In Flight Validation Of An Innovative Satellite Meteo Service

L. Garbarino, F. Corraro, L. Vecchione, E. Bove, G. Cuciniello, A. Rispoli, CIRA (ITALY)
A. Monteleone, NAIS (ITALY)
M. Della Maggiora, WISER (ITALY)
A. Vaccaro, A. Petrolino, MBI (ITALY)
D. Maffei, ASI (ITALY)

Abstract

Weather can significantly affect general aviation operations. Indeed meteorological hazards may cause serious disruption to flight schedules and if not properly assessed by the pilot during the flight, they can jeopardize flight safety. In particular, it holds for Personal Air Vehicles (e.g. light and very light aircraft), which are not equipped with sophisticated and expensive on-board avionics.

Within the framework of the AIRONE project, funded by the Italian Space Agency, an innovative in-flight meteorological system, including a pilot decision support tool, was developed and in flight validated. This system allows improving the "weather condition awareness" of the pilot by providing weather conditions in the proximity of the planned route as well as short-term forecasts (nowcasting) of weather hazard. Precisely the pilot is informed by the decision-support application, running on a tablet, if a particular meteorological hazard is in conflict with the current flight plan.

This paper will provide a description of the AIRONE system, present the FLARE vehicle configuration, its performance and the modifications applied to the baseline vehicle for this specific test campaign. The test campaign as well as flight results will be also described and discussed.