Air Traffic Management Concept Baseline Definition - The Boeing ...

is needed to develop cockpit display systems and communications systems that will
provide weather information to pilots in as an efficient and timely manner as possible.
Human factors issues and crew workload considerations must be addressed early in
this process.
The NRC study addressed many areas of concern related to the aviation weather system,
but it did not specifically investigate some of the near term and far term performance
requirements for aviation weather technologies to support CNS/ATM systems. For
example, accurate 3D meteorological information will be needed for CTAS and conflict
probe trajectory calculations, and for the wake vortex separation prediction system being
developed by NASA. The data sets needed for these tools will be generated from analyses
of current surface and aloft conditions and forecasts of future conditions. The accuracy,
precision, and completeness of the meteorological information must be quantified, and the
sensitivity of CNS/ATM tools to errors in the data need to be determined. Information is
also needed on the amounts and types of additional data, especially upper-air data, that
will be required to ensure the success of these technologies.
Most weather impacts on today’s ATM system are associated with bad weather, especially
in the terminal area when adverse weather creates inefficiencies that lead to capacity
reductions at the busiest airports. Thus, most aviation weather technology deployments
already made or planned for the near term focus on improving the quality and timeliness of
weather information for instrument meteorological conditions. However, for the far term
the focus will need to shift to improving the quality of aviation weather information under
all weather conditions, including what would normally be considered fair weather, i.e.,
visual meteorological conditions. This is because the day-to-day success of Free Flight
and new CNS/ATM technologies like CTAS will depend in part on the quality of the
observed and predicted meteorological information that these technologies will need.
5.2 Communication
5.2.1 Air/Ground Communication
Air/ground communication provides for the transfer of information between the aircraft
and a ground entity. The ground entity may be an air traffic control facility, an airline
operations center or another source of required information, such as an airport which
prepares an Automated Terminal Information System (ATIS) message.
Air/air communication is a special case of air/ground communication. The primary use of
air/air communication is monitoring the party line of other air/ground communications.
Certain operations, such as operations at uncontrolled airfields, require transmission-inthe-blind.
That is, the pilot reports his position and intent to any and all aircraft near that
airport without addressing a specific aircraft or expecting a reply. In addition, flight crews
directly communicate between aircraft, such as in oceanic airspace.
Communication functionality may be described in three layers of service. The
Application layer provides standard formats for efficient transfer of information. In voice
communication, this consists of standard phrases and reporting procedures which have
evolved over time and are specified in documents such as FAA Order 7110.65, Air Traffic
65