Airmet, Sigmet And Pirep Brief

Active Sky Advanced offers new critical weather information advisories that are extremely useful to pilots in the planning and in-flight weather monitoring stages.

These new “Met/Reps” are available in real-time fashion, constantly updated from various sources at the server level, and provided to ASA clients during weather downloads. Met/Reps are designed for real-time online weather modes, and do not apply to offline/historical modes.

Sigmets and Airmets coverage is currently available for the continental United States and the data is REAL as issued from actual weather agencies, with more areas planned for inclusion in the future. Pireps coverage is global, and the data is exclusive to the network of ASA users.

Sigmets: Significant Meteorological Advisories

A sigmet is a weather advisory that contains information concerning weather conditions that could affect the safety of all types of aircraft. There can be convective and non-convective types, but the most common is convective and indicates areas of thunderstorm/convective activity that all aircraft need to be aware of.

Airmets: Airmen’s Meteorological Advisories

An airmet is a weather advisory that contains information concerning weather conditions that could affect the safety of low-level, smaller aircraft. A sigmet is issued for more severe weather (affecting all aircraft) while an airmet is issued for less severe weather. Specifically, airmets are issued for Mountain Obscuration or IFR conditions (Airmet Sierra), Turbulence (Airmet Tango) and Icing (Airmet Zulu). Sigmets can also be issued for such conditions, but pertain to more severe instances that cover greater areas and distances.

Pireps: Pilot Reports

Pireps are created and issued by actual pilots who are airborne. A pirep can be made at any time for any kind of condition, and the relevant pireps collected by the network are given to pilots by Flight Service at request and/or during weather briefings. As an example, a pilot may note that there was moderate to severe turbulence between 10,000 and 12,000 ft while crossing a certain mountain range. The pilot contacts Flight Service, makes the pirep (including location, altitude, aircraft type and weather conditions experienced), and receives updates on last-minute conditions (including new pireps) that may be relevant. Now the next pilot who is planning a flight through the same area can be informed of this turbulence as actually experienced by another aircraft, and possibly alter the route for a smoother flight. Pireps are extremely useful in obtaining up-to-date actual conditions.

Met/Reps in Active Sky Advanced

These advisories and reports are available at any time during online real-time weather modes within ASA. The data is automatically downloaded at each update interval, and can be viewed by the pilot in the following ways:

• Met/Reps Screen This new screen displays all Sigmets, Airmets and Pireps in one convenient location. Double clicking on any met/rep will automatically bring up the map screen centered on that met/rep.

• Map Screen From the map, Airmets and Sigmets and their relevant areas are drawn on the screen (when the Met/Rep overlay is enabled) in a visual format. Hovering the mouse cursor over a Met/Rep will open a popup information window with all the details. Pireps are also shown as green and yellow rings, and can also be hovered on to popup additional information.

A Pirep can be “made” by an ASA user at any time as long as they are in online real-time mode and there is an active simulator connection. The button “Make a Pirep” located in the Met/Reps Screen brings up a window and allows you to enter the specifics. The location is automatically pre-populated but you can amend/change this as desired. Once you click “OK” to submit the pirep, it is uploaded to our servers and immediately available to all other ASA users who are also in online/real-time mode.

Additional Information

Met/Reps are “passive” meaning that they provide accurate relevant information but weather conditions are not altered based on them. Rather, the Met/Reps are based on the weather conditions. For example, an icing airmet may be in affect for a certain area, but icing will not be “generated” by the airmet. Instead, the icing is generated inherently by ASA weather synthesis, which is based on accurate weather information from various sources.

Using a passive system ensures ultimate realism, as these advisories and reports are actually observations and forecasts, which means they are not 100% predictable. Just like in real aviation, just because a pilot reported “severe turbulence” in the exact same location just 10 minutes prior does not guarantee that you will experience the same conditions. There is also interpretation to deal with, where one pilot might have an entirely different definition of “severe turbulence” than another. In that light, the passive design brings realistic supplements to other weather information but they are still observations and forecasts, not exact predictable specifications of the weather environment.

Note that Sigmets and Airmets are cleared from the network 3 hours after their valid time ends, and Pireps are cleared after 6 hours from issued time.