Pilot Weather Advisor System Nears Realtime

The Pilot Weather Advisor (PWA) system is an automated satellite radio-broadcasting system that provides nearly realtime weather data to pilots of aircraft in flight anywhere in the continental United States. The system was designed to enhance safety in two distinct ways: First, the automated receipt of information would relieve the pilot of the time-consuming and distracting task of obtaining weather information via voice communication with ground stations. Second, the presentation of the information would be centered around a map format, thereby making the spatial and temporal relationships in the surrounding weather situation much easier to understand. Starting in the early 1990s, the PWA system was developed by ViGYAN, Inc., under the NASA SBIR program. The system recently became commercially viable and was sold to WSI, a leading provider of weather services in aviation. The system is now marketed under the brand name “WSI InFlight.”