Aviation meteorological surface observations are a used to explore enhancement of advisory information for pilots as part of continued efforts by an FAA Center of Excellence on reducing gaps and risks associated with general aviation and/or low-altitude operations. The Endsley model of situational awareness is progressively layered from perception to comprehension to projection. In our work, the focus is on the analysis of relevant cues within surface meteorological weather observations as a basis but adding in additional geospatial and environmental factors such as the altitude of the weather stations and the climatic zones they reside in. Analysis of these data include statistical and machine learning tools at varied spatial and temporal scales with the purpose of defining the underlying representativeness of the observations to develop tools and/or advisory information for pilots that aid their efforts in integrating and projecting such information in the near term without significantly adding to pilot workload. Weather information is used from Automated Surface and Weather Observing System (ASOS/AWOS) stations within California as a test region with complex geographic and climatic variations with a particular focus on flight rules categories which stem from ceilings and visibility observations. The ASOS/AWOS data were supplemented by data from regional mesonets for some of the analysis effort. Weather information representativeness is shown to have impactful temporal patterns at time scales ranging from diurnal to interannual as well as for a range of spatial scales and are shown to be influenced by local and regional geographic and climatic factors. A framework for integrating this complex array of information into prototype advisory information, both pre-flight and en-route, is proposed.
Splitt, M., Caldwell, B., Sharma, V., and Houghton, N., “Scales and Attributes of Weather Information Representativeness for Pre-flight and En-route Advisories for Pilots in Low Altitude Operations”. AVIATION 2022, AIAA, Chicago, Illinois, June 2022. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2022-3779