About AOPA

1
About AOPA

• 414,000 members
• Largest general aviation organization
• Virtually all active pilots
• 50-100 hours per year
• Member service
• Lobbying
• Offer Jeppesen wx on websitewww.aopa.org

2
GA pilot population

• Certificate levels Student, Private, Commercial,
  Airline Transport, Flight Instructor
• Ratings Single-engine land, multi-engine land
  instrument!
• Instrumentable to file IFR flight plans, fly by
  reference to instruments in adverse wx
• when you cant see where youre going!

3
More flying on instruments

• Better handling, monitoring
• Traffic advisories, sequencing and separation
  service
• Inflight wx info from CWSUs
• Greater need for pre- and inflight wx
• Safer, but much more demanding
• With Internet, more reliance on self-briefing

4
WX EDUCATION

• Approach-avoidance
• Seems too abstract
• Similar to pilot-doctor adversarial relationship
• Only 8 weather-related questions on written
  private pilot test
• Can miss them all, and still pass!

5
SLEEP-INDUCING TERMS

• Dry adiabatic lapse rate
• Moist adiabatic lapse rate
• Coriolis force
• Skew-T log-P
• Conditional instability

6
How much weather flying?

• 503,740 total pilot population
• 309,865 instrument-rated pilots
• Ergo, 62 of all pilots

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IFR TOWER OPS
8
Briefing strategies, old-school

• Call FAA-employed weather briefer
• 1/800/WX-BRIEF
• Standard, Abbreviated, Outlook briefings
• Difax
• Ring-through to NWS meteorologists

9
Briefing stragegies, New school

• FAA subcontracts briefing services to
  Lockheed-Martin, 2006
• Teething problems!
• 58 Flight Service stations before .
• 3 automated stations now (Leesburg, DFW, Prescott
  AZ)
• Retirements and new briefers no local experience

10
Briefing strategies, New school

• Internet-driven
• Many, many websites
• Contact FSS to update and file flight plan only!
• L-M poor reception

11
Modern online briefing

• ADDS
• Fltplan.com
• AOPA internet flight planner
• Unisys
• WSI, other private wx suppliers
• DUAT
• New experimental products

12
WSI

• https//www.pilotbrief.com/
• Interactive overlays
• Route-specific
• Video synoptics

13
Cg/vis/wx graphical grids

• Mouseover function
• Goes out 12 hours
• Many elements presented
• Hourly forecast conditions
• Ceiling and visibility
• Only at selected WSFOs . now

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Grids, contd

• http//www.weather.gov/gsp
• Click on a city
• Scroll down to Hourly weather graph
• Add cg and vis to meteogram elements

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Cg/vis/temp/winds graphical grids
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ADDS old Airmet
17
ADDS G-Airmet
18
ADDS CIP
19
ADDS FIP
20
ADDS Convective Sigmets
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ADDS CCFP
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ADDS NCWF
23
Problem!

• The following, alone, are not for use by
  pilots
• CCFP (for meteorologists and dispatchers)
• CIP/FIP (its supplementary)
• G-Airmet (its not yet operational)

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Datalink Wx in the cockpit
25
. Even via handheld GPS units
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Summing up

• Self-briefing Need for online education
• FSS wx analysis being bypassed
• Make experimental products operational
• Push gridded graphical forecasts
• 30-hour TAFs at every station
• Last but not least Fix Lockheed-Martin problems