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General Aviation Weather Service in Finland Klaus Haikarainen / FMI 18.3.2010. General Aviation in Finland. 1418 aircrafts (2009; excl. airliners) 7209 aviation license holders (2009; excl. ATPL)
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General Aviation WeatherService in Finland Klaus Haikarainen / FMI 18.3.2010
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
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 FMI headquarters in Helsinki
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
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
GAFOR in Finland Visibility and cloud height criteria Cloud height 1500ft 1000ft 500ft 1500m 5000m 8000m Visibility
GAFOR in Finland • GAFOR issued at 03 and 12 UTC and also 20.30 UTC for areas 30/39 (northern Finland) • Validity9hrs • Forecastareasbased on geographical / meteorologicalcharacteristics
An example of Finnish GAFOR FBFI41 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=
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