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awos · Guest

Too fucking bad that Belfort Instruments Co-owner Bruce R. Robinson,
Belfort Co-Owner Nicholas C. Kaufman, Belfort President Mark W.
Decker, Belfort Vice President Debra S. Alascio, Belfort CFO WIlliam
C. Gordon or Belfort Instruments Digiwx AWOS Sales Director Ralph F.
Petragnani weren't all aboard this Beechcraft cargo plan that crashed.
This is REAL fucking nice that we have an absolute piece of shit AWOS
weather station called Digiwx in the US marketplace! Here is
definitive proof of what pilots can expect from Digiwx AWOS:

FAA NTSB Report

Date: 18 MAR 2006
Time: ca 14:48
Type: Beechcraft C.99
Operator: Ameriflight
Registration: N54RP
C/n / msn: U-218
First flight: 1983
Engines: 2 Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-36
Crew: Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2
Passengers: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 0
Total: Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2
Airplane damage: Written off
Location: 13 km (8.1 mls) SW of Butte, MT (USA)
Phase: En route
Nature: Cargo
Departure airport: Helena Airport, MT (HLN/KHLN), USA
Destination airport: Butte (Bert Mooney) Airport, MT (BTM/KBTM), USA
Flightnumber: 2591

Narrative:

The Beech 99 departed Helena (HLN) at 14:35 on flight to Butte (Bert
Mooney, BTM) and was carrying only about 10 pounds of freight. The
aircraft was cleared for the VOR B approach to Butte at 14:48. Butte
controllers noted that a weather front that included icing conditions
and heavy snow had been approaching the area from the south to the
north/northeast even though a UNICOM-based Digiwx AWOS reported clear
skies with good visibility and gentle winds in the mountains. During
the
descent, the airplane collided with trees and subsequently the
terrain.
Search crews found the wreckage of the plane on March 20. Upon
investigation, one of the cockpit radio was found to be tuned to
123.0
MHz which is the airport's CTAF/UNICOM.

Preliminary results strongly suggest that the Beechcraft pilot
received
incorrect and faulty data from a Digiwx AWOS weather reporting
station
on the field at Butte (BTM) airport. FAA and NTSB continue to probe
the
weather data being disseminated from this Belfort Instruments Digiwx
AWOS which has never been formally FAA commissioned. Cary Gates from
the
Northwest Mountain Region of the FAA in Helena, MT notes that the
barometer setting is the only FAA Approved weather sensor on the
Digiwx
AWOS weather station; all remaining weather sensors on the Digiwx
AWOS
(wind direction, wind speed, temperature, dewpoint, relative
humidity,
visibility, ceilometer, density altitude, condensation altitude) are
all "advisory." According to the FAA, "Advisory Use ONLY" means not
for
actual in-flight aviation use. It should be noted that Belfort
Instruments website even makes mention in a disclaimer that "weather
readings shown on the Internet are advisory only."

Sources: 2 killed in crash of cargo plane (Billings Gazette
20-3-2006);
FAA NTSB

awos · Guest

As noted previously, the only weather sensor approved by the FAA on
the Belfort Instruments Digiwx AWOS weather station is the barometer
setting. ALL remaining weather instruments (wind direction, wind
speed, temperature, dewpoint, relative humidity, visibility,
ceilometer, density altitude, condensation altitude) are all
"advisory" weather sensors. According to the FAA, "Advisory Use ONLY"
means not for actual in-flight aviation use.

And only one Belfort Instruments Digiwx AWOS installation in
Greenville, IL has been commissioned by the FAA as an official
weahter
source for actual in-flight aviation use. The other 30-40 belfort
Instruments Digiwx AWOS field installations are NOT FAA commissioned
which means they spew un-official advsiory weather information

One needs to look to: FAA Advisory Circular 150/5220-16C in Chapter 2
titled "Certification and Commissioning Process" to see the steps
that
Belfort Instruments Digiwx AWOS WILLFULLY and INTENTIONALLY bypasses
to get their inferior AWOS (Almost Weather Observation System) out
into the U.S. marketplace.

Most pilots don't know the difference between an FAA Approved, an FAA
Certified nor an FAA Commissioned AWOS. And most pilots would just
assume that all weather sensors on an FAA Approved AWOS are
"commissioned" when they're really not. And you won't find Belfort
Instruments Digiwx AWOS making note of this distinction either
because
they wouldn't sell any more Digiwx AWOS systems if the airports
owners
and operators really knew what an inferior piece of aviation weather
SHIT they're getting if and when they decided to purchase a Belfort
Instruments Digiwx AWOS.

About Belfort Instrument Company

Belfort used to be a leading provider of weather instruments to the
government, professional meteorology and aviation markets. Key words:
"use to be." They never provided any wind sensors to the Wright
Brothers despite their fantastic assertion that they did! Historical
archives available at the U.S. Air Force National Museum (1100 Spaatz
Street, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH 45433) tells a very different story
and specifically mentions a "Richards" anemometer which Wilbur Wright
held as pictured at: http://www.exn.ca/FlightDeck/Aviators/wright3.cfm.
The Belfort aerovane wind system on U.S. Naval aircraft carriers are
currently being replaced with ultrasonic wind sensors from QPI (11207
Single Oak Road, Fredericksburg, VA 22407) which just won a $94
million dollar contract for the Moriah Wind System. Belfort wind
speed
and direction anemometers found on the ASOS platform are now being
replaced with ultrasonic sensors from the Vaisala Group. Belfort
Instruments Model 6000 visibility sensor will no longer be a part of
the U.S. Air Force's OS-21/FSB program come early 2007. And despite a
$500,000 U.S. government grant from NASA's Small Aircraft
Transportation System (SATS) program in 2004 to build a low-cost
ceilometer, Belfort didn't possess the technical smarts nor the
engineering know-how to accomplish the task. So now they're importing
the Eliasson CBME 80A laser ceilometer from Muir Matheson. As one can
readily see, Belfort is no longer setting any standards of
measurement
in the weather instrumentation world. And now Belfort is propagating
lie after lie about their fabled company history while trying to
steal
thunder from the accomplishments of the Wright Brothers. According to
the National Museum of American History (12th Street and Constitution
Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20560), Belfort founder Julian Friez
never made it to Baltimore to set up shop until sometime in the 1890s
even though Belfort officials fradulently claim the company was
founded in 1876. Thus, there was no 125th anniversary for Belfort to
celebrate in 2001 even though they hosted a party to which no one
came! Belfort's proclamation that it is the "Oldest Weather Company
in
the World" is simply yet another Belfort lie as Thomas Romney
Robinson
invented the first wind anemometer in 1846, six years before Julian
Friez was born in 1852. Belfort doesn't even know it's own company
history so they just make it up! You should wonder what other crap
(eg. Digiwx AWOS) they also make up! For more information about
Belfort Instrument and DigiWx, visit dogsh*t.com

On Mar 31, 2:18 pm, "awos" <awos_a...@yahoo.com> wrote: