OpusFSX metar data outside of the USA

[HarryO 0]

Hi there

Where can I find out how much real world data OpusFSX uses for regions outside of the USA? I am using AS2012 which thinly covers the capital cities of Australia but I don't think much else. I would switch to Opus if it included significantly more data for Australia than AS2012. What would be impressive is if there were actually a list somewhere that showed the density of coverage outside of the USA.

 

Thanks

Cheers

Harry

[russianspd 10]

It's been mentioned here that for areas that may not have much coverage availability to use VATSIM to help fill in the gaps. I don't know the coverage and range of VATSIM's weather servers but it could help.

[LHookins 3,117]

I just checked AS2012 and it has an incredible number of stations all over Australia. It shows a heck of a lot more stations than http://www.skyvector.com does. Where did you get the idea that AS2012 didn't have Australian stations? The station list shows 82 Y*** stations, but it sure looks like more when you check the map.

 

Larry Hookins

[Opus Software 84]

Hi Harry

 

At present we have 85 current METAR sites Australia with an additional (possibly obsolete) 32. Our METAR list is updated every month or so just incase new stations come online. It depends on how many Met stations are actually reporting data.

 

Regards

Cheryl

[HarryO 0]

Thanks for the info Cheryl. I tried to find the metar list for OPUS fsx but could not find it. I only have the demo. It would be nice if I could look it up from time to time to see if more real data has become available. 85 stations is still a very tiny amount of data for flying low and slow VFR in a huge region like Australia.

 

Cheers

[Opus Software 84]

Hi

 

We don't want to divulge the information in our METAR list. We would love to provide more weather data but you will have to address the problem with the lack of Met stations to the Australian government ;-)

 

Cheers

Cheryl

[CraigyW 30]

Generally METARS are only available for airfields which have RPT operations or instrument approaches, and the majority are automatically generated. Those airfields which don't have METARS will have a either a TAF or you can use the area forecast to determine what the weather is likely to be.

 

Craig

[FloggedHorse 1]

Australia has over 600 AWS's. I have tried on the OPUS forum to prove that Australia current AWS Metar's are available but I believe OPUS responded that it wasn't in the correct format or words to that effect.

 

The Australian Government has plenty of stations Cheryl, they just don't provide access in a format that is more suitable to your operation. As an aside, I find it fairly disappointing that you won't allow potential customers to see what Metar's they are gaining access to. I have purchased OPUS very early in the piece and find the support quite simply to be the best out there in FS world, however this aspect doesn't seem to be in line with your usual open and frank customer service.

 

Hopefully OPUS can make contact with Airservices Australia or the BOM to come up with a method of accessing the free METAR data in a more useful format.

 

For those interested in current Australian METAR's go to the following: http://www.bom.gov.au/aviation/observations/metar-speci/

[CraigyW 30]

It has to be in the correct format as the format is an international standard. So maybe OPUS can't read and process the empty fields identified by the forward slashes. There is no point contacting Airservices, they don't own or control the data. You need to talk to BOM.

 

Craig

[Opus Software 84]

The site you suggested above is for human access only, it prevents direct computer access !

 

If you find a site that provides computer access (a weather server) then we WILL use it and give you as many METARs as humanly possible ....

 

Anyway, I don't think there are many more, if any, met stations reporting via this site than are submitting reports to NOAA. Have you counted them? If there are more than the 85 + 32 possible obsoletes then perhaps you could ask the Australian authorities to grant computer access to their service, or at least get the met stations to upload their met data for planning purposes. I would be interested to know just how many 'active' met stations are available and not submitting their METAR data to anywhere else other than the Australian authorities. Not many is my guess.

 

Regards

Stephen :-)

 

P.S.

 

TAFs are no good, generally the same met stations report both 'actual' and TAFs. So you gain nothing. To depict surface and low atmospheric conditions the LWE wants actual weather and not predicted forecasts.

[CraigyW 30]

Hi Stephen,

 

This issue now has me really interested and when I have time I will chase it up.

 

Your comment about NOAA got me thinking and my hypothesis is that only those airfields that RPT destinations are reported to NOAA. 85 airfields in the database suggests that or it could be linked to those airfields with an instrument approach. Anyway, I will let you know if I manage to find out.

 

Re TAFs. TAFS are produced centrally when there is not a Met office established at the airport. For example in Australia, the Sydney office will produce TAFS for the airfields in its area of responsibility but METARS are produce automatically from ground equipment in the majority of locations.

 

Of course a TAF is a forecast for 6 to 12 hours and so it is difficult to interpolate to produce a guesstimate of the weather at a point in time within the forecast especially when say there is a prob 30 of rain for example.

 

Craig

[Opus Software 84]

G'day Craig

 

It wouldn't surprise me if it is limited to only those larger airports that feel they are 'international' rather than purely servicing national traffic. Hence they have uploaded their METARs, or most likely the Australian authority has decided to only upload or make those METARs available to the international community.

 

We would love to be able to provide a full and thorough service to all our Aussie and New Zealand friends, or anyone enjoying sim flying down under. If anyone comes up with an available weather server site, a site that doesn't require human input to access, then we will certainly use it and upgrade the software straight away.

 

Good luck on your quest.

 

Regards

Stephen

[Opus Software 84]

I find it fairly disappointing that you won't allow potential customers to see what Metar's they are gaining access to.

 

It takes a fair bit of time to generate our METAR lists so we don't want to give away any info to our competition, that's all :wink2:

 

Cheers

Cheryl

[Opus Software 84]

Hi Craig

 

Another problem with many of the listed Australian sites on that website is that no METARs are available for them. I wouldn't be surprised if there just aren't that many METAR sites anyway and perhaps everyone relies on TAFs, but many of the sites with no METAR also have no TAF as well.

 

Anyway, the LWE is designed to use and interpolate actual weather and not guess the weather from TAF reports so its the METARs we need, and of course details of at least their names and lat/lon coordinates.

 

Regards

Stephen

[FloggedHorse 1]

It takes a fair bit of time to generate our METAR lists so we don't want to give away any info to our competition, that's all :wink2:

 

Cheers

Cheryl

 

Understood!!

 

Cheers,

 

Tim