A US study shows that the likelihood of a fatal accident decreased by 89 percent for aircraft using ADS-B In.
I suspect this is largely a correlation between
In the UK, somebody found that pilots who attended the CAA Safety Evenings (mostly utterly boring patronising presentations, where the 3-letter word – the one which starts with a G and ends with S – was banned, and in which half the audience patiently waited at the end to get, wait for it, their logbooks stamped!) were something like 10 times less likely to have an accident.
For long range IFR, and even VFR, in-flight wx solutions are great, but for most flying they do very little because you can get a really good wx preflight briefing over 3g/4g, and often at low level you can do it while flying.
Another aspect: the airfield at Wangerooge does close, but the destination airport of Hannover does not, it is one if the few true H24 airports. If the pilot was IFR or at least NFVR rated, this would have allowed for lengthy diversions (fuel permitting). Even VFR would have been possible for several more hours at this time of the year.
Although Hanover does not close, GAT does. With this weather situation avoidance might have been max. +10 minutes for a SR20, so not really understandable why they did not take the detour around? Simple DCT buttoneer? Would be double sad.
Long range flights is exactly where one needs the in-flight weather. 3G/4G does not work above a few thousand feet. While this 89% number could be inflated, I would argue that even far less would be enough reason to push for a solution. And its not only weather its also traffic the US pilots have access to, potentially reducing the risk of midair collisions.. And there is a big difference fiddling around with a poor readable phone through a browser/website trying to get a dataconnection in flight vs a proper integrated solution on MFD or navigator. Then there is radar image delay. The northavimet.com fx which most pilots in Scandianvia have access too have easily 30 minute delay in parts of Europe and many of unofficial sites on the internet I would question the validity/delay of the data they present and often they do not clearly depict areas that are not covered, meteox.com being such an example..
From a professional point I have a lot of conversations with pilots interested in ADL in flight weather. While most are very knowledable and cautious but there are exceptions:
- I had one customer you outright confessed he just flew straight line IFR for about 10 years even in convective weather because it was always ok. Well after 10 years of luck he finally hit a cell with quite unpleasant consequences. Then he did change his strategy and was in line for in flight weather…
- Some don’t even have an idea what weather radar is and how it might work. I got a call from a pilot sitting on the ground at an airport with “some questions about the radar” wondering if he should depart. I had one look and there was a bad textbook cell with radar, lightning, infrared returns right 10 miles in his departure corridor.
- Some others figured out that below the cloud base of thunderstroms there is often quite good visibility and you have a good chance to fly VFR. But I think this is a high risk strategy. Heavy rain, hail and strong winds can fall out of the cloud and on top IMC conditions can form very quickly.
I doubt 30min delay in in-flight weather data is that problematic in the big scheme of things (e.g. forecaster update, pilot decision making and atc/nav planning..)
If you are looking for tactical avoidance of weather then you will need an real data onboard “weather radar” still it will be a hit and miss on severe turbulences like the one posted here
Personally, I don’t see much value in in-flight or radar weather given that financial/convenience you get from a GA flight detour or diversion is small (or should be) but I don’t fly more than 3h/300nm legs, so probably those who do 6h/1000nm will have different opinions…
Radar data over mobile 4G is typically 5 to 10 minutes old, so doing quite well as supplement.
Yes, you have to fly low to get mobile data, but this was a short trip of only what, 40 minutes?
Ibra wrote:
If you are looking for tactical avoidance of weather then you will need an real data onboard “weather radar” still it will be a hit and miss on severe turbulences like the one posted here
Why will it be hit and miss? Weather radar is incredibly useful to avoid a big cell like discussed.
Ibra wrote:
Personally, I don’t see much value in in-flight or radar weather given that financial/convenience you get from a GA flight detour or diversion is small (or should be) but I don’t fly more than 3h/300nm legs, so probably those who do 6h/1000nm will have different opinions…
Depends the sort of flying you do. Is it needed if you always fly VFR in good weather? No. But if you fly in IMC with potentially convective weather about even for short distances it can be very useful.
I know of a number of (VFR) pilots who would fly through a rain shower, irrespective of being able to see the other side, because
A) they have a working 3 axis autopilot and heck, I’ve done this many times before plus
B) that diversion will take x minutes @ y € / minutes – and after all, point A applies.
I’m not saying that this happened here but I’ve been passenger in a plane where the pilot thought exactly those thoughts….
Sebastian_G wrote:
- Some others figured out that below the cloud base of thunderstroms there is often quite good visibility and you have a good chance to fly VFR. But I think this is a high risk strategy. Heavy rain, hail and strong winds can fall out of the cloud and on top IMC conditions can form very quickly.
And most importantly, wind shear.
