New article posted today on Flight Safety Australia - 26 August 2026

[skippydiesel]

What brand is your weather? | Flight Safety Australia

[Thruster88]

Windy to know the big picture, can we fly the weekend mission in 3-4 days time. NAIPS to be legal. 

 

Accuracy of windy, whether  it is for farming or flying purposes is very good. That is my experience and I will continue to use all the tools available to plan.

[max]

Keeping up with the latest safety breakdowns and incident analyses is always a good reminder of how quickly things can change in the air, no matter how experienced a pilot is.

[440032]

From the BOM website:

Airservices Australia is the official provider of the Aeronautical Information Service which includes the delivery of the Bureau's aviation meteorological products.

Therefore, all information for the purpose of flight planning should be obtained from Airservices Australia.  ("should")

 

It used to also have, maybe it still does some place, a statement like "BOM weather SHALL NOT be used for flight planning, get your info from Airservices."

It's the same weather. Why the double handling? If Airservices is the official provider, why have it on BOM at all? I used to find the BOM site was easier to find things in the aviation weather section.

 

[BurnieM]

14 hours ago, 440032 said:

From the BOM website:

Airservices Australia is the official provider of the Aeronautical Information Service which includes the delivery of the Bureau's aviation meteorological products.

Therefore, all information for the purpose of flight planning should be obtained from Airservices Australia.  ("should")

 

It used to also have, maybe it still does some place, a statement like "BOM weather SHALL NOT be used for flight planning, get your info from Airservices."

It's the same weather. Why the double handling? If Airservices is the official provider, why have it on BOM at all? I used to find the BOM site was easier to find things in the aviation weather section.

I have always thought these sort of statements from Air Services and BOM were plain bullshit. Saying it is for legal reasons does not cover it.

The current observations and forecasts are produced by BOM who forward them to Air Services who are the 'official source'.

The information on the BOM website (old version - https://www.bom.gov.au/aviation/forecasts/taf/) is identical and has a much more readable layout than NAIPS. 

 

You also need to check NOTAMs (available on most EFBs).

 

Edited Thursday at 12:36 PM by BurnieM

[BurnieM]

On 26/08/2026 at 2:26 PM, skippydiesel said:

What brand is your weather? | Flight Safety Australia

I thought this article was quite poorly written.

Some of the statements about sources of non-government weather info were just wrong.

You need to understand sources, forecast windows and know that all sources of weather info have potential errors on a daily basis.

You should understand your legal requirements for trip planning.

You should frequently review updated forecasts as well as current observations during your trip.

 

I find one of the most useful sources of current weather information is the radar overlay in my EFB.

As long as you understand the constraints (only updated every 5 mins and always a little behind) replaying the last 5 radar images (last 25 minutes) is very useful.

This information is not from an official source and I am not required to review it before flight but I suggest it has high value for every pilot.

 

Edited Thursday at 12:54 PM by BurnieM

[max]

On 26/08/2026 at 1:57 PM, max said:

Keeping up with the latest safety breakdowns and incident analyses is always a good reminder of how quickly things can change in the air, no matter how experienced a pilot is. Check out the website to see our latest features and activate your initial welcome reward.

The Danger of Non-Aviation Apps: Consumer apps source their data from general forecast models (such as the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts or the Bureau of Meteorology's ACCESS model) and present them graphically without requiring decoding.

While user-friendly, they are not aviation-grade and lack the safety-of-life quality assurance required for pilots.

[Moneybox]

Perhaps sometimes we don’t need to dig too deep. Today I wanted to fly but I had a bit of work to do on the plane as well. I took a look at the wind, it seemed quite calm so then I opened Flightradar 24.

 

 

This is not the image from this morning but much the same. It showed wide spread calm weather, in fact that seemed to be the case right across Australia. Half an hour after the shower passed I looked up into a near perfectly blue patch of sky. What more do you want? I wasn’t taking off on a cross country flight, just a few circuits to keep my hand in. Flightradar 24 told me to avoid the busy morning and afternoon fly-in fly-out traffic and that I was unlikely to strike wild winds and with a nice big patch of blue sky, that was enough for me.