I thought GFA meant............

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Lost Lake
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I thought GFA meant............

Post by Lost Lake »

I've been flying for a few years, in most parts of Canada. I always thought that the GFA was an expertly estimated forecast for weather in various regions of Canada. State of the art modelling of anticipated weather systems, updated every 6 hours. In addition. I have expected that it would be a conservative estimate in remote regions, erring on the side of caution. We understand that local knowledge is also factored in flight planning.

Unfortunately, I have found that the GFA for the prarie region is a total joke!! Forecast ceilings and vis in northern Sask, instead of reading 400 ft and 3 miles should read 40 ft and 1 mile. This is not an isolated incident.

Last night, freezing fog was forecast to be well south of my location. TAF implied severe clear. Sure as shit. we hit freezing fog in the dark on a short trip/ Ended up using a glassy water, night, IFR, can't see out the window landing.

Does NavCanada not have any sense of responsibility? No err on the side of caution philosophy? I realize these are models, but they are based on millions of dollars of technology and local observations. It is even more important in remote locations to have a forecast that will provide a safe margin. Instead, these estimates are guestimates, and could well cause a fatal accident.

In this day and age of litigation, if there is ever a severe accident as a direct of an inacurate GFA, I hope someone sues the shit of NavCanada!!
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Relic
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by Relic »

Couldn't you have gone to an alternate?
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mcrit
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by mcrit »

We've noticed it at work to. Nobody at work has any faith in the GFA anymore.
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Lost Lake
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by Lost Lake »

Relic wrote:Couldn't you have gone to an alternate?
We fly night VR. The alternate was the airport we just left. Not the point. If you can't rely on a reasonable government issued weather forecast, why are we paying NavCanada fees?
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bradley
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by bradley »

All the forecasts in Saskatchewan, public and aviation, have been wrong for about three weeks now. Probably a seasonal thing.
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Lost Lake
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by Lost Lake »

Not unless the season started in April!!
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cdnpilot77
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by cdnpilot77 »

Doesn't Environment Canada issue TAF's and GFA's?
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Relic
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by Relic »

Understood...but can we rely on anything the government does :lol:
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Lost Lake
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by Lost Lake »

Does the term "Due Diligence" come to mind?
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Heliian
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by Heliian »

My theory on the forecasting is that since the use of fancy shmancy supercomputers and programs to predict and plot the weather is more common now and the "human" element has been removed, the forecasts are prone to more voids and errors. Last week they predicted some light snow in our area in the coming day, had someone looked out of a window, they would have seen that it was snowing now and not so lightly. There is a reason they label it GFA and not the more correct GAF (gaffe).
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PositiveRate27
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by PositiveRate27 »

A few weeks ago a student and I were pondering the weather as we prepared for a night VFR lesson. The forecast was for BKN040 with an 8 hour TEMPO for OVC020 RA 3sm Vis. (The dreaded TEMPO of shit weather that lasts all day, or in this case, all night) We called the FIC and asked him for a weather briefing to see if there was anything we missed and to see if we could get a feel for when that Tempo might actually become a reality. He said, and I'm quoting, "If I were a betting man I would say you shouldn't expect any precip in the next 2-3 hours." 20 minutes later, as we were walking out to the aircraft it started pour down and the Vis and ceilings took a dive.

I remember a conversation I had with a student of mine (who happened to be the CP of a helicopter company at the time) when I first started instructing. He told me, "Always assume everyone that has anything to do with the operation of your flight is doing their absolute best to kill you and you will be fine."

It is very unfortunate that it sounds like the forecasters in the parries are screwing the proverbial pooch theses days. We would all hope that our highly trained, professional FIC personnel, ATC, dispatchers, fueling staff, maintenance engineers, and even those oh so holy legends, the pilots never get it wrong. Unfortunately we are all human. We all suffer from this birth defect. Typically, all the holes in the Swiss cheese need to align before there is an accident. That is why it is critical to stay vigilant and do your absolute best to ensure that, at the very least, one of those holes doesn't line up.

I hope things improve for you guys out there,
Fly safe.

PR
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lostaviator
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by lostaviator »

My new favourite is the Taf being amended over and over with my alternate going from SKC to 400ft in a matter of an hour.
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Sidebar
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by Sidebar »

NAV CANADA contracts Environment Canada to produce GFAs, TAFs, and other avation forecasts. Your complaints should go to the forecasters, not the information distributor.
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mcrit
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by mcrit »

Sidebar wrote: NAV CANADA contracts Environment Canada to produce GFAs, TAFs, and other avation forecasts. Your complaints should go to the forecasters, not the information distributor.
Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 5:38 am
My complaint is going to the guy that is charging me for something and then delivering a shitty product.
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Liquid Charlie
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by Liquid Charlie »

I have never believed a wx man or a forecast - ever -- just use it as a reference and always figure for the worst - the only accurate wx is what you can see is in a present moment in time -- the rest is wild guess and speculation - the old spydy sense usually will steer you right -- classic -- it's zero and an eighth and the forecast is telling you it will be cavu in 20 minutes -- haha -- got a bridge to sell u ---

Some of the worst wx I have encountered was never supposed to be there -- :smt040
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crazy horse
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by crazy horse »

mcrit wrote:
Sidebar wrote: NAV CANADA contracts Environment Canada to produce GFAs, TAFs, and other avation forecasts. Your complaints should go to the forecasters, not the information distributor.
Posted: Sun Dec 16, 2012 5:38 am
My complaint is going to the guy that is charging me for something and then delivering a shitty product.
You get charged for going online and reading a GFA or a TAF?
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Lost Lake
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by Lost Lake »

Liquid Charlie wrote:You get charged for going online and reading a GFA or a TAF?
No, we get charged through taxes and flying fees to pay for them putting it on line.

