Weather Services: Why so many abbreviations?

[ahkahn]

A barrier to laziness is a good thing.

Laziness isn't the only thing. Most of us that can afford to fly also have day jobs. Those day jobs keep us busy most of the day. From there, add a kid or 5 to the mix, and you don't have much time to do anything else. If you again, have the afforded luxury or a few hours per week, it would be nice to work towards a personal goal. A pilot's license is a worthy goal.

If, at once per week, one wanted to learn to fly, it would take a good year to accomplish that goal.

Now, let's add in the factor of "how it affects you". More pilots, more fuel burned. More fuel burned, cheaper fuel. Cheaper fuel, nice for you. Planes don't sit on ramps rotting. All good things.

I agree with simplification. Cut out the antiquated subject matter (NDB's, text weather, etc) and teach modern methods. That was my biggest problem when I went to school for IT. I was being taught stuff I "figured out" as a kid.

 

[warthog1984]

Another expensive hobby/passion/profession is boating.

One of the reasons people get into boating is because it doesn't take much learning to drive a boat. Not even a license in most cases.

Boating does not seem to be dying like GA.

Less about the actual barriers to GA, more about the culture. The biggest difference is also that in boating you can stop, get assistance, or pull over if needed.

As anyone post-solo understands, aviating puts your life in your hands.

 

[Bonchie]

I do not know if this format will be on "your" written test, but it was on mine. Did not like it one bit, but I got all the weather questions right. However if you ask me now , I have probably forgotten 1/2 of the stuff.

Cheers

He's already a pilot. He was talking about getting a BFR.

 

[Bonchie]

A barrier to laziness is a good thing.

I think there's a balance here, and we aren't doing anyone a favor (including ourselves if GA keeps retracting as a whole) by making things unnecessarily complicated.

I think the sport pilot license is the right balance for weekend VFR warriors, but arbitrarily telling those guys they can't fly a freaking 172 or Warrior is pointless. With the relative lack of sport planes to rent and their lack of payload, the FAA cut off their head trying to save it's nose. They should extend that to include 4 seat, non-HP, non-complex pistons that teenagers with 10 hours are allowed to solo but some sport pilot with 100 hours can't fly. If you want to make a rule where sport pilots can't carry more then two people until 50 total hours, then fine. But if we opened up the fleet of plentiful trainers out there to them for day-VFR only flight, I bet we'd see a lot more people getting their SP certificate when it only takes 20 hours and 3-4k.

While this doesn't personally affect me, when you exclude 95% of the population from the tools needed to get the first level of certificate, when a Cherokee 140 is logically no tougher to fly, that's stupid and is a net negative for all GA pilots.

Things like decoding METARs, ADF, paper E6Bs, etc. are simply a waste of time for that level of pilot because technology has provided safe alternatives available to everyone. The FAA should decide what's really about safety, and what's really pointless holdovers putting up unneeded barriers to new pilots.

 

[Skip Miller]

You're absolutely not alone in this. There is no good or even sane reason for dragging this arcane and unnecessarily confusing collection of bastardized multilingual words and abbreviations into the 21st century. It isn't necessary, and as you pointed out, it is a detriment to safety.

I have always been told that ICAO requires this because much of the world is still third. These countries do not have compatible equipment or trained operators.

Can anyone confirm this?

-Skip

 

[nddons]

Another expensive hobby/passion/profession is boating.



One of the reasons people get into boating is because it doesn't take much learning to drive a boat. Not even a license in most cases.



Boating does not seem to be dying like GA.

That's because of all the booze and topless women that boating attracts.

 

[gitmo234]

There's been some changes to the lockhead flight services systems. "Nextgen" is now defaulted and if you try to go back to encoded weather you get a pop up warning or two asking you not do to so. Here's what shows up today for those that dont know

 

[Rigged4Flight]

I'm with those who are saying look, the coded lines aren't that difficult to get. It's not like you have to learn a new language or anything.

Aviation absolutely does have it's own language. Anyone saying it doesn't has forgotten the learning curve they went through when they were a student.

Something else to consider is that aviation exists outside the US and native English speaking world. While a plain language English weather report is easier for a non-career American pilot it would not be easier for the pilot around the world who's primary language is not English.

Since 2008, ICAO has mandated that all Air Traffic Controllers and Flight Crew Members engaged in or in contact with international flights must be proficient in the English language as a general spoken medium and not simply have a proficiency in standard ICAO Radio Telephony Phraseology. (link)

I have always been told that ICAO requires this because much of the world is still third. These countries do not have compatible equipment or trained operators.

Can anyone confirm this?

-Skip

"Each ICAO state may modify the code as needed. The TAF code, as described here, is the one used in the United States." (link)

 

[RalphInCA]

A barrier to laziness is a good thing.

Not if there are better ways to safely solve the problem with less work.

It's called working smarter, not harder.

 

[gitmo234]

Similar to every discussion on POA that gets lengthy. Reminds me of my post about listening to music while flying. There were two distinct groups:

Group A:
"Cool.. I like to use this kinda stuff...here's some cool playlist additions"

Group B:
"OMG YOU ARE AN IDIOT AND ARE GOING TO HELL THIS IS PROBABLY ILLEGAL IM SURPRISED YOUR AIRPLANE HASNT JUST LIT ON FIRE MID-FLIGHT, YOU'VE ALREADY CAUSED 800 DEATHS AND YOU WILL PROBABLY KILL CAUSE AN ORPHANAGE TO BURN DOWN AND I AM BETTER BECAUSE I DONT LISTEN TO THE INTERWEBS OR THE TWITTERS I FLIGHT"

Most of group A ignored group B, half of group B didnt realize that the music cuts out when someone speaks on the radio. I would argue that on both topics most people lean toward group A, but group B will find its way into almost any conversation and tell us how wrong we are for not using carbon paper. Old isnt always better...

https://youtu.be/gCMzjJjuxQI