Prelims

Prelims — Weather, Field Briefing & Tactical Planning

The mission starts before you step out the door. Prelims gives you every piece of ground truth you need — weather, light conditions, aviation data, grid coordinates and tactical orders — unified in a single operational tool built for professionals who can't afford to guess.

NATO Orders - Designed for speeding up the NATO sequence orders, covering the prelims, by providing all the weather, and solar and lunar details in one convenient place. Useful for mission planning with 30 days first light/last light and moon states.

Whether you're preparing a set of orders, assessing the ground, or coordinating movement around first and last light, Prelims puts authoritative data and military-grade planning tools in your pocket.

WEATHER — THREE SOURCES, ONE PICTURE

Prelims pulls live weather from Apple WeatherKit, Open-Meteo, and the Met Office simultaneously then provides a group average across all 3 providers for the most accurate forecast, so you can compare provider outputs and build confidence in the picture. Switch between combined and single-source modes. View current conditions, 48-hour hourly forecasts, and extended daily outlooks. Every metric is tactically assessed — wind, visibility, pressure trend, precipitation, UV, humidity, and dew point — with plain-language operational notes that turn raw numbers into decisions.

AVIATION WEATHER — METAR & TAF DECODED

Automatically locate the nearest reporting aerodrome or select your station manually. Prelims fetches and fully decodes METAR and TAF reports from NOAA Aviation Weather, AVWX, or CheckWX — switchable in settings. Flight categories (VFR, MVFR, IFR, LIFR) are displayed with colour-coded status, plain-English interpretation, and hazard summaries. Trend periods — FM, BECMG, TEMPO and PROB — are projected into hourly and daily aviation forecast rows so you can see how conditions develop across the window.

ASTRONOMY — LIGHT DISCIPLINE, PLANNED

Full solar and lunar calculations powered by NOAA and Jean Meeus algorithms. Astronomical, nautical, and civil dawn and dusk. Sunrise, sunset, solar noon, and day length. Moon phase with illumination percentage, moonrise and moonset, and a 30-day illumination calendar. Every event is tied to your exact location and date — plan night movement, low-light operations, and observation windows with precision.

COORDINATES & GRID REFERENCES

Your location rendered instantly across every standard used in the field. WGS84 decimal and DMS, MGRS, OSGB36 National Grid, what3words (requires API Key).

NATO ORDERS — BUILD AND SAVE

Draft, save, and manage your preliminary orders directly in the app. Enter task organisation, C2 relationships, attached personnel and seating plans. Record terrain model details, defensive positions, key ground, observation posts, fields of fire, cover and concealment, avenues of approach, and obstacles. Attach custom narratives for introduction, location, security, sentries, and actions on. Tag and categorise orders. Export to PDF — A4, A3, A5 or Filofax — with professional templates, adjustable font scale, and full section control.

Features List

- Live weather from Apple WeatherKit, Open-Meteo & Met Office — compare all three simultaneously
- METAR & TAF decode from NOAA Aviation Weather, AVWX, or CheckWX — switchable in settings
- Solar: Astronomical, Nautical & Civil dawn/dusk, Sunrise, Sunset, Solar Noon
- Lunar: Moon phase, illumination percentage, moonrise/moonset, and 30-day illumination calendar
- Current GPS coordinates in WGS84, MGRS, OSGB36, what3words, DMS and regional datums
- Interactive map with crosshair location picking and instant coordinates and weather.
- Draft and save NATO preliminary orders (Task organisation, C2, weather etc.)
- PDF export — A4, A3, A5 or Filofax — multiple templates and font scale options
- Tag and categorise saved orders
- Multiple colour themes including Apple Weather Sky and Tactical Green