Yes, I know - the words “change” and “FAA” don’t usually go together. To say the FAA moves at a glacial pace would be to insult glaciers. But if you were the new guy in charge of the FAA with a magic wand, what would you do?
Me? I’d get rid of coded METARs and TAFs.
I’m a flight instructor, and right now I’m preparing a ground school lesson on reading METARs, TAFs and other weather materials (example below).
And it occurs to me that if I wanted to disseminate weather information as inscrutably as possible, I’d create something close to the current system.
METARs and TAFs were designed for slow teletype machines in the 1930’s, hence the brief and cryptic codes. But I see no reason why this should continue given two factors:
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Weather information is really important, and should be as easy to understand as possible.
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Current technology can translate it into plain language.
I’m sure there are people who know that FU means smoke and BR means mist, but why are we keeping this crazy system? It’s needlessly complex, and very discouraging to flight students.
So what are your aviation peeves?
Here’s an example of a METAR, which is an aviation routine weather report:
KLAX 082035Z AUTO 30012G22KT 10SM CLR 19/03 A2973 RMK AO1
From this you’re meant to know that on the 8th of the month at 2035 Zulu time, via automatic reporting, the winds are coming from 300 degrees (true, not magnetic!) at 12 knots, gusting to 22. Visibility is 10 statute miles, sky clear, temperature 19 C, dewpoint 3, altimeter setting 29.73. The remark at the end refers to an automated report.
Simple enough, you say. But this is a basic one containing no fancy weather conditions. Then you find out that other aviation weather products use similar, but different coding schemes. That makes learning all of this a confusing chore, one that I don’t feel should be necessary.