Total Turbulence - The Weather Company · TOTAL TURBULENCE . is the only solution to offer: On-board software that automatically measures and reports turbulence events using existing

Total TurbulenceMaximum Control & Confidence

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packs a mean punchTurbulence is more than a nuisance it’s an invisible threat pilots must be prepared to address every time they fly.  

It threatens passenger safety, pilot control, even damages the airplane; not to mention it wreaks havoc on schedules and flight plans. In fact, each year turbulence costs the aviation industry:

$5 million

in maintenance

$35 million

in passenger and crew injuries

$1.36 billion in

operational costs due to flight

planning time, delays and re-routing

TURBULENCE

GET READY TO RUMBLETurbulence is difficult to detect and forecast

Turbulence is a highly variable, spatially localized, and often short-lived phenomenon that is out of reach for most traditional meteorological sensing methods. This is especially true for turbulence caused by thunderstorms, e.g. convectively induced turbulence (CIT).

For a pilot turbulence is like going into a boxing ring with a blindfold covering both eyes. You know a punch is likely to strike but you can’t see when it’s coming.

TURBULENCE ONE, FLIGHT CREW ZEROData Gap Stifles Crew’s Situational Awareness

The pilots’ and dispatchers’ tactical knowledge of turbulence hazards relies heavily on verbal pilot reports (PIREPs), which are often inconsistent, late, and totally subjective. These PIREPs offer little assistance to pilots and dispatchers in predicting how their aircraft or routing may be affected by the reported turbulence.

This lack of frequently updated, fully integrated, high-quality data has for decades plaqued the aviation industry. And government issued turbulence SIGMETs and Significant Weather guidance are not segment specific and are not updated frequently enough, leading to uncertainty about the location, extent and severity of enroute impacts.

With incomplete data flight crews are at a disadvantage.

STEP INTO THE RING WITH CONFIDENCEBottom line, turbulence is inevitable but we can reduce injuries and control the impact on operating costs. The most effective way to significantly reduce the impact of turbulence is to close the gap of information and provide more certainty. An effective solution will:

Increase the frequency of

turbulence reporting directly from flights in transit without

burdening pilots with additional reporting

mandates

Improve turbulence forecast accuracy by quickly integrating real-time reports

More precisely

visualize turbulence events and forecasts

to minimize flight path changes

required to avoid them providing

location, duration and severity indicators

Automate the distribution of

turbulence alerts to all flight operations, dispatchers, pilots and flight staff so everyone has the same data upon

which to act

INTRODUCING TOTAL TURBULENCEWhat if pilots could take all of PIREP reports, combine them with other data points and map out a 24-hour turbulence forecast? With a little help from WSI Total Turbulence this is not only possible, but is already helping airlines improve safety, cut down on airplane maintenance and improve passenger communication.

Total Turbulence delivers timely, precise and actionable turbulence alerts and forecast guidance through all phases of operations. By fusing patented real-time turbulence detection, high-resolution numerical weather modeling, leveraging the latest science and technology, expert aviation meteorologists and proven delivery platforms, users receive the most comprehensive situational awareness available.

Visual, route-specific turbulence warnings take the power of surprise away so that pilots can prepare passengers and take corrective action.

Turbulence is one of the most frustrating parts of flying. It’s

difficult to predict, transient and largely invisible. By partnering with The Weather Company aviation businesses can finally tackle this beast and take back control - ensuring fewer injuries, lower maintenance and operating costs, not to mention a smoother passenger experience.

TOTAL TURBULENCE is the only solution to offer:

On-board software that automatically measures and reports turbulence events using existing airplane instrumentation. The sensors report every 15 minutes in non-turbulence situations and increase reporting to once every minute during a turbulence event.

Turbulence alerts that visually report precise location & severity of turbulence events that are easy to act upon.

Constantly updated forecast models, alerts, and flight plan guidance, based upon integrated data feeds, the accuracy of which has gone through extensive validation testing.

Distribution of alert information to all impacted operations and flight staff for consistent information sharing.

A FULLY INTEGRATED SOLUTION Total Turbulence Integrates Information from Aircraft and Ground Resources

Figure 1 outlines the components and connections of the Total Turbulence Solution, highlighting how The Weather Company approach, in real time, ties to together turbulence affected-operations with our advanced science.

Our forecast methodology combines a wide array of public and proprietary data with the latest automated forecasting technology to optimize the value added by our forecast team.

At the pinnacle of our solution are the WSI Turbulence Advisories and the Turbulence Auto PIREP System1 (TAPS®) that are enabled through The Weather Company airline decision support tools; Fusion and Pilotbrief Optima. The Weather Company meteorologists receive real-time feedback on forecast performance and changing conditions that ultimately contribute to better production of our exclusive The Weather Company Significant Meteorological (SIGMET) and Flight Planning Guidance (FPG) hazard products.

Improved Flight Decision Support Benefits• Improved flight safety• Reduced maintenance costs• Reduced operating costs• Reduced environmental impacts

TAPS

The Weather Company Global Forecast Center

Lightning Radar

Improved Turbulence Awareness

Improved Forecast Models

Improved Turbulence Forecast

The Weather Company Flight Decision Support Solutions

Pilotbrief Fusion iPad S/WINDS API

The Weather Company Archive• Validate forecasts• Demonstrate improved skill relative to available sources• Drive continuous improvement• Incident reporting & analysis

The Weather Company Hazard Detection

PRODUCT DETAILSInflight Turbulence Detection is Fundamental to the System

The aircraft is a valuable resource of meteorological data that operational atmospheric scientists can put to use in improving the forecast for many variables. Specifically on turbulence, the phenomena can be detected using aircraft sensor responses, aircraft forward looking radar, or other novel approaches. At present, WSI employs a method of harnessing aircraft sensor data and calculating a direct measure of the aircraft response to the atmosphere. The calculation to perform this is done non-intrusively on an aircraft avionics box and downlinked to WSI ground processing systems.

