Publications
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Exploring the possibility of a low altitude gravity wave encounter as the cause of a general aviation accident near Norman Oklahoma on December 6, 1998
September 11, 2000
Conference Paper
Published in:
Proc. Ninth Conf. on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology and 20th Conf. on Severe Local Storms, 11-15 September 2000, pp. J46-J49.
Summary
On December 6th, 1998, a fatal accident involving a twin engine Beech Baron occurred near the Max-Westheimer Airport at Norman Oklahoma (OUN). Although the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) conducted an extensive investigation into this accident, the probable cause for the accident has yet to be determined. Since the accident occurred outside of weather echoes that might be considered hazardous, it seems difficult to deduce a meteorological explanation for this accident. However, Doppler radar data suggested the presence of wave formations near the site of the accident. This report reflects examination of the data provided by the NTSB.
Summary
On December 6th, 1998, a fatal accident involving a twin engine Beech Baron occurred near the Max-Westheimer Airport at Norman Oklahoma (OUN). Although the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) conducted an extensive investigation into this accident, the probable cause for the accident has yet to be determined. Since the accident...
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FAA terminal convective weather forcast algorithm assessment
September 11, 2000
Conference Paper
Published in:
Ninth Conf. on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology, 11-15 September 2000, pp. 365-370.
Summary
Air traffic delay due to convective weather reached historically high levels in 1999, as passengers blamed airlines and airlines blamed the FAA for the massive inconveniences. While coordination between the FAA's System Command Center and the regional centers and terminals can be expected to improve with the FAA's new initiatives, it is clear that air traffic management and planning during convective weather will ultimately require accurate convective weather forecasts. In addition to improving system capacity and reducing delay, convective forecasts can help provide safer flight routes as well. The crash of a commercial airliner at Little Rock, AR in June 1999 after a one-hour flight from Dallas/Ft. Worth illustrates the dangers and potential tactical advantage that could be gained with frequently updated one-hour forecasts of convective storms. The Terminal Convective Weather Forecast (TCWF) product has been developed by MIT Lincoln Laboratory as part of the FAA Aviation Weather' Research Convective Weather Product Development Team (PDT). Lincoln began by consulting with air traffic personnel and commercial airline dispatchers to determine the needs of aviation users (Forman, et. al., 1999). Users indicated that convective weather, particularly line storms, caused the most consistent problems for managing air traffic. The "Growth and Decay Storm Tracker" developed by Wolfson et al. (1999) allows the generation of up to 1-hour forecasts of large scale, organized precipitation features with operationally useful accuracy. This patented technology. represents a breakthrough in short-term forecasting capability, providing quantitative envelope tracking as opposed to the usual cell tracking. This tracking technology is now being utilized in NCAR's AutoNowcaster (Mueller, et al., 2000), the National Convective Weather Forecast running at the Aviation Weather Center (Megenhardt, et al., 2000) and by private sector meteorological data vendors. The TCWF has been tested in Dallas/Ft. Worth (DFW) since 1998, in Orlando (MCO) since 1999, and in New York (NYC) since fiscal year 2000 began. These have been informal demonstrations, with the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center (WJHTC) assessing utility to the users, and with MIT LL modifying the system based on user feedback and performance analyses. TCWF has undergone major revisions, and the latest build has now been deployed at all sites. The TCWF is now in a formal assessment phase at the Memphis international Airport as a prerequisite to an FAA operational requirement. The FAA Technical Center will make a recommendation on whether TCWF is suitable for inclusion in the FAA's operational integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS), which has an unmet requirement for 30+ minute forecasts of convective weather. Memphis was selected for the TCWF Assessment since it has not been exposed to the forecast product during prior demonstrations. Operations began on March 24, 2000 and operational feedback is being assessed by the FAA Technical Center (McGettigan, et al., 2000) and MCR Corporation is performing a quantitative benefits assessment (Sunderlin and Paull, 2000). This paper details the refined TCWF algorithm and display concept, gives examples of the operational impact of terminal forecasts, and analyzes the technical performance of the TCWF during the early stages of the Memphis Assessment.
Summary
Air traffic delay due to convective weather reached historically high levels in 1999, as passengers blamed airlines and airlines blamed the FAA for the massive inconveniences. While coordination between the FAA's System Command Center and the regional centers and terminals can be expected to improve with the FAA's new initiatives...
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Distribution of Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS) products using web technology
September 11, 2000
Conference Paper
Published in:
Ninth Conf. on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology, 11-15 September 2000, pp. 147-152.
Summary
The Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS) is a capital investment of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to provide a fully-automated, integrated terminal aviation weather information system that will improve the safety, efficiency, and capacity of major terminals. The ITWS acquires data from FAA and National Weather Service sensors as well as from aircraft in flight within the terminal area. Demonstration systems are being operated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory (MIT/LL) Weather Sensing Group at four airport terminal areas: New York, NY; Orlando, FL; Memphis, TN; and Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX. Real-time graphical weather information from the ITWS demonstration systems is relayed to primary users (airport towers, en route centers, TRACONS, the Command Center, and major airlines, etc.) via a situation display (SD) that consists of a Sun workstation and, a dedicated data line to the ITWS site. For users who do not have access to a fully operational SD or who want additional flexibility for accessing the ITWS information, MIT/LL operates a demonstration ITWS web server that provides the information for viewing with commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) web browsers over the Internet and via the Collaborative Decision Making Network (CDMnet). This distribution of ITWS products has provided shared situational awareness between widely separated users. By sharing a common view of the same operational environment, controllers, dispatchers and other aviation decision makers and stakeholders have been better able to understand and coordinate the decisions that affect air traffic in the terminal area and surrounding en route airspace. In particular, by having up-to-the-minute weather information readily available to airline dispatch, safety during hazardous weather in the terminal area has been improved on a number of occasions at the ITWS demonstration sites (Evans, 2000). With the upcoming deployment of the ITWS as an operational FAA system to 44 major airports, a priority for the FAA is the distribution of the ITWS information from the production systems to airline dispatch and other non-FAA users. The operational ITWS is not designed to support SDS at the major airlines. Hence, distribution of ITWS information via a mechanism such as the Internet and the CDMnet is essential if the safety and coordination benefits achieved with the ITWS demonstration systems are to be obtained with the production ITWS. Because many airlines do not allow Internet access at all locations within the dispatch office, the current plan is to use CDMnet as the primary vehicle for ITWS data distribution to non-FAA users. However, to increase the availability of ITWS information to the broader ITWS user community, efforts are underway to make the data available on the Internet as well. Use of the Internet and CDMnet could also facilitate low-cost distribution of the ITWS information to additional FAA and non-FAA users alike. This paper describes the evolution of the ITWS demonstration web server, discusses the design of the web server and data processing, details how to access the web page and what products are currently available, presents some access statistics and current airline users, and discusses some future work which will allow for wide distribution of the production ITWS information.
Summary
The Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS) is a capital investment of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to provide a fully-automated, integrated terminal aviation weather information system that will improve the safety, efficiency, and capacity of major terminals. The ITWS acquires data from FAA and National Weather Service sensors as well...
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Distribution of aviation weather hazard information: low altitude wind shear
September 11, 2000
Conference Paper
Published in:
Ninth Conf. on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology, 11-15 September 2000, pp. 499-504.
Topic:
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Summary
Weather Hazard Information distribution is a necessary component for a successful system of weather hazard avoidance for aviation. It is a very important component, but not the only one. In order to be successful, a complete set of components must be included in the system: 1) Accurate Conceptual Model (Appropriate models of the physical process responsible for generating the hazard); 2) Production Infrastructure (System of tools [hardware, software and manpower]; the raw data feeds necessary for production of the hazard information and a standardized message format); 3) Quality Control Infrastructure (System of tools [hardware, software and manpower] & data feeds necessary for identifying and correcting erroneous information immediately); 4) Distribution Infrastructure (A method to relay, in a timely manner, only the information pertinent to the specific user); 5) Policies and Procedures (There must be clearly defined expectations of actions required of the users and recipients of the hazard information); 5) Training (The users and recipients as well as individuals responsible for production and quality control of the information must receive initial and recurrent training regarding actions required). ICAO in their Annex 3, Chapter 7 titled, SIGMET Information, Aerodrome Warnings and Wind Shear Warnings [ICAO 19981, describes in part one such system for weather hazard avoidance. ICAO does a good job defining the necessary production infrastructure. ICAO especially has been successful in defining the standardized message format. The format for SlGMETs is described in detail in Annex 3. But, an international organization Such as ICAO is limited in its scope of influence. Quality control of the SIGMET product and the distribution of the SIGMET is, in large part, beyond ICAO’s control. In addition, the actual weather hazard avoidance policies, procedures and training must be accomplished internally by each individual commercial aviation operator. Since each component listed above is directly dependent on the other five for a successful weather hazard avoidance system, Northwest Airlines (NWA) has chosen to attempt to address all six components of the system internally with use of the NWA Turbulence Plot System (TPS) [Fahey et. al. 2000].
Summary
Weather Hazard Information distribution is a necessary component for a successful system of weather hazard avoidance for aviation. It is a very important component, but not the only one. In order to be successful, a complete set of components must be included in the system: 1) Accurate Conceptual Model (Appropriate...
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FAA surveillance radar data as a complement to the WSR-88D network
September 11, 2000
Conference Paper
Published in:
Proc. Ninth Conf. on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology and 20th Conf. on Severe Local Storms, 11-15 September 2000, pp. J35-J39.
Summary
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) operates over 400 C- to L-band surveillance radars-Airport Surveillance Radars (ASRs), Air Route Surveillance Radars (ARSRs) and Terminal Doppler Weather Radars (TDWRs). Current generation terminal and en route aircraft surveillance radars (ASR-9, ASR-11 and ARSR-4) feature dedicated digital processing channels that measure and display precipitation reflectivity. Some of these "weather channels" will be upgraded to measure Doppler velocity, supporting, for example, wind shear detection at air terminals. The Terminal Doppler Weather Radar is a high quality dedicated meteorological surveillance radar deployed near many of the larger airports in the U.S. In this paper we consider how these radars could complement the WSR-88D network in providing a variety of meteorological services to the U.S. public. Potential benefits from a combined radar network would accrue from significantly increased radar density and the more rapid temporal updates of the FAA radars. Convective weather monitoring and forecasting, hydrological measurements and services to aviation are examples of areas where significant improvements could be expected. Section 2 reviews the status of the FAA radars their parameters, locations and capabilities. We also note the progress of various upgrade programs that will increase their weather surveillance capabilities substantially. In Section 3, we discuss benefits that would result from their usage in conjunction with the WSR-88D network. Finally, we discuss technological developments that will facilitate realization of these benefits.
Summary
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) operates over 400 C- to L-band surveillance radars-Airport Surveillance Radars (ASRs), Air Route Surveillance Radars (ARSRs) and Terminal Doppler Weather Radars (TDWRs). Current generation terminal and en route aircraft surveillance radars (ASR-9, ASR-11 and ARSR-4) feature dedicated digital processing channels that measure and display...
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Operational experience with weather products generated through joint use of FAA and NWS weather radar sensors
September 11, 2000
Conference Paper
Published in:
Ninth Conf. on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology and 20th Conf. on Severe Local Storms, 11-15 September 2000, pp. J19-J23.
Summary
In this paper, we describe current joint use of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Weather Service (NWS) radar sensors to provide operational weather decision support for the FAA, airline operations centers, and NWS forecast offices. The capabilities that have been demonstrated include fully automatic data editing and short term "nowcast" product generation algorithms as well as display of data from the different radars in different windows; direct product distribution to operational decision makers without any intervening meteorologist input; and collaborative decision making between the various parties. The significant use of fully automated product generation algorithms has facilitated flexible, coordinated decision making in real time at many locations simultaneously, without the high personnel costs that would be required to achieve the same weather product generation capability manually through interpretation by experienced radar meteorologist/forecasters. These joint-use capabilities have been demonstrated operationally at the Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS) demonstration sites in Memphis, TN, Orlando, FL, Dallas, TX, and Garden City, NY. These sites have provided operational service for the four major terminal areas since 1994.1 Specific capabilities used operationally by FAA- and airline users, which are discussed in the next section, include: 1. Addressing radar data quality issues such as rain attenuation and AP-induced ground clutter contamination, 2. High update rates for detection of rapidly changing weather while also obtaining 3D information on storms, 3. Estimating 3D winds, and 4. Reducing the fraction of phenomena that are not accurately characterized because the radars can directly measure radial velocity only. Section 3 discusses the operational usage of integrated products by NWS forecast offices at the ITVVS demonstration sites. The paper concludes with a summary of the operational uses to date and makes some suggestions for NWS and USAF use of FAA radar sensors in conjunction with NEXt generation weather RADars (NEXRAD).
Summary
In this paper, we describe current joint use of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Weather Service (NWS) radar sensors to provide operational weather decision support for the FAA, airline operations centers, and NWS forecast offices. The capabilities that have been demonstrated include fully automatic data editing and short term...
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Extending the Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS) to address urgent terminal area weather needs
September 11, 2000
Conference Paper
Published in:
Ninth Conf. on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology, 11-15 September 2000, pp. 153-158.
Summary
Major terminals and the surrounding en route airspace are critical elements of the US National Air System (NAS). A large fraction of the US population lives near these terminals, and the bulk of the hub connecting operations are at these airports as well. Adverse weather in these terminal areas and surrounding en route airspace is a major safety concern for the NAS as well as causing a large fraction of all US aviation delays. The principal weather decision support tool for these terminals is the Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS) which commenced full-scale development by the FAA in 1995, with first articles to be deployed shortly. In this paper, we discuss how the initial ITWS operational capability needs to be extended to address performance problems identified in operational use and to meet the many new user needs that have developed in the past five years. The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2, we provide some necessary background on the ITWS operational capability, followed by a discussion of new capabilities to meet urgent user needs. Section 3 discusses refinements to the initial capability to address problems/issues that have been identified based on five years of operational use of ITWS products from ITWS demonstration systems at eight major airports. Next, we consider extending planned ITWS coverage to other major terminals. The final section summarizes the paper's results and suggests additional studies.
Summary
Major terminals and the surrounding en route airspace are critical elements of the US National Air System (NAS). A large fraction of the US population lives near these terminals, and the bulk of the hub connecting operations are at these airports as well. Adverse weather in these terminal areas and...
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Weather sensing and data fusion to improve safety and reduce delays at major west coast airports
September 11, 2000
Conference Paper
Published in:
Ninth Conf. on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology, 11-15 September 2000, pp. 102-107.
Summary
In this paper we present results from a recently completed study of weather sensing and data fusion to improve safety and reduce delays at major west coast airports. With the exception of a summer stratus burn-off prediction project at San Francisco, these airports have received much less attention in terms of advanced FAA terminal weather decision support systems than major airports east of Los Angeles. This is because the principal concern for terminal weather decision support to date has been microburst-induced wind shear, which is very infrequent at the west coast airports. However, three factors warrant a reexamination of weather decision support provided to these major west coast airports: 1. The increased emphasis on significantly improving aviation safety while reducing delays at major airports in the face of expected increases in operations rates within the National Airspace System (NAS), 2. New air traffic management technology such as terminal automation, collaborative decision making (CDM), and weather adaptive wake vortex spacing systems, and 3. Advances in terminal weather decision support technology represented by the Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS) [including various P31 enhancements to ITWS (Evans and Wolfson, 2000)] The airports considered in this study were the Los Angeles (LAX), San Francisco (SFO), Portland (PDX) and Seattle (SEA) International Airports. It should be noted that because these airports did not receive a Terminal Doppler Weather Radar, there currently is no plan to provide them with an ITWS. LAX, SF0 and PDX are scheduled to receive an ASR-9 Weather System Processor (WSP). The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 discusses the study's methodology and provides background information on delays and weather phenomena for these airports in the context of other major US airports as well as applicable air traffic management (ATM) and terminal weather system technology. Section 3 summarizes the principal findings for the four airports. We conclude with a summary of the potential benefits of improved weather sensing and data fusion that might be provided at these west coast airports by an augmented ITWS as well as recommendations for further studies.
Summary
In this paper we present results from a recently completed study of weather sensing and data fusion to improve safety and reduce delays at major west coast airports. With the exception of a summer stratus burn-off prediction project at San Francisco, these airports have received much less attention in terms...
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Improving RUC-1 wind estimates by incorporating near-real-time aircraft reports
August 1, 2000
Journal Article
Published in:
Weather For., Vol. 15, No. 4, August 2000, pp. 447-460.
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Summary
A verification study of wind accuracy is presented for wind nowcasts generated by augmenting Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) wind forecasts with near-real-time aircraft reports using the Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS) gridded winds algorithm. Aircraft wind reports collected between the end of the RUC data collection interval and the time each RUC forecasts is valid are available for use in augmenting the RUC wind forecast to form a wind nowcast. The 60-km resolution, hourly RUC-1 wind forecasts are used. ITWS-based nowcast wind errors and RUC forecast wind errors are examined statistically over a 1-yr dataset. The addition of the recent aircraft reports significantly reduces the rms vector error and the 90th percentile vector error. Also reduced is the number of hours of sustained large errors and the correlation among errors. The errors increase with increasing wind speed, in part due to an underestimation of wind speed that increases with increasing wind speed. The errors in the augmented wind fields decrease with increasing numbers of Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System reports. Different types of weather are also seen to influence wind field accuracy.
Summary
A verification study of wind accuracy is presented for wind nowcasts generated by augmenting Rapid Update Cycle (RUC) wind forecasts with near-real-time aircraft reports using the Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS) gridded winds algorithm. Aircraft wind reports collected between the end of the RUC data collection interval and the time...
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Weather radar development and application programs
June 1, 2000
Journal Article
Published in:
Lincoln Laboratory Journal, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2000, pp. 367-382.
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Summary
Weather phenomena such as microburst wind shear and severe thunderstorms are major concerns to the aviation industry. A number of significant airplane accidents have resulted from wind-shear encounters during takeoff and landing, and thunderstorms are a major contributor to airplane delay. Providing fully automated and timely warnings of these phenomena by radar is challenging because it requires rapid and accurate analysis of the three-dimensional storm structure in the presence of intense ground-clutter returns. For the last two decades, Lincoln Laboratory has been tackling this challenge by applying advanced radar signal- and image-processing techniques to weather radar data. The resulting technology is being deployed in radar-based weather information systems at major airports throughout the United States. We first discuss the salient meteorological factors that contribute to the formation of microburst wind shear, then we provide some general background on the use of pulse-Doppler radar for weather detection. We describe two specific Lincoln Laboratory programs that have generated deployed systems: the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) and the ASR-9 Weather Systems Processor (WSP). The article concludes with a discussion of future detection strategies that emphasizes the fusion of weather radar data by the Integrated Terminal Weather System (ITWS).
Summary
Weather phenomena such as microburst wind shear and severe thunderstorms are major concerns to the aviation industry. A number of significant airplane accidents have resulted from wind-shear encounters during takeoff and landing, and thunderstorms are a major contributor to airplane delay. Providing fully automated and timely warnings of these phenomena...
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