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Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
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20,341
Location
west Texas
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Display name:
Dave Taylor
come up with a program that will automatically notify me when the weather at (an) airport(s) I designate, falls below a certain target, which I also specify.

"Bing!" Cell phone goes off, says ceiling has dropped to 1000' at Kabc - time to go do some approaches!

"Bing!" Another device goes off in flight, says vis at destination Kdef 500mi away has gone below 1/2 mile - time to look at alternates!

<PS: POA mods - need to change home page to announce addition of Jesse as new moderator?>
 
Dave,

I like the thinking. I'm going to suggest Garmin add some functionality to the G1000 to let you specify VFR or MVFR as "alerts" for your flight plan destination and if the METAR goes below that value you get a message, telling you that there are changing priorities ahead.
 
Should it bong twice and display a smiley if it goes back up?

Let'sgoflying! said:
come up with a program that will automatically notify me when the weather at (an) airport(s) I designate, falls below a certain target, which I also specify.

"Bing!" Cell phone goes off, says ceiling has dropped to 1000' at Kabc - time to go do some approaches!

"Bing!" Another device goes off in flight, says vis at destination Kdef 500mi away has gone below 1/2 mile - time to look at alternates!

<PS: POA mods - need to change home page to announce addition of Jesse as new moderator?>
Click to expand...
 
Hi all-
First post. I'm a student pilot in Oregon, and a software engineer professionally. I've been lurking here a while, since I frankly haven't had anything to add to any conversations, but since this one fits with my expertise,I figured I'd add something.

Dave, this is a great idea I think, and something that I could put in a reasonable amount of time. I'd be interested in getting ideas on what sort of thing you guys are looking for. I imagine it could be done as either a website, or an app running on your personal PC.

For running costs, it ends up being pretty light (either way, I have to pay some sort of hosting, around 10/month to make the app available). However, the expense would be sending the Text Messages. Emails are obviously free and easy, however texts are expensive (a certain fee per text).

There are some phone providers that allow you to email a text (verizon is apparently phonenumber@vtext.com), but not all. I'd obviously have to know your provider.

I guess that if I was able to handle everyone through text, and had enough interest, this would be something I'd be willing to do for just donations (once the site is done obviously), or potentially a small google ad somewhere.

So I guess my questions before I start development are:
1- which would you prefer, a website or a downloaded application? For downloaded apps, what Operating System is important to you?
2- What amount would you be willing to pay for something like this?
3- If the above answer is 'free', would you be offended by a paypal donate link and a small google ad?
4- What boundary conditions are you interested in seeing? I've heard Ceiling, but what others interest you?
5- What interest is there in this app? I obviously wouldn't want to waste a week or two developing this to have only 3 users.
6- What other types of messages would you like to receive warnings by? Text? Email? iPhone push notification? Any others?

If I get enough response to this and get enough ideas, I might toss something like this together in my free time.
 
Erich-

As for running as an app off a PC, see this thread:
http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30718
Just use the last record for a station to get the data for making go/no-go, but this would need to be combined with other data such as from the approach plates for an airport. The user would need to choose the type of approach (circling minimums typically are > than others) and the the airspeed (differing visibility minimums for differing airspeeds)

Alarms in flight indicating an airport is below minimums for the chosen parameters- how are you going to communicate that to the user while flying? I understand cell reception varies from Ok to poor in the air and may even be against FCC rules.

If this could be provided with the XM data stream- could be interesting.
 
Cap'n Jack- Getting the METARs are pretty easy, the NWS provides them as downloadable files off an FTP site, so that wouldn't be difficult at all.

You are correct that warning the pilot in flight would be the difficult part. I'm not sure how you would do this with an XM data stream (as in XM radio?), though I could look into it if I went this way.

As for the rest of your post, what do you mean by approach plates and the rest of that? Pardon my ignorance, I'm only a ~1/2 way into my training for PPL, and though I think I have the ground school stuff sufficiently well learned, I'm not picking up that paragraph...

I was looking at just doing Visibility/wind/crosswind breaks, perhaps a few of the other simple ones at first. Perhaps a warning based on the pressure dropping/raising too fast. I'm sure I could figure out how to add the others in the future though.

Thanks for the input!
 
Keane said:
As for the rest of your post, what do you mean by approach plates and the rest of that? Pardon my ignorance, I'm only a ~1/2 way into my training for PPL, and though I think I have the ground school stuff sufficiently well learned, I'm not picking up that paragraph...
Click to expand...

Every IFR approach has different minimum ceiling and visibility requirements for your particular category of aircraft to legally land. Which makes this such a tiger of a problem to tangle with.

Easier just to keep it simple and write an application notifying you if it is IFR or VFR.

As an aside, Foreflight (iPhone, desktop) has a simple color code system to show you at a glance if an airport is VFR, IFR, or marginal VFR using weather reporting criteria they have set up. Seems that it would be easy for them to glom on SMS notifications for that. But yes SMS isn't always reliable in the air.
 
alaskaflyer said:
Every IFR approach has different minimum ceiling and visibility requirements for your particular category of aircraft to legally land. Which makes this such a tiger of a problem to tangle with.
Click to expand...
What Dave Taylor wanted was to specify his own minimums. I don't know if that would make things easier to deal with or not.
 
Actually I looked at Foreflight Desktop again and it appears as though you can set your own criteria for weather alerts. But I think it is just desktop alerts for airports along a planned route of flight, not ones that can be sent out via SMS or email.

Custom Airport Alerts

Set your own limits

When the winds are high, or the clouds are low, you want to know about it right away. The alerts system will flag issues like this, using limits you set.

So if your personal limit for a crosswind component is 12 kts or you don't want to fly when the ceiling is below 1000' AGL, ForeFlight Desktop Edition will make sure you know about it.

prefs.jpg
 
Keane said:
Cap'n Jack- Getting the METARs are pretty easy, the NWS provides them as downloadable files off an FTP site, so that wouldn't be difficult at all.

You are correct that warning the pilot in flight would be the difficult part. I'm not sure how you would do this with an XM data stream (as in XM radio?), though I could look into it if I went this way.

As for the rest of your post, what do you mean by approach plates and the rest of that? Pardon my ignorance, I'm only a ~1/2 way into my training for PPL, and though I think I have the ground school stuff sufficiently well learned, I'm not picking up that paragraph...

I was looking at just doing Visibility/wind/crosswind breaks, perhaps a few of the other simple ones at first. Perhaps a warning based on the pressure dropping/raising too fast. I'm sure I could figure out how to add the others in the future though.

Thanks for the input!
Click to expand...
I did mean XM radio. Somehow I doubt just anyone could get their data on it. I think that's what TMetzinger meant when he mentioned Garmin. You need the receiver to decode the data.

As for your other questions- Look at ACY;
http://naco.faa.gov/d-tpp/0909/00669IL13.PDF
If you click on the link, look in the lower right corner; there are three approach types (ILS, localizer only, and circling). There are alao letters A->E representing differing aircraft speeds. For this approach, there are potentially 15 minima but only 8 are actually used
There are 4 approaches for runway 13, each with potentially differing minima. There are other runways as well- you can see how this can get complex. Also, for use in the air, I'd like to know what was above minimum for my aircraft class. This doesn't seem like a trivial interface. If you can get it to work, people may pay for it. Or not- Jepp/Garmin want money for the GPS interface; XM wants money for weather data...it adds up and there is only so much money to be gotten...
 
Dave. I'm actively developing what you speak of right now. Look for it within a week or two. It will be part of the JesseWeather project.

To the guy above -- I'm not going to charge for this feature nor am I going to cover it in advertisements or donation links. So if you decide to compete, realize, neither of us are going to make any money :) Why would I do such a thing? Because pilots are cheap, there aren't enough of them, and its my way of giving back to the aviation community.

Dave, if you are willing to beta test for me, let me know. I can't promise you that it won't be completely inaccurate and fill your e-mail or phone with alerts :) Anyone else who is interested contact me via PM.
 
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Jesse-
Cool then, no need for me to do it. I was not intending to make money anyway, just not be out the $30+/month for a virtual dedicated server to run the text-messaging app.

Taildragging: What foreflight has there with the personal minimums is what I was planning, but if Jesse is already doing it, no reason for me to as well!

Capt Jack: thanks! It seems that what you posted would have been enough for me to do this, I appreciate the help and clarity.
 
Keane said:
Jesse-
Cool then, no need for me to do it. I was not intending to make money anyway, just not be out the $30+/month for a virtual dedicated server to run the text-messaging app.

Taildragging: What foreflight has there with the personal minimums is what I was planning, but if Jesse is already doing it, no reason for me to as well!

Capt Jack: thanks! It seems that what you posted would have been enough for me to do this, I appreciate the help and clarity.
Click to expand...
Oh you're free to do it -- nothing like competing and not making money :D I might open source my stuff some day.. I'm just not ready to do that yet.

