Show HN: Mobile Aviation Weather | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Mobile Aviation Weather

metars.mobi

17 pointssteven77740029 comments

This isn't a general-audience type of project, but I think we have some pilots on HN so they might be interested. In general, I haven't made a personal tech project (outside of work) in years. So I finally got motivated by scratching my own itch, which is really all that is intended here.

Ever since aviationweather.gov redid their website to be much more feature-full, I've found it very difficult to use on my very slow Android 2 phone with a tiny screen. So I decided what I really wanted was a geo-located METAR/TAF display. "Just the facts", so to speak.

I also added color-coding so that I can easily pick out the bad conditions from the rest of the data.

I wouldn't ever expect this to have a wide audience since every pilot I know also has a late-model iPhone with a variety of aviation apps. But it serves a need for me, and more importantly, it got me back into hobbyist development (at least for a little while).

Well done. I can see this working well for aviation enthusiasts (i.e. X-Plane folks) who like to use real world data. However, METAR/TAF are not the friendliest of formats. Have you considered including a METAR/TAF decoder?

The data that I get from the web service does include a breakdown of the specific conditions (not a human readable translation, but enough to generate one). So far I haven't implemented that since I can read METARs myself. I'd want to be careful not to consume too much screen real estate. Something to think about for sure.

actually, it's really useful just as just a METAR. Prefer it. quick, simple, solves exactly 1 problem well.

For sure. If you're getting your weather data via METAR/TAF, you should be able to read it :). And one can always resort to this (even though it won't decode everything). http://heras-gilsanz.com/manuel/METAR-Decoder.html

Addendum: I did put the "about x minutes/hours" old thing on the data because of all the parts, the Zulu time is the one I consistently do have trouble with. :)

Love it, thanks.

And: showing an "as of" time somewhere, expressed in Zulu, would be helpful.

It's in the METAR and the TAF.

  KPDK 172053Z

17th day 2053 Zulu

Right, per METAR/TAF, but not in terms of when the data was last pulled.

Unless it's all realtime.

The as-of time is in the METAR. It's the block immediately following the station identifier, e.g. 172054Z means the 17th of the month at 20:54 Zulu. That's the time of observation.

You're right that the TAF doesn't indicate the time the forecast was published (although usually it's assumed to be the first hour of the forecast).

If you meant instead, as-of meaning "when the data was loaded", that's true... Not shown. I have the METAR ages turn red when they hit an hour (normally they are issued every hour) as a "clue" to the user to refresh. But certainly I could be more explicit.

> If you meant instead, as-of meaning "when the data was loaded", that's true... Not shown. I have the METAR ages turn red when they hit an hour (normally they are issued every hour) as a "clue" to the user to refresh. But certainly I could be more explicit.

Correct, that's what I'm talking about.

Nice. The color coding seems a bit off (BTW, LOVE the color coding on winds! I fly a tailwheel, so the winds are of great significance to me).

e.g. KGAI 181535Z 29014G20KT 240V310 10SM CLR 18/08 A2974 RMK AO1

shows red, highlighting "0 10SM"

Same for KDAA 181458Z AUTO 31015G24KT 290V360 10SM CLR 20/08 A2970 RMK AO2 SLP060 T02030076 51012

KRSP 181504Z AUTO 32007KT 290V360 10SM BKN026 OVC033 12/07 RMK AO2 $

Great start on combining local data. Do you use flight services? They have made some changes to automatically parse and display this data in an easy to see format, and it is free. https://www.1800wxbrief.com/afss/#!/next-generation-briefing...

They can also notify you of changes in your briefing, even when you are in the air. https://www.1800wxbrief.com/afss/#!/adverse-condition-alerti...

So far I only get data from aviationweather.gov's data service. It doesn't support CORS so I have to proxy it (and transform it from XML to JSON), but other than that I don't do anything else server side.

Edit: I might have misinterpreted your comment. I do use flight service and their email based easyactivate/easyclose flight plans. I don't usually use them for weather information though.

I believe their API is open, and might be able to give you more info based on your actual route of flight. I use them for briefings and notifications, life savers.

It might overcomplicate it, but the Worst thing, while quite useful, would be more quickly useful if you could see the location of each element.

E.g., show the low ceiling and then the ICAO code for that airport parenthetically, then high winds and another airport code. Quick way to inform intuition about where things are happening.

In my region, I saw several items under Worst, but after scrolling down and looking it over, I realized it was all happening on the other side of a mountain range–nothing to really be concerned about unless I'm going over there, since that stuff is usually well contained.

I agree. I've thought about how to implement this and it's definitely on my radar.

It's also possible to adjust the range (under the options menu), so that far away stations aren't shown and don't get included in the "worst" calculation.

Which would work really well in some geography. In mine, not so much. I have airports 15nm away that are meteorologically less relevant than some that are 50nm away.

Agree completely. I was a bit confused by worst, and then frustrated that I couldn't find location.

It would be awesome to be able to pin a location and search for another one. I'm always comparing between a few locations to get an idea on pressures and clouds around the area and being able to quickly look at those without a refresh would be really nice to have :D

This is especially relevant for flight where you probably need weather for your departure, destination, and a few places in the middle.

To clarify, what you mean is to do a search and have the results add to the current result list instead of replacing it? Or you could mark individual stations on a result list as pinned and they would remain regardless of what searches were performed? That does sound useful. Thanks.

Yea, the second way you described it. I mark a station and it stays in the list when I do another search. I actually expected this when I "collapsed" my first search result.

Thanks! I actually prefer aviation wx over the 'plebs'-version (;-)). Bookmarked!

Perhaps include a link to a good reference on reading metars/tafs?

How to read METARs: http://www.wunderground.com/metarFAQ.asp

Thanks! I'll suggest this to the FBO I fly out of as well.

Nice. Well done.

I'll try it next time I'm flying.

Thanks

Same goes for me! It's sometimes annoying when I have to log into DUATS and I'm in kind of a rush...

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