Flight Training - November/December 2021 - 19

PREFLIGHT WEATHER
BY THOMAS A. HORNE
BIG BUSINESS
WHERE DOES YOUR WEATHER INFO COME FROM?
WHEN YOU GET WEATHER INFORMATION, YOU MAY NOT THINK
much about where it originates. Sure, there's the government's
Leidos Flight Service-provided briefing products via
1-800-WXBRIEF, 1800wxbrief.com, and flight service frequencies,
plus the weather services provided by Garmin Pilot, FltPlan.
com, and ForeFlight. But there's a whole world of weather
services out there, and weather is a big business.
The corporate giant IBM has bought into the weather business.
In 2016, IBM bought The Weather Company (TWC, not to
be confused with The Weather Channel)-aptly named because
of its wide range of weather-related business units. One of them,
WSI Corporation, provides weather forecasts and other products
out of its eight forecast offices around the world. The main
office is in Andover, Massachusetts, where 14 forecasters work.
Others are in Atlanta; Seoul, South Korea; Tokyo; and Birmingham,
England.
The Weather Company puts out terminal aerodrome forecasts
(TAFs) for airports all over the world, updating them in
five-minute intervals using 100 different weather models as well
its own proprietary model-IBM GRAF (Global High-Resolution
Atmospheric Forecasting). In all, TWC puts out forecasts for 2.2
billion locations around the globe-every 15 minutes.
Another WSI asset is TAPS-the Turbulence Auto-Pirep System.
TAPS is a turbulence information-sharing system between
some 1,000 participating aircraft and a TWC algorithm. Using
an airplane's ACARS (Aircraft Communication Addressing and
Reporting System) datalink messaging service, TAPS compares
forecast with real-time turbulence, generates turbulence
updates, and sends them back to the participating aircraft for
more accurate predictions affecting their routes.
Pilotbrief is marketed as WSI Pilotbrief Optima and is
available on the internet as well as in iPad or other electronic
flight bag formats through Wi-Fi connections, as well as to FBOs.
Oh, and an adaptation of Pilotbrief Optima is used on AOPA's
weather website (aopa.org/wx).
Buying TWC also gave IBM the Weather Underground
( " Wunderground " ) app, a crowdsourcing feed that collects data
from more than 100,000 personal weather stations. TWC feeds
this data into its both the app and its models.
The IBM purchase gave TWC WSI's aviation weather
feed, including its datalinked weather radar imagery-which
provides both base and composite reflectivity products, along
with the CIP and FIP icing data stream, METARs, TAFs, and
other government-produced aviation weather products. WSI
mosaics the radar imagery then sends the feed to GA pilots for
distribution through the SiriusXM Aviation's Pilot Pro, Pilot
Preferred, or Pilot Express weather subscription service levels.
This service is only compatible with newer panel-mounted
datalink receivers, like the Garmin GDL 69/69A SXM-or iPads
via Bluetooth connection to portable receivers like Garmin's
GDL 50/51/52.
Another GA datalink weather provider is Baron Services,
which provides radar imagery and other weather data to owners
of older datalink receivers.
tom.horne@aopa.org
AOPA Partner SiriusXM Aviation partners with AOPA to give
members a free two-month trial. aopa.org/siriusxm
FLIGHT TRAINING NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021
19
http://www.1800wxbrief.com http://www.aopa.org/wx http://www.aopa.org/siriusxm
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