An Update on the Global Weather Hazards Project and Next Steps

For the past two years, the Global Weather Hazards (GWH) Project has demonstrated that today’s technology allows the uplink of operational weather products into the cockpit of commercial aircraft flying transoceanic routes. During the GWH Project, the two convective products have been shown on a supplementary basis over a global domain and at an update rate of 15 min. The two products, the Cloud Top Height (CTH) and the Convective Diagnosis Oceanic (CDO), are plotted over the navigational maps on the Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) with the planned flight route, thus allowing the pilot to better understand and anticipate the weather situation that is beyond the range of the onboard radar. In addition, standard products such as Significant Meteorological Information (SIGMETs) and Airmen's Meteorological Information (AIRMETs) for convection, turbulence and icing as well as Volcanic Ash Advisories are also plotted to give the pilots information on additional hazards. The weather products are displayed on the EFB that resides on a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and uses the Lido EnRoute Flight Manual (eRM).

Now that the capability has been proven to uplink and display weather products that are accurate, timely and useful for strategic decision making by pilots, the next steps in the display evolution will be shown. Combining the onboard radar display with the satellite-based convective products will be discussed and examples shown. Also, gridded turbulence intensity plots have been devised for the EFB and will be described and shown. Uplinking additional weather products to the EFB display gives pilots a more complete situational awareness of potential hazards and enhances safety and efficiency.

In this paper, we will describe the overall GWH project, including the weather products, the engineering design of product creation and dissemination, communication requirements for product service, the product display, product assessment and user feedback. Future products will be discussed and examples shown.