No Metar Available

[Stevin Leonoreza 1295168]

Hello, my name Stevin from Indonesia vAcc. Are you in other vACC having metar issues right now? My issue is there is no metar available could generate at Indonesia righ now, except WIII - Soekarno Hatta Jakarta and WAAA - Mak[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ar. Others airport such as Ngurah Rai - Bali didn't show up any metar. So.. No Metar Available at this station or other airports in Indonesia.

 

The impact is i cannot broadcast ATIS or vATIS and cannot give traffic actual weather info.

 

Example at Bali, RW27 is using ILS, but when i searching metar info from BMKG (link : http://aviation.bmkg.go.id/web/metar_speci.php) , runway active should be 09 >> 190800z, wind is 100 degree at 13 knot.

 

My questions is :

 

1. Should i directed traffic to RNAV Approach or VOR DME Approach RW09 or ILS RW27? I pick RW27 due ILS facility. I'm concern about weather engine that traffic use for online?

 

2. What is metar source that use at Vatsim? There is any issue at Vatsim weatehr server, or etc?

 

3. What is my metar source should i choose from? Or i just say to the traffic, No Metar available, Follow SID, Clear to land?

 

Thank You for information. i Appreciate it.

[Brad Littlejohn]

Hello, my name Stevin from Indonesia vAcc. Are you in other vACC having metar issues right now? My issue is there is no metar available could generate at Indonesia righ now, except WIII - Soekarno Hatta Jakarta and WAAA - Mak[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ar. Others airport such as Ngurah Rai - Bali didn't show up any metar. So.. No Metar Available at this station or other airports in Indonesia.

 

The impact is i cannot broadcast ATIS or vATIS and cannot give traffic actual weather info.

 

Example at Bali, RW27 is using ILS, but when i searching metar info from BMKG (link : http://aviation.bmkg.go.id/web/metar_speci.php) , runway active should be 09 >> 190800z, wind is 100 degree at 13 knot.

 

I'll take a crack at this, and while I normally don't like to answer a question with another question, this should give you some insight into what you can do, as well as if this information is available to you and the pilot you're controlling.

 

So with that, here we go.

 

My questions is :

 

1. Should i directed traffic to RNAV Approach or VOR DME Approach RW09 or ILS RW27? I pick RW27 due ILS facility. I'm concern about weather engine that traffic use for online?

 

How far away is Bali from the airport in question? I ask, because the biggest problem you're going to have is that you have no altimeter/QNH setting to give to the pilot relative to the pilot's location. You will need that for the next question I'm going to ask.

 

I'll use KVGT (North Las Vegas Airport) as my example here. It is approximately 8 miles north of KLAS (McCarran International Airport) in Las Vegas. KVGT has the ILS 12L available as an ILS approach for pilots. In looking at that chart, it has this nice little note:

 

http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1804/06970IL12L.PDF

 

When local altimeter (QNH) setting is not received, use McCarran International altimeter setting, and increase DA (Decision altitude) to 2478, and visibility for Categories A/B by 1/4 mile; increase all MDAs 40 feet.

 

Does the ILS approach chart for your airport in question have something similar? If so,, you could give the local altimeter setting of the nearest airport relative to this airport, and that will give the pilot at least enough information to not be too high or low for his approach. Without a QNH setting, that could be (relatively) disasterous (at least in the real world; here, we'd just reset! )

 

2. What is metar source that use at Vatsim? There is any issue at Vatsim weatehr server, or etc?

 

I'll let the Network guys answer this one, as I used to know this off the top of my head, but am not sure that it's changed. I want to say that VATSIM still uses NOAA's servers for weather, but I'm more than likely wrong. If they do, then I wonder if the ICAO code for the airport in question, or the ICAO code for the weather reporting station isn't recognized.

 

3. What is my metar source should i choose from? Or i just say to the traffic, No Metar available, Follow SID, Clear to land?

 

See my response to #1. While you can easily say "no weather information available, weather at Bali ", if the chart for that approach has information on how to use the QNH setting from another nearby airport, you can tell them the weather conditions of that airport, as well as the QNH setting, and with that, the pilot should be able to adjust his altitudes for the approach.

 

Thank You for information. i Appreciate it.

 

Hope I helped!

 

BL.