1. INTRODUCTION

Background

Aviation is central to the American way of life because it permeates nearly every facet of our business, industry, and recreation. The Federal Aviation Administration estimates that commercial aircraft logged nearly 10 million hours airborne in 1994, while General Aviation aircraft logged over 20 million hours. U.S. commercial carriers reported over 100 billion passenger miles in 1994. All projections indicate an increase in aviation usage in the coming decades.

Aviation, perhaps more than any other readily available mode of transportation today, is strongly impacted by weather conditions. As we shall see in Chapter 2, weather is a leading cause of aviation accidents. The atmosphere is continually adjusting to the forces operating on it from within and without. A patch of sky that may be quite benign to aircraft one moment can, within hours, or even minutes, become an extremely hazardous place to fly an airplane. Weather conditions, good or bad, play a major role in the safe and efficient flight of every aircraft. The timely, precise, and accurate identification and localization of what are termed aviation impact variables ­ that is, weather-related conditions, such as icing or wind shear, which may or may not be directly observable but which can significantly threaten flight safety and efficiency ­ is of crucial importance. As in-flight weather changes, an aircraft's performance changes. Operational personnel ­ pilots, controllers, dispatchers, etc. ­ must be able to obtain up-to-date weather information and be able to assess its impact on flight conditions intelligently in order to safely operate aircraft in a variety of weather regimes. The aim of all Federal agencies involved in aviation is to ensure that every effort within their agency's scope is made to reduce aviation risks to an absolute minimum. The aviation weather community is committed to reducing the negative impacts of weather on flight operations and increasing the economic advantages of using weather information as a traffic management tool.

Purpose

The purpose of this Strategic Plan is to provide an interagency focus for the task of providing the improved information and tools needed to allow aviation personnel to make sound and safe decisions regarding weather hazards. It was written with the understanding that, while not every Federal agency involved has a specific aviation weather mission and goal, all agencies involved have a stake in weather-related safety. This Plan sets strategic objectives for the overall National Aviation Weather Program, provides guidance to agencies for their internal planning processes, and establishes a process for implementing the Program and reviewing progress in the refinement of the existing National Aviation Weather System.

This Strategic Plan does not provide the aviation weather expert with a detailed discussion of many facets of the subject. Instead, it focuses on general themes and directions in order to maintain the vision for the aviation weather system. By design, this Strategic Plan establishes a general course heading that allows each agency the flexibility to draw on its own strengths in order to best achieve the overall national goals.

Scope

This Strategic Plan discusses aviation weather strategy in terms of four tasks:

- improving weather information acquisition, analysis, production, and dissemination,

- enhancing decision makers' abilities to apply weather information,

- establishing institutional arrangements for improving both the information and the ability of decision makers to use it, and

- encouraging research and development in the area of aviation weather.

This Plan has been assembled with the awareness that both an information provider community and an information user community exist. The providers (meteorological observers, analysts, forecasters, briefing officers, controllers, commercial providers) know what they can currently observe and what information they can reliably produce. The requirements of the users (pilots, dispatchers, flight operations personnel, traffic managers, controllers) must be balanced with the abilities of the providers in order to produce a sensible strategy, while taking into account changing trends in both communities.

Program Goal

The goal of the National Aviation Weather Program is to enhance the ability of the existing Aviation Weather System to effectively produce and provide aviation weather information and take steps to ensure that the users of the System can effectively apply that information to make sound operational decisions that lead to a reduced number of weather-related aviation accidents and increasingly efficient use of the National Air Space. Corollaries to this goal which are also desirable include reducing weather-related delays in commercial aviation, improving mission effectiveness for military operations, reducing excess costs in fuel usage due to weather, improving productivity in Federal aviation weather activities in light of increasingly strained resource levels, developing a streamlined observation and communications system, and increasing the positive role a knowledge of future weather conditions can have on safe and efficient flight operations. But, above all, the goal is improved aviation safety in all sectors ­ commercial, military, and general.

Implementation

The National Aviation Weather Program can only really be implemented successfully through a joint effort of all government agencies involved in aviation, working in concert with pilot organizations and commercial entities. The oversight vehicle for implementation is the National Aviation Weather Program Council. This Council, which is part of the coordinating structure of the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research (OFCM), is composed of senior representatives from Federal agencies involved in aviation-related activities. Each Council member acts on behalf of his or her Federal agency and speaks for that agency on matters of scope, requirements, and resources. The Council thus provides oversight and guidance to ensure that agency roles are realistic and lead to a convergence of effort in implementing this Strategic Plan. The Council must also ensure that the interests of each agency are addressed within the Plan. The Council also oversees periodic Plan reviews to provide "mid-course corrections" as needed as well as maintain momentum as the Plan progresses.

The Vision
Chapter 2: Relevance to the Nation
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