General Aviation WeatherService in Finland

Klaus Haikarainen / FMI

18.3.2010

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General Aviation in Finland• 1418 aircrafts (2009; excl. airliners)

• 7209 aviation license holders (2009; excl. ATPL)

• General aviation flight hours 105 798 (2008; gliders, motorgliders, ultralights & balloons included)

• Operations count low if compared to Central Europe

• Operations count low especially during winter because of challenging weather conditions

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GA weather service organized by Finavia• Finavia Corporation

• Finavia provides air navigation services in Finland

• Fully state owned company

• Turnover ~300 M€ (2009)

• ~1800 employees (2009)

• 25 aerodromes

Finnish Meteorological Institute FMI• Research and service institute

• Over 600 employees, more than half of them in research and development

• Turnover 61,7 million euros in 2009

• Main research areas

• Climate change

• Air Quality

• Meteorology

• Marine Research

• Earth Observations

• Arctic Research

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FMI headquarters in Helsinki

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FMI as service provider• Aviation and military weather service

• 4 locations: Helsinki, Tampere, Kuopio and Rovaniemi

• Integrated production of civil & military aviation weather service – cost effective

• Quality management system and ISO-9001 certificate

• GA weather service given by phone from Helsinki

• Media: telephone, fax, internet, text-TV

• Financing of civil aviation weather service

• Finavia buys service & development from FMI at cost price

• No direct financing from state budget or whatsoever

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GA Weather products

• GAFOR (BBBB=)

• TAF, METAR• SWC Scandinavia

(00, 06, 12 and 18 UTC)

• Upper air charts

• Web & mobile products

• http://fcaa.foreca.com/

• http://lentosaa.fmi.fi/sar/

• gliding forecast made as volunteer work http://www.suio.fi/ennuste - WRF model initialized by GFS data

• Metars, Tafs & Gafors available via text-TV

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GAFOR in Finland

Cloud height

O D

M

X

1500ft

1000ft

500ft

1500m 5000m 8000m Visibility

Visibility and cloud height criteria

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GAFOR in Finland

• GAFOR issued at 03 and 12 UTC and also 20.30 UTC for areas 30/39 (northern Finland)

• Validity 9hrs

• Forecast areas based on geographical / meteorological characteristics

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An example of Finnish GAFORFBFI41 EFLK 170200 AAA GA-FCST FOR AREAS 11/17 VALID 0412

WX LÄNTISILLÄ JA LOUNAISILLA MERI-ALUEILLA JA LÄNSIRANNIKOLLA SATAA VÄHÄN LUNTA. PÄIVÄLLÄ VÄHÄISIÄ LUMIKUUROJA VOI TULLA PAIKOIN MUUALLAKIN.

WINDS 11/17

SFC 220-270/05-10KT

2000FT 270-350/10-20KT

5000FT 270-340/10-20KT

0-C LEVEL 11/17 NIL

ICE LCA MOD INC BLW FL100

TURB NIL

GAFOR EFHK 0412 BBBB 11,12,14 O BECMG 0609 M -SN 13,15 O LCA TEMPO 0912 M -SN 16,17 D ST BECMG 0810 O LCA TEMPO 1012 M -SN=

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Future development• Graphical GAFOR – or similar LLF

• AutoTAF?

• Semiautomatic Low-Level SWC produced on a meteorological workstation? Output also in some LLF format?

• Pilots would like to have more & better products, but unfortunately nothing is free