the VFR community, which forms some 99% of GA in Europe, flies mostly at low levels where you can get internet access on a smartphone. So the market for any service is too fragmented for anyone to make money out of it, or to construct a safety case for State (NATS in the UK case) funding. IMHO the UK trial is being done as a publicity move to help sell some other products 
I now get “NEXRAD” (precipitation radar) on my GTNs and iPad (Garmin Pilot) via my GTX345 transponder. Even animations. I can’t get METARs though, even if they appear as received in the ADS menu. Nothing in the airport page or the map.
JasonC, what settings are you using on ForeFlight? I’m not seeing anything but suspect it is finger trouble with map overlays.
Just have the stratus as a device and show composite radar and traffic on map. Nothing else special.
Metars and radar all appear when in range.
Dimme wrote:
At the moment we are broadcasting from a low-powered transmitter in Milborne Port, with a range of around 15nm.
So one needs to be within 15nm of Milborne Port to receive this data? Hardly European coverage … (need to fly from Switzerland to Milborne Port to receive the wx data for Switzerland) 
Correction: Pardon me, I see that Redhill and Goodwood have also been added…. still a ways to go to get European coverage ….
That’s still the fundamental issue …. the USA have many ground stations. Is there any plan at all to install enough in Europe to get continental coverage? And as Peter says, who would pay for it? In the USA, it’s funded by the aviation fuel tax which in Europe doesn’t find its way to any GA services (with perhaps a couple isolated and minimal exceptions).
chflyer wrote:
So one needs to be within 15nm of Milborne Port to receive this data? Hardly European coverage …Considering it’s a private company delivering the service for free as a trial, you can’t ask for too much either.
Is there any plan at all to install enough in Europe to get continental coverage?It was downprioritized by EASA dring the previous review. But I read the concept popping up again, for example in the latest roadmap, so there is hope it will be looked at again. The economical equation is not simple though.
Considering it’s a private company delivering the service for free as a trial
I really think it is a publicity stunt. Nowadays, effective advertising is really difficult because almost nobody reads printed media anymore (due to the internet, etc). And any sort of effective advertising on social media is expensive. So businesses are looking for anything that gets them free coverage on social media and elsewhere. It doesn’t have to be anything functional so long as it gets the product name up there. It’s like Ryanair getting a load of publicity (bad, mostly, but MOL doesn’t care) for saying that they will make passengers stand instead of sit.
The economical equation is not simple though.
For a free service the economical equation is nonexistent
As I said, at typical VFR levels, especially UK, you can get wx on a phone, over 3G/4G.
Peter wrote:
at typical VFR levels, especially UK, you can get wx on a phone, over 3G/4G.
True. I guess the issue is when you climb high for safety over, say, the Channel and lose 3G/4G but would like to know what’s lurking wx-wise nonetheless – as happened on my return leg from Deauville on Sunday in full IMC.
Certainly, and there are whole countries over which there is no 3G/4G at all at say 5000ft or above. For example I get absolutely zero over Belgium (Vodafone contract). And generally nothing over France, but it shows a strong signal the whole time so it looks like the GSM system down there quickly blacklists the phone (which would actually be a reasonable network software strategy).
That is what drives the market for the iridium based wx products, with Garmin and Avidyne at the top of the (light GA) price range at ~10k and with Golze ADL around 1/10 of that. But I think it is almost just IFR pilots who pay for these. It’s a very small community.
