Meteorology for Aviators Course
One readers report on the Met Office Weather Course
Added: 03 July 2005

The two-day Meteorology for Aviators course is held at the Met Office College, located in the Met Office headquarters in Exeter, situated less than half a mile from junction 29 of the M4. It’s certainly convenient for pilots, because Exeter airport (ICAO code EGTE) is located about a mile and a half on the other side of the same motorway junction. I attended this course in March 2005 along with about fifteen others, and the two days just flew past (sorry!).

Topics covered included air masses, fronts, wind, clouds, satellite and radar imagery, air hazards, METARs and TAFs, with exercises at the end of each section. There were also trips to the Ops room so you could talk to the forecasters responsible for the various regions in the British Isles. There was even a trip to see the Met Office supercomputer, which I have to say was a rather disappointing collection of cupboards with flashing lights on the front – bring back the Cray!  

The general consensus was that the meteorology you have to learn for your PPL ground exams can be learned parrot-fashion in order to pass your exam, but little of it stays with you for day to day flying. This course however, is specifically geared towards the pilot and you learn so much more in terms of how forecasters interpret all the data to arrive at a forecast and of course things are explained to you much more effectively than if you just read it in a book.

The two instructors (to my shame I can’t remember their names) were excellent. They gave the course in a relaxed and informal way, and their presentation material was outstanding. Both of them had served at one time or another on RAF bases and so had direct experience of what aviators need. One of the presentations was about air hazards and the pictures of a Hercules that had flown through rain ice and a Harrier that had flown through a hailstorm were spectacular. And the story about wind shear experienced by a Hercules crew in the Ascension Islands was pretty hair-raising! And I will never, never fly anywhere near a cumulonimbus after the section on microbursts and downdraughts…

There was quite a mix of pilots on the course, about 50/50 in terms of fixed wing and rotary wing, but a huge difference in terms of experience. There were guys there who had many hundreds of hours as well as those of us who had a few tens of hours and were still training for our PPL. As a result, we didn’t learn METARs and TAFs, but used them in the exercises. One of the best tests involved being given a radar map, satellite imagery, and weather map, then you had to match four TAFs against four points on the British Isles – that stimulated some interesting debates, I can tell you!

For me, this was money well spent (a whisker under £200). I was able to answer a lot more questions in my 'PPL Confuser' after completing the course, and it made the meteorology study so much more ‘real’. The biggest benefit was being able to talk to other pilots about their experiences, but the course material was great, and they gave us all a CD-ROM with copies of the presentations afterwards. Down side? I booked the course some six months in advance and they insisted on full payment at time of booking, which I thought was a bit off. Once on the course however, all that faded and the two days were over all too quickly. A great course, and one that beginners and experienced alike will derive a lot of benefit from.

More details on the two-day Meteorology for Aviators course from the Met Office can be found at: http://www.metoffice.com/aviation/training/index.html

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