The 8th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology

15.8
AVIATION WEATHER TRAINING FOR COMMUTER AIRLINES- A FIRST STEP TOWARD THE GOAL OF SAFER SKIES

Lawrence Astor, COMET/UCAR, Boulder, CO; and T. Spangler and M. La Tourette

The COMET Program has formed a new aviation weather training consortium to support the safety improvement goals of the recently established NASA Aviation Safety Program. This program targets the national goal established by President Clinton in February 1997 of "reducing the fatal aircraft accident rate by 80% in ten years." In support of this, the COMET consortium's training goal is "to teach pilots, air traffic controllers, and dispatchers to use weather information in exercising good judgment and making collaborative decisions". The consortium has embraced, and will be
guided by, the goals and recommendations of (1) the National Research
Council study titled "Aviation Weather Services: A Call for Federal
Leadership and Action," (2) the strategic goals of NASA's Aviation Safety Program, and (3) the Strategic Plan promulgated by the National Aviation Weather Program Council.

The COMET consortium is currently implementing one of the initial training projects of the Aviation Safety Program. The goal is to prototype and evaluate the effectiveness of aviation weather/decision-making training for commuter airline pilots and dispatchers and the general aviation community. This paper discusses the national aviation safety initiative and this pivotal project to improve collaborative decision-making. It also describes
the multimedia training architecture, initial weather content (icing), and decision-making scenarios being developed for evaluation by Mesa Airlines. Examples of the user interfaces and interactive scenarios developed for the training prototype will be demonstrated and will be available on CD-ROM for interested parties.

The 8th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology