In aviation, weather is one of the biggest risks to airline operations — high winds, turbulence, thunderstorms, ice and snow are all routine weather occurrences that can impact flights as well as ground-crew operations and maintenance tasks. Weather volatility is also increasing, creating scheduling and planning issues and safety risks.
FLYHT Weather Observations is a solution that leverages our patented Tropospheric Airborne Meteorological Data Reporting (TAMDAR) sensor system as well as Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay, AMDAR-over-AFIRS, which both collect real-time weather data. This application will provide customers with weather observations, as well as icing and turbulence conditions.
Our Weather Observations product visually renders weather data with flight information. The interface provides access to the “soundings” page, which shows Skew-T diagrams generated from both ascent and descent of equipped aircraft.
FLYHT’s TAMDAR system delivers in real-time a critical and unique, high resolution data stream to provide improved atmospheric analysis and weather observations.
TAMDAR equipped planes are flying into nearly 200 airports across the globe, with high density across the United States, Mexico and Asia. With this extensive installation base, the sensor collects thousands of highly detailed and accurate readings from the upper atmosphere each day measuring extensive data variables.
Combined with a dedicated Iridium-based global SATCOM system, and ground-based analytics software, the FLYHT system can also provide real-time global tracking of aircraft, as well as voice and data communication connectivity. This connectivity also supports retrieval of aircraft performance and systems information including real-time Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) data.
The TAMDAR observations data feed is also available to users to ingest airborne meteorological observations into their own weather models, and are easy to install.
TAMDAR reporting intervals are fully configurable. Our typical reporting intervals are 50 hPa during takeoff and landing, with the exception of just after takeoff and just before landing when TAMDAR delivers 10 observations at intervals of 10 hPa. During cruise, if TAMDAR is not experiencing significant changes in pressure, then a report is generated every 3 minutes when it is below a pressure altitude of 20,000 ft. and every 7 minutes when above 20,000 ft.
TAMDAR Weather Observations feed includes Humidity and Icing parameters along with GPS Location and Altitude, Pressure Altitude, Airspeed, Windspeed, Temperature, etc..
The TAMDAR sensor can estimate atmospheric turbulence reported as an Eddy Dissipation Rate (EDR). This is calculated based on the true airspeed from the TAMDAR pitot and static port pressures and TAMDAR temperature. TAMDAR EDR report includes the mean and peak EDR and the time of the peak for each one-minute period. This allows the TAMDAR Turbulence feed to provide Turbulence Index and Time of occurrence of Peak EDR parameters.
Allows users to view individual TAMDAR weather observations and turbulence while also tracking TAMDAR equipped flights.
The AMDAR-over-AFIRS data does not currently have relative humidity, icing, turbulence index or time of occurrence of peak eddy dissipation. Turbulence is something we would like to add in the future, but not currently offered.
The AMDAR-over-AFIRS Weather Observations feed includes the following parameters:
Soundings are generated for each ascent and descent of a TAMDAR equipped airplane at nearly 200 airports across the globe. Meteorologists use these soundings to evaluate changing conditions such as frontal passages and potential for severe weather. The Skew-T Viewer application allows the user to view multiple soundings on one plot to see how conditions are evolving. Severe weather indices such as shear, CAPE, and helicity are available.
