Weather Situational Awareness in the Cockpit

Tactical battlespace superiority requires high-fidelity, real-time knowledge of current and forecast weather to effectively deliver aircraft firepower and support ground operations. Adverse weather can impair target acquisition, weapon sensor functionality, curtail aircraft support times and lead to loss of the platform through threats such as icing or lightning. PEMDAS proposes a Phase I discipline-wide stakeholder requirements initiative coupled with an extensive deep dive into existing traditional and emerging non-traditional weather data sources. From this, innovative concepts can be developed to provide highly accurate, timely graphical weather products for intuitively displaying real-time and forecast weather to tactical aviators in a manner that quickly builds shared weather Situational Awareness. The emergence of machine-to-machine and data fusion capabilities now allows weather decision products based upon current and forecast conditions such as slant range visibilities, surface and altitude winds, density altitude changes, and icing/cloud layers to optimize situational awareness, leading to faster response times, improved survivability and ultimately more lethal firepower. To ensure widespread DoD use, these decision products must be compatible with modern data systems such as the Aviation Common Mission Server (ACMS)/Improved Data Modem, Tactical Airspace Integration System (TAIS), and comply with modern standards such as Future Airborne Compatibility Environment (FACE) 3.0.