skobie

Moodychief, it's good to hear from you again! You were the one who brought light to this same situation last time around on this message board. And if anyone has a direct contact within AOPA, I would appreciate it if you could forward it to me. Thank you in advance for wanting to keep our skies safe. skobie

carusoam, I had been in contact with a young lady named Melissa McCaffrey (Regional Manager|Western Pacific Region), but she is transitioning to a new job. She said she will forward my information to her replacement, but who knows who that will be and if they'll be as thorough as her. She helped us out a couple of years ago when the FAA tried to shut us down, so I was disappointed that she was moving on. If you have a contact for us, that would be great! As far as what we do and what will change, we do not give briefings. We take and disseminate surface weather observation as dedicated individuals and the FAA wants to transition our jobs to ATC personnel as they have at much lower traffic airports (where the job is not done even satisfactorily at all). Long story short, the FAA keeps scheming up ways to get rid of us to save very little of their massive budget because I really don't think they understand what we do either! Thank for any help, skobie

Hi again everyone. I haven't posted on here in awhile. Unfortunately, I come with a bit of bad news again. To summarize, like you may be aware from 2 years ago, the FAA again has plans to transfer several dozen weather observing stations from CWO to LAWRS. Some of you may already be LAWRS observers in addition to ACT specialists. Unlike 2 years ago, the FAA is "only" planning to initially transition 57 stations (out of approximately 140) around the US. If that's not bad enough, I believe this is just a cover until the FAA can try to transfer all CWOs to LAWRS. They're just using the divide and conquer method this time because they didn't get their way last time. If you don't like what you are about to read, then please advise your ATC managers and tell them that it is a bad idea. Better yet, if any of you belong to the User Groups listed above please do the same. Many of them probably don't even know about this transition plan yet, so feel free to show them it. The FAA plans to start soliciting ATC personnel starting in mid July, with some suggesting a possible changeover as early as October 1 of this year! However, it would be nice if they/you had a heads up. If the FAA gets enough pushback, I don't believe it will happen. So that is where you guys can help. You may be surprised to find your site on the transition list at the end of the document. This document is official: Thank You For Any Help, skobie Weather Observer new faa transition plan May 2015.pdf

Yes I can. I will try to be brief. Weather observers edit (augment what ASOS cannot do at all or backup what ASOS can do but is getting wrong) basically everything you see in a typical METAR/SPECI other than the time. ASOS is of course the Automated Surface Observing System that was given to the FAA/DOD by the National Weather Service about 15-20 years ago and I believe kind of sold to them as a truly automated system that would not need human interaction. ASOS are located at just about every airport across the nation. Of course, the NWS may have just wanted to stop paying their own government empolyees/ contract personnel to edit ASOS and to some extent some government agency ruled that the NWS should not be providing aviation observations and that the FAA should take care of that. At any rate, observers typically backup winds, visibility, cloud coverage and heights, temperature and dewpoint. The most typical backups come in visibility and cloud coverge and heights, which can be changing fairly constantly in a heavy rain or snowstorm situation. There are also a whole slew of remarks that must be augmented when applicable such as tornado and funnel cloud distance, location, and movement, thunderstorm location and movement (not to mention significant cloud types like CBs and TCUs and their location and movement), lightning location and frequency, ice pellets and freezing rain (don't let anyone try to tell you that ASOS can properly pick up on freezing rain by the way), variable and sector visibility, variable sky condition as well as clouds above 12,000 feet, not to mention snow increasing and actual snow on the ground, blowing snow, dust, sand, smoke, etc, and many more augments that I'm sure I'm forgetting. At the risk of sounding like an advertisement, the bottom line is this: The ATC personnel are not going to consistently and properly back up and augment ASOS because they either don't know how to, are too busy actually doing their ATC job, or don't believe it should be part of their job description (and I don't blame them). In other words, ASOS will end up running by itself with very little human interaction and good luck with getting an accurate METAR that is up to date. And I haven't even started to talk about ASOS sensors that go out to service for days (not just hours) at a time where things have to be backed up every single METAR or they'll appear as M (missing) or just not part of the METAR at all and the nearest Flight Service Station has to be called to put the real observation on to the internet so everyone can get the METAR. Or the junk that ASOS will try to pump out when the weather is perfect. Trust me, there are alot of gremlins at work or ASOS does have a mind of its own. Either way, let's face it, ASOS is built on 1980s technology and even if they came out with a brand new ASOS built on today's technology, it would still need human interaction. ASOS is basically a slow, pathetic piece of technology that cannot keep up with the brain power of a human constantly watching the weather and cannot be trusted. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be eaier to go back to the old days of manual, non-automated observations because sometimes ASOS actually creates more work in trying to edit it when it's getting things wrong, which is basically every bad weather situation. I am not trying to offend anyone by the above statement about ATC personnel, I am just trying to be honest of what I have seen at low traffic airports where they are already tasked with editing ASOS. Imagine high traffic airports or high traffic airports in bad weather situations (thunderstorms, snowstorms, etc.) and someone who already is extremely busy, having to worry about doing a second job. It's just not possible that things are going to get done and then there's going to be an accident. Let ATC do their jobs and let weather observers do theirs. If you guys use this data, and I'm sure that you do, then please contact not just congressmen, but the User Groups listed above, as well as the FAA higher ups if you know any. They need to hear from people who actually use this data. Thanks for listening, skobie

