If you are good at interpreting raw Metars and TAFs or looking for textual NOTAMs in the palm of your hand, you’ll find that Aviation Weather is a quick and dirty tool for the job. This truly is a single purpose application so there is no need to wade through multiple screens and buttons to get to the meat of the application.
This ad-supported application (AdMobile) starts up right on the data entry screen where you input the ICAO for the airport you are looking for. They conveniently show you the time in UTC in the upper right side of the screen, right below the normal clock in the status bar.
Using the application is as simple as typing in the airport identifier and pressing the “request” button on the screen. If you want to save this particular airport’s ICAO identifier, you can check off “Add to favorites” before pressing “request.” This will keep you from having to re-type your most frequently requested METARs/TAFs.
The normal screen, blue with some clouds in the background is ok in most scenarios but they offer a “lo contrast” button which will change the screen display to green text on a black screen like the old, original monochrome monitors from the 80s. One complaint I have about the display of information is that, even in this version, after you input an airport identifier and press “request” the keyboard doesn’t close automatically. You can close it to view the whole screen of results by pressing the back button or long pressing on the menu button on your phone (or at least it did on my v1.6 ION device).
This latest version now offers NOTAMs by selecting NOTAM (currently the only option in the menu). While the NOTAM functionality doesn’t allow you to select airports from your Favorites collection it does thoughtfully carry over the currently selected identifier from the METAR/TAF screen. Regardless of the contrast setting from the home screen, the NOTAMs are displayed as white text against a black background. This screen too fails to auto-close the keyboard on my phone.
Bottom line: This app has found a home on my phone for now. For the price, I haven’t found something better yet.
Note that this is video is for version 1.3 rather than the current version which is v 1.41
Programmer: KeloX Gmbh
Cost: Free (ad suported)