As far as the text messaging -- there is no way that I'm aware of to send free SMS messages. They generally cost like 3 cents each. The good news is that most cell phone providers have an e-mail gateway that'll translate to SMS (albeit it slow sometimes).
 
jesse said:
Oh you're free to do it -- nothing like competing and not making money :D I might open source my stuff some day.. I'm just not ready to do that yet.

As far as the text messaging -- there is no way that I'm aware of to send free SMS messages. They generally cost like 3 cents each. The good news is that most cell phone providers have an e-mail gateway that'll translate to SMS (albeit it slow sometimes).
Click to expand...

I have no need to compete for a profit-less website, this one is all yours :)

I agree, I did some research and found the basic email 2 SMS addresses for most of the providers, but as you said, they seem to be slow. I found a few different gateway servers, but like you said, they are a little expensive to send texts, so it wouldn't be something I'd be willing to do completely unsupported.

Was just sort of looking for a way to help out the community, if you have this one, I'll grab the next oen :cheerswine:
 
Keane said:
I have no need to compete for a profit-less website, this one is all yours :)

I agree, I did some research and found the basic email 2 SMS addresses for most of the providers, but as you said, they seem to be slow. I found a few different gateway servers, but like you said, they are a little expensive to send texts, so it wouldn't be something I'd be willing to do completely unsupported.

Was just sort of looking for a way to help out the community, if you have this one, I'll grab the next oen :cheerswine:
Click to expand...
Sounds good. Initially I'll be doing e-mail only alerts via the provider's SMS gateway if you want it to go to your cell-phone. Eventually I'll probably offer true SMS alerts billing the user for the sms message at cost (few cents each time).

You'll also be able to set alerts based on terminal area forecasts.
 
Ask for it and they will build it!
You guys are great, for this and all the other help I've gotten over the years.
Thanks!
 
jesse said:
Dave, if you are willing to beta test for me, let me know. I can't promise you that it won't be completely inaccurate and fill your e-mail or phone with alerts :)
Click to expand...

Maybe someone who has unlimited text messaging would like to offer to beta!
 
Thought I'd post a quick tease of what is to come. This really isn't the final product. Still working on the user interface and this screen will contain more data and more configurable options. I'd guess I'm about a week away from having people beta test (I've said that before. Welcome to software development).

jesseweather.png
 
Looks good, Jesse! Th only thing I'd modify would the that the hours in which to notify should be tied to the address, not the person. For example, ping my email 24x7, but my cell phone only until 10PM. So put the key for the notification table on the address table, not the user table.
 
gprellwitz said:
Looks good, Jesse! Th only thing I'd modify would the that the hours in which to notify should be tied to the address, not the person. For example, ping my email 24x7, but my cell phone only until 10PM. So put the key for the notification table on the address table, not the user table.
Click to expand...
Perhaps..I'll have ot think about that..that provides a whole 'nother level of complexity to the UI that I'd have to try and keep simple.

If the conditions are still active when the notification time is reached then it'll still send the notification.
 
Nice-looking UI, too.

It is remarkable how difficult it is to design user-friendly "stuff" - easy to complain about, hard to do. You do have the knack.
 
gprellwitz said:
Looks good, Jesse! Th only thing I'd modify would the that the hours in which to notify should be tied to the address, not the person. For example, ping my email 24x7, but my cell phone only until 10PM. So put the key for the notification table on the address table, not the user table.
Click to expand...

One more thing... it needs to check my FBO's schedule and let me know if any of the planes I'm checked out in are available when the weather conditions match my notification criteria.

(just kidding--this looks great, Jesse!)
 
TangoWhiskey said:
One more thing... it needs to check my FBO's schedule and let me know if any of the planes I'm checked out in are available when the weather conditions match my notification criteria.

(just kidding--this looks great, Jesse!)
Click to expand...

Even better, if it could notify the FBO and have them pull the plane out and even have the cabin pre-heated exactly 5 minutes before my arrival, that would be greeeeat. :D
 
Nicely done.
Now - can you get the asoses and awoses to also note their 100LL self serve price?!
 
Built...and I've given access to the beta users. Expect it to be ready for the world within a week. If someone is interested in beta testing please pm me.

( BTW Dave -- your request probably took about 40 hours :) )

JesseWeather is up to 6,100 lines of code. That does not include any third-party libraries I use like the graphing library, framework, etc.
 
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A screen shot of the version in beta:
jesseweather2.png
 
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