A general synopsis chart is available from any number of sources. There is nothing specifically credible about the UK Met Office compared to the other sources, whether you’re talking about the forecasting model itself or the way in which information is provided.
When it comes to working out where a band of weather is and how it’s moving, I find a radar image the most useful.
F215 does focus nicely on what matters to a pilot, but the information it gives is vague and pessimistic to be of real use beyond understanding the general situation. If you set yourself strict VFR rules and followed what was on F215 to the letter, you’d never fly except on gin-clear CAVOK days when a two-week high pressure system has set in.
roznet wrote:
One thing I struggle to find outside of this map is information about the front (type, location, etc), which is well played out on that F215 map.
I think only humans can do it with some degree of certainty, but we could ask @Mooney_Driver to confirm…
(I’m avoiding AI intentionally).
First, let me say that I had to google what Form 215 was… But it turns out this is a map I used.
While I agree this is not the best/most modern way to look at weather, and I use a collection of apps in addition.
One thing I struggle to find outside of this map is information about the front (type, location, etc), which is well played out on that F215 map.
What do people use and what more modern way to find this information if you don’t use this map? I use Foreflight and Windy for my weather planning, and that F215 is available in foreflight and the only place with the Front information.
A significant number of pilots I deal with as an FI/FE cannot explain, even in the roughest of terms, what the general weather situation of the day is and what effects/threats that will bring. The F215 is still an effective and simple way of bringing that to life rather than just looking at the current METAR (or the colour codes on your app) and launching off as a surprising amount of people do…
Graham wrote:
I comply with the law. Beyond that, I’ve absolutely no interest in what the UK CAA thinks or does about anything. I’m more likely to listen to the pilot in the next hangar (or even my dog) about the optimum way of doing things than I am to listen to the UK CAA. They are quite demonstrably extremely bad at what they do.
:))) So we are on the same page here!
Graham wrote:
I am not aware of any law or regulation which puts an onus on a pilot to leave some sort of electronic paper trail with respect to the weather information they obtain. If that changes, I’m sure I’ll find some way to tick that box while continuing to get my weather data (when required) from wherever I get it.
It’s more of the “oh, he did not login to the Met Office website, so we can’t find any evidence of him doing any weather briefing” after the incident.
arj1 wrote:
Well, allegedly, UK CAA says that these forms are the only official pieces of Aviation weather that they know of.
You might be getting the same info from somewhere else (some paid service), but they have no chance of tracking that.
Which means (when they investigate an incident) if you haven’t downloaded something from the Met Office website, they assume you haven’t done your weather brief.
Yes, I know…
It was quite a long time ago that I stopped viewing the UK CAA as a source of expertise on anything.
I comply with the law. Beyond that, I’ve absolutely no interest in what the UK CAA thinks or does about anything. I’m more likely to listen to the pilot in the next hangar (or even my dog) about the optimum way of doing things than I am to listen to the UK CAA. They are quite demonstrably extremely bad at what they do.
I am not aware of any law or regulation which puts an onus on a pilot to leave some sort of electronic paper trail with respect to the weather information they obtain. If that changes, I’m sure I’ll find some way to tick that box while continuing to get my weather data (when required) from wherever I get it.
UK CAA says that these forms are the only official pieces of Aviation weather that they know of.
Do you have a source for that?
It is of course BS, but there is a nugget of fact in that some wx sources have historically logged briefings, against your login credentials. The NATS notam site does it, Avbrief do it / did it, probably the Met Office does it (again against your login) and there may be others. It would not surprise me if SD log the user activity (I would if I was them; never know when it may be handy in my defence). But that is of potential relevance only if the pilot is dead, and how? I doubt insurance is affected (in the UK – unlike Germany we don’t have the “gross negligence” case) if you briefed from BBC news 
Also the vast majority of UK pilots, probably 99%, do not brief from any of these sources.
Graham wrote:
I stopped looking at them years ago. Even when I was introduced to them while doing my PPL in summer 2011, they seemed like something from another age.
Well, do you at least download those? ;)
Graham wrote:
I think the point (that perhaps the AAIB could make more clear) is that if one isn’t going to use these sources, one does need to use something that provides the information actually useful to aviation (e.g. cloud bases and types) that doesn’t feature in mass media weather forecasts. Looking at the BBC website and seeing that it’s ‘mostly sunny with some clouds’ isn’t much of a weather briefing.
Well, allegedly, UK CAA says that these forms are the only official pieces of Aviation weather that they know of.
You might be getting the same info from somewhere else (some paid service), but they have no chance of tracking that.
Which means (when they investigate an incident) if you haven’t downloaded something from the Met Office website, they assume you haven’t done your weather brief.
Yes, I know…
These are forms from roughly the WW1 era, and taught in the PPL. Both are largely useless.
I stopped looking at them years ago. Even when I was introduced to them while doing my PPL in summer 2011, they seemed like something from another age.
As @arj1 says form 215 is too broad-brush in its coverage and overly cautious to the point of being useless. Everything might be everywhere, cloud tops are always off the scale, always icing and always turbulence.
The winds aloft on form 214 don’t matter any more since no-one calculates their nav plog by hand. One generally has an idea of the flow on any given day, but your favourite navigation planning software does everything for a cross country flight and for a local one it’s immaterial.
I think the point (that perhaps the AAIB could make more clear) is that if one isn’t going to use these sources, one does need to use something that provides the information actually useful to aviation (e.g. cloud bases and types) that doesn’t feature in mass media weather forecasts. Looking at the BBC website and seeing that it’s ‘mostly sunny with some clouds’ isn’t much of a weather briefing.
