METAR notation as a foreign language. Was: Iowa Aviation Weather...en Espanol

[Jim Logajan]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote:
> Does anyone else find it disturbing that the National Weather Service
> in the United States is paying out taxpayer money to a government
> employee to create a foreign-language web page?

You only now noticed aviation weather reports from the U.S. government in a
foreign language!? This isn't the first time U.S. taxpayer money has been
spent on delivering weather reports in anything other than English:

Because lets face it, METAR code is a foreign language which originated
from aliens from a another planet bent on world on domination - and I want
to know when the people of the earth are going to rise up in arms and throw
off the alien oppression so we can read weather reports in our native
languages?

:-)

[C J Campbell]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:10:03 -0800, Jim Logajan wrote
(in article >):

> "Jay Honeck" > wrote:
>> Does anyone else find it disturbing that the National Weather Service
>> in the United States is paying out taxpayer money to a government
>> employee to create a foreign-language web page?
>
> You only now noticed aviation weather reports from the U.S. government in a
> foreign language!? This isn't the first time U.S. taxpayer money has been
> spent on delivering weather reports in anything other than English:
>
> Because lets face it, METAR code is a foreign language which originated
> from aliens from a another planet bent on world on domination - and I want
> to know when the people of the earth are going to rise up in arms and throw
> off the alien oppression so we can read weather reports in our native
> languages?
>
>> -)

Actually, much of it originated in French. That is how we get BR = "Mist."

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

[Jay Honeck]

> Because lets face it, METAR code is a foreign language which originated
> from aliens from a another planet

For sure!

What I find hilarious is when the FAA says they use these
abbreviations because of "limited computer capacity"...

We actually had an FAA geek state that at a Safety Seminar a few years
ago. Even then, before the days of 400 gigabyte PC hard drives, the
room erupted in laughter.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Matt Barrow[_3_]]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>> Because lets face it, METAR code is a foreign language which originated
>> from aliens from a another planet
>
> For sure!
>
> What I find hilarious is when the FAA says they use these
> abbreviations because of "limited computer capacity"...
>
> We actually had an FAA geek state that at a Safety Seminar a few years
> ago. Even then, before the days of 400 gigabyte PC hard drives, the
> room erupted in laughter.

If only they WERE using 400GB PC's instead of the vacuum tubed, 1970's
models relics they do :~)

I'm amazed the FAA does ATC in real-time, rather than as an overnight batch
process.

[C J Campbell]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 13:37:58 -0800, Jay Honeck wrote
(in article om>):

>> Because lets face it, METAR code is a foreign language which originated
>> from aliens from a another planet
>
> For sure!
>
> What I find hilarious is when the FAA says they use these
> abbreviations because of "limited computer capacity"...

Originally, it was limited bandwidth. The system was developed for ancient
Teletype machines working at 400 baud. That is no excuse for not fixing it,
of course, and you can now get plain language weather reports if you want
them. But they can't get rid of the old ones because too many of us
old-timers find reading the abbreviations is actually faster. So, they have
to keep the decrepit old system around as long as there are decrepit old
flyers. :-)

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

[ArtP]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 15:13:15 -0800, C J Campbell
> wrote:


>Originally, it was limited bandwidth.

If they want to reduce bandwidth requirements why not eliminate all
the boiler plate in the TFR announcements so you can actually find the
restricted area, altitude, and time. Now when I try to read them I am
faced with a solid block meaningless text that requires multiple
screens to get through.

[Mike Young]

"Jay Honeck" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>> Because lets face it, METAR code is a foreign language which originated
>> from aliens from a another planet
>
> For sure!
>
> What I find hilarious is when the FAA says they use these
> abbreviations because of "limited computer capacity"...
>
> We actually had an FAA geek state that at a Safety Seminar a few years
> ago. Even then, before the days of 400 gigabyte PC hard drives, the
> room erupted in laughter.

Teletypes are slow and limited in what they could do. Context is everything.

[Martin Hotze]

Jay Honeck schrieb:


> We actually had an FAA geek state that at a Safety Seminar a few years
> ago. Even then, before the days of 400 gigabyte PC hard drives, the
> room erupted in laughter.


Yeah, this type of ignorance can be seen all the time. And not only in
computing.

#m
--
I am not a terrorist <http://www.casualdisobedience.com/>

[Dylan Smith]

On 2007-02-15, Jay Honeck > wrote:
>> Because lets face it, METAR code is a foreign language which originated
>> from aliens from a another planet
>
> For sure!
>
> What I find hilarious is when the FAA says they use these
> abbreviations because of "limited computer capacity"...

'Limited computer capacity' is nothing to do with hard disk space. A
consistent set of abbreviations used worldwide vastly simplifies the job
of making all the weather computers talk to each other. If each computer
in each country simply used natural language for METARs, gathering all
the observations for the weather models would become an utter nightmare.
You'd have thousands of conditions in code - translating French words
for weather, translating British English, American English, Spanish -
the code would quickly become a complex unmaintainable mess.

If you want METARs in natural language, well, thanks to the consistent
set of abbreviations that is standardized, it is trivial to have a
computer translate it into your first language and own timezone. That's
a FAR better solution than having the raw METAR data in plain English
and then having the computer translate natural language into something
it can put into the models. You don't have to ever read a raw METAR if
you don't want to. Even ancient telnet DUATS will translate raw METAR
into English and your local timezone.

Your hilarity is merely caused by lack of knowledge in this case.

