VIRTUAL MEETING | Weather for General Aviation Licence holders
LOCATION
UPDATE: Registration has now closed.
This webinar was focussed on improving safety for all General Aviation pilots. The meeting reproduces much of the content of the Met Office’s well received Weather Decision Making Seminar.
Weather is always a topic of great discussion, especially in the UK, but for pilots it can literally be a matter of life and death. Understanding the weather and using the right resources are vital skills that every pilot needs.
In fatal and serious injury accidents involving UK registered general aviation aircraft, it has been found that inadequate decision-making skills, together with a poor appreciation of the weather conditions likely to be encountered during the flight, are critical factors in a significant number of the accidents investigated.
This webinar looked at two key topics: visibility and cloud and wind and turbulence. As part of this, there will be sessions to improve decision-making skills and pre-flight planning looking at Human Factors and Threat and Error Management, coupled with advice on how to make more informed decisions about the weather.
The timing of this event close to when the Government plans that General Aviation can return to flying from 12 April 2021, means that pilots can ensure their flight safety for when they are back up in the air.
It is assumed that participants are familiar with TAFs and METARs (Terminal Aerodrome Forecast and Meteorological Aerodrome Report).
Speaker Biographies
My name is Frank Barrow. I recently retired from the Met Office after 39 years service. I worked as an observer and operational forecaster in several locations in the time but I have spent the last 24 years as an instructor at the Met Office College. I have been heavily involved in the training of new forecasters both for the Met Office and other National Met Services. I am an avid sports watcher and am a life-long supporter of, and now a shareholder in, my home town football club, Darlington FC.
After a first degree in physics from Cambridge and an MSc in Meteorology from Reading, Bob joined the Met Office in 1974. Bob had a spell on secondment to the European Space Agency in the late 1970s working on data from the very first METEOSAT. In 1990 Bob took over running the Aviation Applications research group, a post he held with a small gap until retirement in 2010. Subsequently he has been the Royal Met Society’s representative on the Flight Safety Committee and secretary of the Special Interest Group on Aviation Meteorology. He also acted as a consultant to NATS on the introduction of Time Based Separations at Heathrow Airport, for which very accurate wind forecasts were needed.
Session Abstracts
The talk will look at the effects of hills on wind and turbulence effect of static stability on wind, sea breezes and specific wind hazards including large cumulus, tornados, wake vortices and wind turbines. Two recent (2020) wind related aircraft accidents are reviewed to see what lessons can be learned.
This session will focus on the causes of fog and low cloud and the interpretation of forecast and observational data. We will look types of fog and low cloud and weather scenarios likely to give rise to these phenomena. In terms of data, we will look at 'what observers and forecasters mean when they say...' , and how to interpret visibility and low cloud when represented like METAR's TAF's and F215.
Resources
UPDATE: Registration has now closed.
This webinar was focussed on improving safety for all General Aviation pilots. The meeting reproduces much of the content of the Met Office’s well received Weather Decision Making Seminar.
Weather is always a topic of great discussion, especially in the UK, but for pilots it can literally be a matter of life and death. Understanding the weather and using the right resources are vital skills that every pilot needs.
In fatal and serious injury accidents involving UK registered general aviation aircraft, it has been found that inadequate decision-making skills, together with a poor appreciation of the weather conditions likely to be encountered during the flight, are critical factors in a significant number of the accidents investigated.
This webinar looked at two key topics: visibility and cloud and wind and turbulence. As part of this, there will be sessions to improve decision-making skills and pre-flight planning looking at Human Factors and Threat and Error Management, coupled with advice on how to make more informed decisions about the weather.
The timing of this event close to when the Government plans that General Aviation can return to flying from 12 April 2021, means that pilots can ensure their flight safety for when they are back up in the air.
It is assumed that participants are familiar with TAFs and METARs (Terminal Aerodrome Forecast and Meteorological Aerodrome Report).
Speaker Biographies
My name is Frank Barrow. I recently retired from the Met Office after 39 years service. I worked as an observer and operational forecaster in several locations in the time but I have spent the last 24 years as an instructor at the Met Office College. I have been heavily involved in the training of new forecasters both for the Met Office and other National Met Services. I am an avid sports watcher and am a life-long supporter of, and now a shareholder in, my home town football club, Darlington FC.
After a first degree in physics from Cambridge and an MSc in Meteorology from Reading, Bob joined the Met Office in 1974. Bob had a spell on secondment to the European Space Agency in the late 1970s working on data from the very first METEOSAT. In 1990 Bob took over running the Aviation Applications research group, a post he held with a small gap until retirement in 2010. Subsequently he has been the Royal Met Society’s representative on the Flight Safety Committee and secretary of the Special Interest Group on Aviation Meteorology. He also acted as a consultant to NATS on the introduction of Time Based Separations at Heathrow Airport, for which very accurate wind forecasts were needed.
Session Abstracts
The talk will look at the effects of hills on wind and turbulence effect of static stability on wind, sea breezes and specific wind hazards including large cumulus, tornados, wake vortices and wind turbines. Two recent (2020) wind related aircraft accidents are reviewed to see what lessons can be learned.
This session will focus on the causes of fog and low cloud and the interpretation of forecast and observational data. We will look types of fog and low cloud and weather scenarios likely to give rise to these phenomena. In terms of data, we will look at 'what observers and forecasters mean when they say...' , and how to interpret visibility and low cloud when represented like METAR's TAF's and F215.