AIR to GROUND
New Year’s Resolutions
Here we are in 2012. Several documentaries and one major movie have pointed out that there are ominous portents in store for us this year. The ancient Mayan calendar was written in stone right up to next December. There will be a major planetary alignment around that time which could mess up our magnetosphere or flip the polarity of the planet. Could it happen? Well, I suppose, but in reality, if it does there isn’t much we can do about it.
Some of the things that are happening around us are mundane, but more relevant to today’s world of aviation. For instance, last month I told you that the FAA was planning to bring the formatting of Notices to Airmen, or NOTAMs, into ICAO compliance this coming spring. The first step in that direction occurred last month with a few relatively minor changes.
FICON was added as a keyword meaning Field Conditions to alert pilots as to the presence of snow, ice, or water on the airport. The contraction for people and equipment working – PAEW – was removed from the handbook and now we have to spell out “WORK IN PROGRESS”. We are no longer allowed to combine information about multiple runways into a single NOTAM, each runway must have a separate NOTAM.
The flight service specialists who code airport NOTAMs to the U.S. NOTAM Office (USNOF) system were given the training needed for this change. Airport managers were sent a notice by the FAA and a website they could refer to. Pilots and other aviation professionals are still adjusting to the new formats. There is some good news from D. C. The FAA has decided to delay the rest of the NOTAM changeover to match the ICAO system until 2013!
The National Weather service has made a New Year’s resolution to become more sensitive to the needs of the flying public. A change has occurred recently that most general aviation pilots may not notice unless they do a lot of IFR flying in really low conditions. The NWS is implementing new Terminal Forecast (TAF) amendment criteria, scheduled for completion nationwide by January 31st 2012.
Past practice has TAF’s updated whenever conditions indicate that ceilings and/or visibilities will change from one to another of the basic three categories – VFR, IFR, or MVFR, sooner or later than originally thought. In general this will remain the same. The NWS and the FAA together decided that airports with approach procedures needed TAF’s that are more sensitive to the needs of pilots using those procedures.
The Categorical Amendment Criteria (CAC) program sets standards for individual airports based on airport/approach specific minimums – such as ILS landing minimums. Commercial air carriers and air taxis cannot land at airports forecasting less than the official minimums, forcing them to cancel flights or use alternate airports. Now the NWS will be constantly monitoring for ceiling and visibility conditions to improve, or disimprove, based upon those minimums and be able to amend the TAFs in a more timely manner.
This method of updating weather forecast information is expected to increase the efficiency of NWS forecast operations. The amendments will be made when the observed ceiling and/or visibility values drop into a lower value category that was not forecast, and are expected to remain there or when both the observed ceiling and visibility values improve into a higher value category that was not forecast.
In October I was able to attend the Southwest Aviation Weather Service conference (SAWS) hosted by the NWS offices in Albuquerque. Speakers and pilots from throughout the southwest (and a few bigwigs from D. C.) gave pilots some great advice on how to identify cloud and weather patterns while flying. There were a lot of cloud types depicted with the NWS specialist pointing out the flying conditions in each type and how it would be expected to move or develop.
The next SAWS conference will be held in October of next year in California. You can get on the mailing list for these conferences by contacting the NWS office in Albuquerque and being put on their e-newsletter mailing list. Treat yourself next year – what a great excuse to visit California!
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to finish writing my book, Air to Ground, so that it comes out by next summer. This will be a compendium of the articles I have been writing for pilots about ATC over the last 6 years. At this time it is about half done.
Of course we could all take the attitude that if the world really is supposed to end on December 21, 2012, then now is the time to spiff up the plane or buy a new one and go on that long trip you always wanted to take. Visit Oshkosh or Sun N’ Fun. Take lots of kids for rides and become an Angel Flight pilot. If it’s really coming to an end then my New Year’s resolution is to go out with a smile!
Rose Marie Kern has worked in air traffic for over 28 years. If you’d like to ask Rose a question send her an email at author@rosemariekern.com