Contributing Towards the Development of Worldwide Aviation Standards

Mr. H.G. Wai of the Observatory attended the 8th Meeting of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Meteorological Information Data Link Study Group (METLINKSG) held at ICAO's Headquarters in February 2005. At the meeting, Mr. Wai tabled a draft standard protocol of graphical tropical cyclone SIGMET for uplink to aircraft. The meeting endorsed the protocol and proposed to include it as an international standard. Recognizing the work done by the Observatory in windshear and turbulence alerting, the meeting also requested the Observatory to develop model graphical windshear and turbulence products for inclusion in the Annex 3 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation in order to drive future development of weather uplink applications.

Meanwhile, ICAO is preparing for the revision of the standards and recommended practices on aerodrome weather observation for implementation in 2007. Dr. C.M.Cheng of the Observatory participated in the April meeting in Montreal of the ICAO Aerodrome Meteorological Observing Systems Study Group (AMOSSG) to discuss the related issues. The group discussed a number of proposals including the use of automatic observing systems for airport weather reporting, extension of the forecasting period of airport weather forecast (TAF), and revised procedures for TAF amendments.

Sample of a graphical tropical cyclone SIGMET for uplink to the cockpit