Hi guys. I am a weather observer at 2 New York State A-level (for the purposes of weather observing, a larger sized airport) airports. It seems the FAA is trying to run this plan through under the cover of night as they have not admitted anything, even though we have an actual copy of their plan which gets going next Wednesday (May 01, 2013) with the closure of 14 of 123 weather observation offices nationwide (only Alaska non-towered sites are on hold until next year). The rest of the sites will be shut down and transferred over to ATC personnel by no later than the end of this coming summer. We are a group of about 900 certified observers accross the United States. There will be absolutely nothing left of our program and we certainly know that ATC personnel cannot do our jobs. They don't have the time, background, nor do they think that they should be doing our job in the first place. And rightfully so. They already have a pretty important job I would sayl We could use some help. I don't know who you guys can contact, but I can tell you who we've been contacting with mixed results. The FAA, the 14 User Groups that agreed to and help make the weather observation standards that we abide by, climatology offices at the federal, regional, and state levels, and news media. Unfortunately, people have only reported on the problem, not offered to help fix the problem. If you guys belong to any of these groups (or even if you don't), call, email, or write the top dogs and tell them how it's going to affect you as pilots, etc and tell them to put an end to this nonsense. The big wigs in the FAA seem to want to try and close us down every few years, but this time we believe it is a real threat. We'd really appreciate your help. Here is a list of the all important User Groups that we think can put an end to this garbage. -All User Groups (14 of them): 1.) Airlines for America (A4A) Nicholas Calio, President and CEO Email: ncalio@airlines.org Dan Elwell senior vice president, safety, security and operations Email: delwell@airlines.org 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20004 Phone: 202.626.4000 Email: a4a@airlines.org http://www.airlines.org/Pages/Home.aspx 2.) Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Craig Fuller, President Attn: Air Safety Foundation (ASF) 421 Aviation Way Frederick, Maryland 21701. Phone: 301.695.2000 Fax: 301.695.2375 Phone 800-872-2672 http://www.aopa.org/ 3.) Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) Captain Lee Moak, ALPA President 1625 Massachusetts Ave NW Washington, DC 20036 Phone: 703.689.2270 http://www.alpa.org/ 4.) American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE) Operations, Safety, and Planning Committee Chairman, Carl Newman, A.A.E., Houston Airport System Email: Carl.Newman@houstontx.gov 601 Madison Street, Suite 400 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone: 703.824.0504 Fax: 703.820.1395 webmaster@aaae.org http://www.aaae.org/ 5.) Airline Dispatchers Federation (ADF) Joseph Miceli - President Email: jmiceli@dispatcher.org 2020 Pennsylvania Ave NW # 821 Washington, DC 20006 Phone: 800.OPN.CNTL Email: adfboard@dispatcher.org http://www.dispatcher.org/ 6.) Airports Council International - North America (ACI) David N. Edwards, Jr., Executive Committee Chairman Email: dedwards@aci-na.org Greg Principato,ACI-NA President Email: gprincipato@aci-na.org Email: memberservices@aci-na.org 1615 L Street NW Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036 Phone: 202.293.8500 Fax: 202.331.1362 (888) 424-7767 toll-free Email: tsmith@aci-na.org www.aci-na.org 7.) Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Sean Elliott, EAA Vice President of Advocacy and Safety EAA Aviation Center 3000 Poberezny Rd Oshkosh, WI 54902 Phone: 920.426.4800 Phone: 800.564.6322 Fax: 920.426.6761 Email: webmaster@eaa.org http://www.eaa.org/ 8.) Helicopter Association International (HAI) Christopher E. Erickson, Chairman Matt Zuccaro, President Email: tailrotor@aol.com 1635 Prince Street Alexandria, Virginia 22314-2818 Phone: 703.683.4646 Fax: 703.683.4745 http://www.rotor.com/ 9.) National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) Richard Shine, Chairman Edward M. Bolen, President and CEO Benjamin Schwalen, NBAA counsel & corporate secretary Email: bschwalen@nbaa.org 1299 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 550 Washington, DC 20004 Phone: 202.783.9000 Fax: 202.331.8364 Email: info@nbaa.org www.nbaa.org 10.) Allied Pilots Association (APA) Captain Keith Wilson, APA President 14600 Trinity Blvd., Suite 500 Fort Worth, TX 76155-2512 Phone: 817.302.2272 Email: Public-Comment@alliedpilots.org http://public.alliedpilots.org/apa/default.aspx 11.) General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) Pete Bunce, President & CEO 1400 K Street NW, Suite 801 Washington, DC 20005 Phone: 202.393.1500 Fax: 202.842.4063 Email: bforan@GAMA.aero http://www.gama.aero/ 12.) National Association of State Aviation Officials (NASAO) Thomas M. Booth, Jr., NASAO Chairman Henry M. Ogrodzinski, NASAO President & CEO (Ex-Officio) Washington National Airport Hangar 7 - Suite 218 Washington DC, 20001 Phone: 703.417.1883 http://www.nasao.org/ 13.) Alaskan Aviation Safety Foundation (AASF) Harry Kieling, Chairman farnorthflyers@gci.net C/O Aviation Technology Division UAA 2811 Merrill Field Dr. Anchorage, AK 99501 Phone: 907.243.7237 Fax: 907.786.7273 Email: aasf@alaska.net http://www.aasfonline.org/ 14.) Regional Airline Association (RAA) Roger Cohen, President Scott Foose, Senior Vice President- Operations & Safety (202) 367-1212 Email: Foose@raa.org 2025 M Street, NW Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036-3309 Phone: 202.367.1170 Fax: 202.367.2170 Email: raa@raa.org http://www.raa.org/ Thanks for your help. Sincerely, skobie