As far as enviroment Canada vs. Navcan. Navcan is the seller/provider of the product. If the product sucks or is faulty, the seller should either get another source or make Enviro Can more responsible for their product. This is not about whether I should go golfing or wear sunglasses, this is about trying to stack the odds in my favour in order to provide a safe, comfortable flight for my customers. In remote regions, there are not FSS personnel sitting around at every airport watching the weather. We are solely dependant on a reliable weather forecast, especially at night.
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Strobes
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by Strobes »

GFA = Good for F All...
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x-wind
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by x-wind »

A good improvement would be getting web cams at more and more airports.
It'd be also neat to see if they could patch those images through an XM radio broadcast.

Help the guys out with pilot reports, they don't seem to be made much. Pass along lots of info even if it isn't a degraded weather phenomena to what was forecasted - say just a temperature inversion or a light wind from the east.
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shimmydampner
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by shimmydampner »

Directly from the main GFA selection page:
The user accepts sole responsibility and all risks associated with use of the information on this web site. The user expressly releases NAV CANADA, its employees, agents and assigns from any liability or obligation in respect thereof.
Come on Lost. Surely you've been around long enough to know that forecasts of any kind are far from perfect, especially in the middle of nowhere. Furthermore I guarantee that Nav Canada would definitely not be the ones in the hot seat should something have gone wrong when you elected to proceed with your approach and landing instead of diverting to a VFR alternate.
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Lost Lake
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by Lost Lake »

x-wind wrote:Come on Lost. Surely you've been around long enough to know that forecasts of any kind are far from perfect, especially in the middle of nowhere. Furthermore I guarantee that Nav Canada would definitely not be the ones in the hot seat should something have gone wrong when you elected to proceed with your approach and landing instead of diverting to a VFR alternate.
Hey Shimmy Damper, you obviously haven't flown much in remote areas. I flew from the "alternate" VFR airport. My windshield iced up on route to the destination in the dark. Was I supposed to fly back through the shit to the alternate? In extreme northern regions, especially at night, as a commercial operation, we are dependant on NavCanada for reliable forecasts. Being off by only a few 100 miles in their 6 hr forecast is, in my mind unaccetable. I have observed numerous times when their observations were totally out to lunch. Transport Canada spews out all kinds of bullshit about flying safe, then allows a spin off arm to provide weather synopsis that, as I stated earlier, should err on the side of caution. There are enough reporting stations around, combined with satellites and radar, to provide a reasonable prediction for weather. Nothing is perfect, I just can't believe how many times they are totally off in their forecast.
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2.5milefinal
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by 2.5milefinal »

TAFs and GFAs in northern Ontario are about as good as they are in the rest of Canada, almost not worth looking at. But its all we have.
For starters they do not seem to me that the forecasters take into account one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world (Lake Superior) and its effect on the weather.
PIREPS are good but - and this a big but - a pilot had to take the chance and venture out into the weather (maybe bad weather) to submit the PIREP...maybe not good. I agree tho, if you are out there file a PIREP.
We need more auto reporting stations in northern Canada.
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shimmydampner
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by shimmydampner »

Well Lost, I'll let you continue to speculate about my experience in remote areas, as your comment was quite amusing to me. As for what you were "supposed" to do, I can't say as I wasn't there. You're here to tell us about it, so that's good, although you're clearly shaken up a bit about it. Understandable. All I'm saying is that in remote areas, it is generally known that weather forecasts, in particular the GFA which is meant to cover a huge area, isn't always totally accurate. If you understand that they are based on information from only a handful of sources which may not always be totally accurate themselves, you'll see the folly in putting too much stock in using it in an attempt to get a detailed forecast for a particular destination. They are helpful in getting a sense of the larger patterns occurring in an area and that's about it. When you take all that into consideration, I think it is actually a pretty good product, but even Nav Canada knows it ain't perfect, hence the legal disclaimer.
At any rate, glad everything worked out for the best for you.
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pdw
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by pdw »

Lost Lake wrote:There are enough reporting stations around, combined with satellites and radar, to provide a reasonable prediction for weather.
Each case is so different, ... can you give more details in particular the one most recent ? Just for context of discussion (time & co-ordinates only).

Sparse stations, limited pireps as mentioned above ... maybe then also less predictable systems in their speed of advance. But it's also easier to check after-the-fact these days for something unusual ... for any major unexpected element. (As was said: freezing fog / rain ... is tons of moisture condensing ... lots of latent heat pushing along a polar front but at a shallow angle of rise .. can see an isolated area get changing in a real hurry but not soon enough per reporting interval.)
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kevenv
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Re: I thought GFA meant............

Post by kevenv »

In the very remote chance that NavCanada is not monitoring these boards, has anyone bothered to take the 2 minutes required to email them with their complaints and observations? Ranting here, though perhaps therapeutic, achieves nothing.
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