This new service, TopMetSat EU, is intended for gliders first.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.topmeteo.topmetsat&hl=en
Description
If a decision on cross-country flying depends on the weather, then absolutely up-to-date satellite and radar images are needed. This is not easy to come by if the internet connection is poor or liable to interruptions. TopMetSat EU is intended to solve this problem. The basic idea is this: the pilot concentrates on the flying, while the app takes care of providing fresh images.
The strength of the app lies in fully loading fresh images – including when the internet connection is very poor or even interrupted. It is even possible to start the request at great heights, i.e. offline. An acoustic signal notifies the user when the download is completed – even if the display is switched off.
The satellite images are specially compressed for these conditions. In our experience, up-to-date images are possible several times an hour. This can be very useful – both for cross-country flights and competitions. For pilots of light powered aircraft, glider pilots, balloonists and paraglider pilots.
The app also shows the exact position of the user on the satellite image, thus making it a simple matter to navigate in good areas or fly around poorer ones.
Regions:
- Germany (NorthEast, West and South)
- France (NorthEast, SouthEast, SouthWest and CEnter)
- Alps (East and West)
- United Kingdom (England)
- Denmark
- Poland
This looks very interesting but the page is very short of info on what it can display. I would be looking for
Presumably they are running their own server. I have always believed there is a market for such a service, which uses UDP packets and thus doesn’t get affected by the TCP/IP protocol getting broken every time the signal goes. UDP is also well suited to radar images etc where you don’t care if half the packets go missing.
They reportedly do have a taf/metar feed which AFAIK comes via a VPN, to B2B customers. One well known weather repackaging firm for example get their feed through there. When ADDS falls over I use a site (not a well known one so I don’t want to post the URL openly) which accesses this 2nd feed.
Eurocontrol EAD has METAR/TAF information:
http://www.ead.eurocontrol.int/ino_resources/webhelp/help/pib_meteo_help.html
In autorouter we use the official ADDS API because it is simple, fast and reliable, three criteria that EAD does not meet. Ah, and a fourth one: free of charge.
Can one extract tafs/metars from that Eurocontrol page? I can’t find any URL for it.
Hi Nestor,
can you include an overview pic of Europe too?
What will be the pricing for the subscriptions after the 3 day trial?
Generally nice idea and interesting content.
In fact, the service seems to be operated by TopMeteo, which is one of the most used weather model provider for glider pilots in Europe.
You can check their service here: http://www.topmeteo.eu/
Of course, high performance glider pilots cross check and compare results with other sites/models (available on paid subscription) like Meteo France or Deutscher Wetterdienst (DWD): https://www.flugwetter.de/ . DWD’s TopTherm model is very popular.
Back to these compressed images, TopMeteo, through their Android app available on: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.topmeteo.topmetsat&hl=en
seem to only send (for the moment) one single satellite picture centered on the regions listed (Poland/Germany/England/France/Alps).
I pointed them to this thread, and they acked it 
They appear to offer only a visible-spectrum satellite image. If that is the case, it is of very limited use for powered GA.
They don’t say how you can receive it let’s say on FL200.