--
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de

[Dylan Smith]

On 2007-02-15, C J Campbell > wrote:
> Originally, it was limited bandwidth. The system was developed for ancient
> Teletype machines working at 400 baud. That is no excuse for not fixing it,
> of course, and you can now get plain language weather reports if you want
> them. But they can't get rid of the old ones because too many of us
> old-timers find reading the abbreviations is actually faster. So, they have
> to keep the decrepit old system around as long as there are decrepit old
> flyers. :-)

Well, that and everyone in the world (and every weather station) would
need to change all at the same time to remain compatible, or at least
have lots of 'workaround' code to cope with two incompatible systems!

There's really no need for anyone to read raw METAR if they don't want
to.

However, it is useful to do so. Notwithstanding that GPRS has plenty of
bandwidth for 'text only' applications, a raw undecoded TAF for even the
filthiest weather forecast will fit on one screen on my cell phone. This
is extremely convenient (especially since my home airfield is a farm
airfield and doesn't have electricity, let alone a computer - but
there's a cell tower about 1/4 mile away). Even if my cell phone had
4 GBps bandwidth, undecoded TAF would still be much better than plain
language due to the constraint of the screen being so small.

--
Yes, the Reply-To email address is valid.
Oolite-Linux: an Elite tribute: http://oolite-linux.berlios.de

[Jay Honeck]

> However, it is useful to do so. Notwithstanding that GPRS has plenty of
> bandwidth for 'text only' applications, a raw undecoded TAF for even the
> filthiest weather forecast will fit on one screen on my cell phone.

This is true. Once you've learned the lingo, "METAR" is a very handy
language to know. (I get it on Pilot MyCast, too...)

Unfortunately, IMHO it's just another stupid thing that needlessly
weeds out potential pilots. Newbies look at the gibberish on the
screen, are told they must learn to understand it, and find somewhere
else to spend their disposable income.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

[Jose]

> Newbies look at the gibberish on the
> screen, are told they must learn to understand it, and find somewhere
> else to spend their disposable income.

Maybe that's not a bad thing. Remember, you'd be sharing the sky with
people for whom a little study is too much.

Jose
--
Humans are pack animals. Above all things, they have a deep need to
follow something, be it a leader, a creed, or a mob. Whosoever fully
understands this holds the world in his hands.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Neil Gould]

Recently, Jay Honeck > posted:

>> However, it is useful to do so. Notwithstanding that GPRS has plenty
>> of bandwidth for 'text only' applications, a raw undecoded TAF for
>> even the filthiest weather forecast will fit on one screen on my
>> cell phone.
>
> This is true. Once you've learned the lingo, "METAR" is a very handy
> language to know. (I get it on Pilot MyCast, too...)
>
> Unfortunately, IMHO it's just another stupid thing that needlessly
> weeds out potential pilots. Newbies look at the gibberish on the
> screen, are told they must learn to understand it, and find somewhere
> else to spend their disposable income.
>
Perhaps you underestimate the amount of time and attention to such details
that you have spent in pursuit of your interest in flying? The information
is not incidental to flying, and I'm glad that regulations related flying
aren't taken as casually those for driving an auto. It weeds out a lot of
folks that really have no business in the air space.

I agree with the other point of view that METAR is a much more efficient
communication than native languages. Perhaps because of decades of
computer programming, I even find it to be a logical and (for the most
part) predictable language. You can guess the meaning of an abbreviation
and much of the time be right. However, the most compelling reason to
learn METAR is that native language translations that I've seen have
sometimes been incomplete (I use ADDS).

Neil

[Jim Logajan]

Dylan Smith > wrote:
> There's really no need for anyone to read raw METAR if they don't want
> to.

You mean the FAA doesn't include questions on them in their knowledge test?

[Mike Young]

"Neil Gould" > wrote in message
et...
> I agree with the other point of view that METAR is a much more efficient
> communication than native languages. Perhaps because of decades of
> computer programming, I even find it to be a logical and (for the most
> part) predictable language. You can guess the meaning of an abbreviation
> and much of the time be right.

With the exception of BR, unless that has some historical that I'm not aware
of.

[Bob Noel]

In article >,
"Mike Young" > wrote:

> With the exception of BR, unless that has some historical that I'm not aware
> of.

As I understand it, the UK folks wanted Fog to mean real fog (i.e., you can't
see ANYTHING) not the wimpy fog us in the USA call fog.

wrt non-obvious abbreviations for us Americans, remember that these
abbreviations came from a committee of people from a variety of
countries.

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

[Sylvain]

Mike Young wrote:

> With the exception of BR, unless that has some historical that I'm not
> aware of.

BR for 'brume' -- it's French. At least that's how I
remember it, may be I just made it up.

--Sylvain

[Jay Honeck]

> Perhaps you underestimate the amount of time and attention to such details
> that you have spent in pursuit of your interest in flying? The information
> is not incidental to flying, and I'm glad that regulations related flying
> aren't taken as casually those for driving an auto. It weeds out a lot of
> folks that really have no business in the air space.

Although philosophically I agree with you, there comes a point in time
where keeping the airspace clear of people we deem less than worthy
becomes counter-productive. Take a look at the vast majority of GA
airports in America today, and you can count the number of active
aircraft on one hand. How long do you think local taxpayers are going
to support unused airports?

I would prefer to remove as many superfluous obstacles (and these
weather abbreviations are just one example of the ways we have made
flying needlessly intimidating to the uninitiated) from new pilots,
and let the CFIs weed out the unworthy ones. We do not benefit by
weeding newbies out before that point.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"