Workshop
22 - 24 November 1996
DLR Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany
19 meteorologists and soaring pilots form Austria, Germany and
Switzerland met to discuss aspects of soaring meteorology.
This workshop was intended to provide more time for discussion in
small groups than it was possible at the training seminar in
Nötsch.
Topics were:
Soaring forecast
Hermann Trimmel started with the thesis that the following three aspects
have to be optimized to achieve a good forecast: quality of the products,
availability and access to the products, and knowledge of the pilots.
Erland Lorenzen presented the new selfbriefing philosophy of the
German Weather Service (DWD). Key is the pc_met system which allows
access to a large data base of soundings, maps, numerical forecasts
(including thermal activity), GAFOR, METAR ... It includes also many
facilities to interpret soundings.
The ALPTHERM program by Bruno Neininger and Olivier Liechti
(OSTIV-price) allows the analysis of soundings for the forecasting of
convection in mountaineous regions. It yields excellent results as far as
the effects of elevated heating sources are concerned. It is planned to use the
model-output soundings of the operational numerical forecast models of
the Swiss Meteorological Institute and the German Weather Service to
provide thermal forecasts for Central Europe.
ALPFOR is provided by AustroControl for Austria and available by fax
polling. It gives the soaring conditions for 12 UTC and shows with
standard symbols strength of thermals, convection levels and
additional informations.
Education
Selfbriefing requires sufficient meteorological knowledge of the
pilots. Training workshops and self-learning systems should help
the pilots to improve their knowledge and the successful use of
pc_met.
Meteorological evaluation of GPS logger data
Jon Meis is preparing a diploma thesis at the University of Karlsruhe
on the use of GPS logger data for the retrieval of properties of
thermals. Data during the German Champonships can provide informations on
hot spots in the contest area. Flights of many pilots in the same
thermal can give information on tilt and the structure of thermals.
once flight data of a greater number of
pilots become available and the appropriate software is developed new opportunities
for a more detailed analysis might open up.
Thanks go to Ricci Heinrich for providing extensive minutes of
this meeting (see aerokurier 6/97).
Martin Hagen
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