TAPS is the On-board Method of Detecting Turbulence

The Turbulence Auto PIREP System (TAPS) is an innovative operationally proven approach to detect the signature of turbulence in the atmosphere. The compact algorithm resides on the aircraft and inspects vertical accelerations on the airframe for peak incidences that are indicative of turbulence. These instances are immediately downlinked for use by airline operations personnel and forecasters. The rapid distribution of the data and the subsequent tightly-coupled operations alerting make it Total Turbulence. Often the turbulence encounter icons displayed on WSI’s applications will also be referred to as TAPS events. Additionally downlinked are other useful atmospheric variables such as the winds and temperatures at the aircraft’s altitude.

All of this is complimented by our Enroute Hazard service that delivers precise and actionable advisories, and guidance, and enables you to optimize routing, reduce fuel contingencies and improve safety.

Total Turbulence Produces Reports on Turbulence Encounters

Between the on-board and ground processing system TAPS produces two parameters that describe a turbulence encounter or a routine report that the on-board segment is functioning (i.e. a heartbeat message): Root Mean Square of Aircraft Loads (RMS-g) and Eddy Dissipation Rate (EDR). RMS-g is the focus of the WSI’s products and tools for airline personnel; RMS-g is a direct measure of sensible turbulence from aircraft vertical accelerations and, in WSI’s experience, the most directly relevant to operational decisions. EDR is a characterization of the atmosphere this is most used in subsequent turbulence modeling.

NextGen PIREP - Objective Turbulence Detection and Automated Reporting

TAPS reports augment subjective PIREPs with objective and precise turbulence measurements. Pilots will give you one report 99% of the time with a vague location and start/stop times. With TAPS there is no gray area and the reports come to you in real time, not after things have abated. This improves timeliness from 30-45 minutes or greater (the delivery time, including pilot wait time before reporting) to near real-time as well as frequency from once per event to continuous until event passed. The reporting has higher geospatial relevance too, improving location from the nearest waypoint on the flight plan to actual coordinates. These attributes better describe the spatial extent and overall severity of the encounter for ground and cockpit awareness.

For global airlines, it also means that one gets reports from aircraft in airspace which do not commonly distribute PIREPs; e.g. Latin and South America.

On-board Turbulence Detection has Extended Capabilities

The TAPS reports also contain wind and temperature reports as well as indicators for airline maintenance personnel that aircraft sensors contributing to the report may be malfunctioning. Flight level wind and temperature data is used to verify expected enroute conditions by operations personnel and can also be used to improve weather forecasts models. Although infrequent, TAPS includes indicators that aircraft sensor, e.g. the accelerometer, may be malfunctioning. In the case of the accelerometer, this data is also used on the Flight Data Recorder, expedient identification and return to normal functioning is important to safe flight.

A 50% reduction

in Flight Attendant injuries

Year over year reduction in

maintenance inspections (40%)

Captains accepted a higher number of

planned flights

Decrease in turbulence encounters

PROVEN RESULTS The results have been measurable. For one airline using Total Turbulence they experienced:

SUSTAINABLE BENEFITS Reduced severe turbulence

inspections: With objective, real-time aircraft reports, maintenance can be notified and staged to inspect and return the aircraft as quick as possible after a significant turbulence encounter.

Reduced on-board injuries: Objective reporting, rapidly distributed alerts to adjacent aircraft, and overall better forecasts increase pilot and dispatch awareness and confidence in safely and efficiently navigating turbulence.

Reduced enroute fuel consumption and preflight reserve fueling: Better information leads to better decisions in critical areas where safety is balanced with efficiency.

Improved forecast guidance for planning: The turbulence feedback loop is tight with WSI forecast technology coupled to the TAPS reports. Better near-term alerts are one part, but importantly, better forecast products improve the route selection of the flight planning application; more flyable airspace opens up more efficiency for flight planning.

Quicker return to service for TAPS respective avionics components: As part of Total Turbulence program error conditions with the avionics contributing data to the TAPS report generation can be detected. Although there are slight differences in how the aircraft is equipped between airlines, generally this leads to quicker correction of avionics faults (sensors and/or databus) detected by TAPS. These components have other important functions generating reports for airline operations and recording data in case of aircraft incidences that their normal functioning is imperative.Ready to learn more?

Request a demo today

The Weather Company, an IBM Business, is the world’s largest private weather enterprise, helping people make informed decisions – and take action – in the face of weather. The company offers the most accurate, personalized and actionable weather data and insights to millions of consumers and thousands of businesses via Weather’s API, its business solutions division, and its own digital products from The Weather Channel (weather.com) and Weather Underground (wunderground.com).

The company delivers up to 26 billion forecasts daily. Its products include a top weather app on all major mobile platforms globally; the world’s largest network of personal weather stations; a top-20 U.S. website; the seventh most data-rich site in the world; one of the world’s largest IoT data platforms; and industry-leading business solutions.

Weather Means Business™. The world’s biggest brands in aviation, energy, insurance, media, and government rely on The Weather Company for data, technology platforms and services to help improve decision-making and respond to weather’s impact on business. For more, visit www.theweathercompany.com.

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