Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association AOPA General Aviation Perspective Rune Duke Director, Airspace & Air Traffic Services Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association

AOPA’s 26th Annual Nall Report Identify accident trend for targeted education effort 2012 51 2013 41 2014 32 2012 2013 2014 2012 23 22 20 17 Analysis of 2014 weather accident data – VFR into IMC results in most fatalities Available late-summer ALL WEATHER ACCIDENTS VFR INTO IMC FATAL VFR INTO IMC

NTSB PIREP Special Investigation Report Recommendations published March 2017 AOPA, FAA, CAA, NATCA, Leidos AOPA PIREP course to be updated in 2018 Improvements to pilot guidance Outreach RTCA Tactical Operations Committee proposed to host a working group

2017 AOPA Weather Survey Overview Desire to better understand GA pilot needs Survey emailed to medically current AOPA Alaskan members and a sample of 20,000 members in CONUS 28 questions 379 total respondents; 103 for Alaska and 276 for CONUS 48% instrument rated and current 39% have CPL or ATP Most pilots have held their pilot certificate at least 20 years 72% flew single-engine piston airplane in last year

Weather source(s) used for initial weather briefing during flight planning 90% 80% CONUS Alaska 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Aviation application Aviation Weather Flight Service (1 800 Weather Channel CSRA or Weather Leidos online Underground Other TIBS FAA weather I do not get cameras weather Alaska Aviation (e.g. Center online WXBRIEF) Foreflight) briefings Weather Unit

For those using FIS-B, knowledge of transmission interval for SIGMETs and AIRMETs 70% CONUS 60% Alaska 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% I don't know Every 15 minutes Every 2 minutes Every 10 minutes Real-time Every 5 minutes

On average, how old do you think the NEXRAD (radar) information provided over FIS-B is? 40% CONUS 35% Alaska 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Real-time Less than 5 minutes 5-10 minutes 11-15 minutes 16-20 minutes More than 20 minutes I don't know

How much weight do you typically assign a Flight Service specialist's caution that "VFR is not recommended"? 60% CONUS Why lower weight 50% Over used, liability reasons, can make decision without their input, briefer uses different criteria than I do Alaska 40% 30% 20% 68% believe it would be moderately to extremely useful for “VFR not recommended” to be provided with a web briefing 10% 0% 1 - No weight at all 2 3 4 5 - A great deal of weight

How important would you find each of the following improvements to aviation weather products and services? 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Incorporation of non-aviation weather stations into aviation products Improved DUATS resources Enhanced FIS-B products Easier PIREP submission method Improved Flight Service (telephone or radio) Improved Aviation Weather Center products More intuitive graphical weather products More surface observations ( e.g. AWOS) CONUS and Alaska Pilots

Weather Improvement Requests 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 Increased granularity, frequency of updates Increased More Easier to infrastructure graphical/FIS-B access (e.g. products website, FIS-B) Easier to understand (plain language) More PIREPs Mobile friendly Better pilot guidance FSS briefer improvements (e.g. local knowledge, consistency) CONUS and Alaska Pilots

Comparing Graphical and Textual Products Pilots highly desire graphical products Similar comfort level with interpreting graphical product 80% Product Value Comfort Interpreting 70% 60% 60% 50% 50% Graphical product 40% 40% Textual product 30% 30% 20% 20% 10% 10% 0% 0% 1 - No value 2 3 4 5 - A great deal of value 1 - Extremely uncomfortable 2 3 4 5 - Extremely comfortable

AOPA Pilot Education and Support AOPA Air Safety Institute AOPA Flight Planner updates New courses and videos All videos are on YouTube and are free Made possible with grant by NOAA and NWC PIREP course update in 2018 NEXRAD latency and FIS-B latency articles Assist WTIC with outreach and increasing pilot participation

AOPA Weather Advocacy Future Flight Service Program Ensuring availability of briefers Future of “VFR not recommended” Increasing awareness of FIS-B benefits Increasing PIREP submittals Improving access to surface weather observations Pilot surveys

AOPA Air Traffic Services 202-509-9515 Rune.duke@aopa.org Thank you!