Acars question - weather data from aircraft
 

Not sure this is tech, but see if any of you can come up with the answer.

I am interested in the data sent from aircraft reporting winds at heights through ACARS. Here is an example.

I want to know:

1. Where is it sent to and for what purposes?
2. Is it automatic at set times, sent on request by the pilot or is it ground interrogation by a user?

Thanks for anyone's help....

ACARS mode: X Aircraft reg: G-Message label: H1 [Message to/from terminal] Block id: 0 Msg no: D62CFlight id: Message content:-#DFB7 343/095 TB/ S111
DES 5043N 00052E 1101 F182 MS200 346/095 TB/ S011
DES 5046N 00046E 1103 F159 MS157 347/089 TB/ S011
DES 5051N 00037E 1104 F137 MS112 347/083 TB/ S011
333 F2North: 0.05 East: 11.01

The info is send to meteorological centers and the target is to supply a large amount of data regarding earth atmosphere, in order to help analyze and give more accurate weather prediction.
The data is send from some airplanes via sattelite or VHF stations.
It is more accurate and less expensive than the data send from meteorological baloons.
The data is send automatically. For ex ,during climb it is send at 30 sec interval ,and generally includes position ,wind and temperature. May also include humidity, iceing,..
During cruise the data is send at 15 min interval.
It may also be requested from the ground.

Thanks, further questions:

1. Is this every airline that provides this?
2. Is there anywhere to see the raw data as it comes up superimposed perhaps on a map? I realise that it is for forecast purposes, but what about actual now purposes - it could be very useful but can it be seen anywhere with the reports coming in?

Cheers,

We only have one of our Airbii configured to send data to the TAPS program. Turbulence detection requires a special widget.

Thanks for that.

Is it not possible to get acars data immediately downloaded onto google maps for example instead of being stored for historical purposes?

I'm not quite sure what you mean, but I believe that's the goal of these new programs, to automatically and instantly share atmospheric data between aircraft to enable tactical changes for better rides and more efficient flight.

This link might help:

http://www.knmi.nl/samenw/geoss/wmo/...ta_For_NWP.pdf

You can also try looking on the NCEP and ECMWF websites, being the organisations behind the two main global weather forecast models.

I know NCEP use the ACARS data to verify the accuracy of the GFS model output.

It looks like you need to be a member of a non-profit meteorological-based organisation to get hold of the realtime data.