Good Morning. It is a real pleasure to be attending this,
the sixth annual meeting of the Friends and Partners of Aviation Weather. When I say sixth, I am counting the 1997
A few months ago, when Bruce Carmichael first asked me to make some remarks about the history of FPAW, I did not think there was enough material to “fill up” the 15-minute speaking period. But as I began to gather material, I realized what a rich and fascinating history this group has had. As such, I want to share a few thoughts from a user’s perspective about the events that lead to the first Friends/Partners meeting, some of the accomplishments since that time, and where the future may lead us.
Let’s start with the early 1990’s. It was a period filled with rapid scientific and technical advances, as well as institutional changes that had a dramatic impacted the aviation weather community. Computer horsepower had been unleashed with the advent of the PC. Innovative groups in the academic and private sectors were developing computer generated weather graphics. Many of you remember some of the early efforts - radar graphics provided by Kavouras (the Radac system) and WSI (the Nowrad system), as well as the FAA/NCAR Aviation Weather Products Generator effort.
In conjunction with new PC based
weather products, the other revolutionary development of the early 1990’s was
the Internet. The
combination of the PC, the Internet, and the early weather graphic products
quickly fueled the end user’s dissatisfaction with existing government products
and services.
Concurrently, there were events
taking place in
As 1994 dawned, the FAA realized that the User’s Forum had just muddied the waters, and as an aid in finding its way through the aviation weather “swamp”, the FAA funded an NRC study on aviation weather. In 1995, the NRC published the results of that study: “Aviation Weather – A Call for Federal Leadership”. The NRC report summarized the critical needs of the nation’s aviation weather system, and as a primary recommendation, called upon the FAA, and not the NWS, to take the federal leadership role for aviation weather.
Two years passed with little
progress toward implementation of the NRC report recommendations. Adding to growing user discontent was the
apparent unresponsiveness by the NWS Office of Meteorology to aviation issues. About the same time, another event took place
that would break the logjam – Ron McPhearson, the new Director of NCEP, had a
vision for specialized national meteorological centers that would bring better
forecasting services to the users. Thus,
the
It did not take long for the using community to see that the potential for
significant change in aviation weather had shifted from NWS Headquarters in
Washington, to the AWC and Dave Rodenhuis.
As part of Dave’s plan to address the concerns being raised by users, he
advocated development of a strategic plan for the AWC
and national aviation weather services. Thus,
he solicited government and industry support for such an effort, and on
(Rich Przywarty - NWS Office of
Meteorology, Dave Sankey - FAA Aviation Weather Research, Rich Wagoner -
NCAR/RAP, Dave Rodenhuis - AWC, Skip Wright – OFCM, Dorothy Haldeman - NWS
Office of Meteorology, Fred Mosher - AWC, Carl Knable – United Airlines, and
Bill Dillon - Strategic Planning Consultant.)
The meeting results were positive, and three additional meetings of the
coordination team quickly followed – May 9 at OFCM in
By the time of the
Rich Pryzwarty - NWS, Skip Wright - OFCM, Dave Rodenhuis - AWC, Dave Whately – FAA, Rick Huewinkel – FAA, Jaiwon Shin – NASA, Mike Edwards – ARINC, John McCarthy – NCAR, Bob Massey – ALPA, Wayne Sand – Aviation Weather Consultant, Bill Sears – ATA, Warren Qualley – American Airlines, Dale Foster – Southwest Airlines, Carl Knable – United Airlines, Rich Wagoner _ NCAR, Ken Leonard – FAA, Lynn Sherretz – FSL, Dave Ladwig – USAF, Ton Carney – Purdue, Bill Phaneuf – ALPA, Bruce Carmichael – NCAR
To say that the meeting was contentious would be an understatement. There were many political and institutional issues serving as a backdrop to this meeting. Turf issues, leadership issues, and personalities all played a part in the three-day meeting. At times, it appeared as if the group would self-destruct. What came out of the meeting was a decision not to proceed with the strategic plan. This was a disappointment to Dave and many members of the coordinating team, but in lieu thereof, it was agreed to schedule an annual meeting of all the parties interested in aviation weather. The proposed meeting would provide a collaborative forum – one in which the using community could express its needs to government and academia, and the latter groups could report on progress toward meeting aviation weather goals. Bruce Carmichael of NCAR agreed to coordinate the annual meetings. Thus was born the “Friends of Aviation Weather” (subsequently, the word “Partners” would be added, but that is another story), and the five annual meetings leading up to this meeting of the FPAW.
Organizing and planning FPAW
meetings has not been an easy task, and at times it appeared that the whole
concept might fold. As such, there are a
few people that should be recognized for their leadership roles and dedication
to keeping this effort alive: first,
Dave Rodenhuis, who had the courage to engage the using community, and the
unending passion to change the system:
Bruce Carmichael, for sustaining user
engagement, and providing leadership and guidance for these meetings;
Paul Fiduccia for his passionate and sometimes tenacious role as moderator; the
NBAA for sponsoring this event; the folks from the FAA and NWS who support this
meeting; and last, but not least, the members of the using community - trade
groups, pilots, and union representatives.
Has FPAW made a difference? In 1997, we did not have the AWTT Board, IIDA, ITFA, EDR turbulence downlink, ADDS, the NCWF, and many other projects, too numerous to mention. We have an ongoing, positive dialogue on aviation weather between the public, private, and academic communities. But we have just scratched the surface, as many problems still need to be resolved. From a scientific standpoint, convective storms, turbulence, and icing continue as significant hazards to aviation as well as impacting the nation’s ATC system. Technical issues include cockpit weather uplink. There are also political issues of significance, one being the ongoing debate over public versus private roles in the provision of aviation weather services. There are also what I would like to call the “eternal” issues such as the need for adequate weather training for pilots and ground support personnel (this issue may be mitigated by cockpit uplink, however, even with the best of products, you still can’t teach good judgment).
What about the future? We are an “instant gratification” nation and
we expect rapid results in everything that we do. In 1984, John McCarthy led an FAA sponsored
Aviation Weather Task Force that issued a report with many recommendations for
improving the aviation weather system.
Several years later, John and I were having dinner one night in
Thank you.