After July 1, 2001, this course material is available for all to use as a resource.  The "interactive questioning" will not be available until the update in Spring of 2002.  Please still send in a registration if you are new to the course.

Welcome to the "introductory" lesson of the National Weather Association's "Thunderstorms and Flying" internet course. 

Let's review the goals:

1.  To provide students (pilots, dispatchers, air-traffic controllers, and aviation weather folks) a review of common and basic vocabulary of the thunderstorm.

2.  To provide students a deeper appreciation for the thunderstorm as a hazard to aviation.

3.  To provide students a better knowledge of the systems that are designed to warn the users about potential thunderstorm hazards.

4.  To provide students the opportunity to learn from and interact with the actual members of the aviation weather community who are working to provide a safe flying environment in the United States.

5.  To provide students a better awareness of how the current aviation weather system works to collect data, create useful products, and distribute them to the end-users.

6.  To provide students with a list of internet resources to help them share information on aviation weather and thunderstorms to others.

Still interested?

Before we begin, we want you to  know who we are as an organization and we want to get to know you better. 

Question:  Who is the National Weather Association?

The National Weather Association is a professional nonprofit association, incorporated in Washington, DC, in 1975 mainly to serve individuals interested in operational meteorology and related activities.

The NWA's Aviation Weather Committee is composed of aviation meteorology professionals from a variety of organizations including the National Weather Service (NWS), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), NASA, the airline industry, the United States Air Force (USAF), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), academia, and others.

Our Co-chairmen are Ms. Carolyn Kloth from the NWS's Aviation Weather Center (AWC) in Kansas City, and Mr. Terry Lankford, a retired Flight Service Station (FSS) Specialist, and author of numerous books on aviation weather for pilots including Weather Reports, Forecasts & Flight Planning: A Pilot's Guide, published by McGraw Hill.

The "course director" for this effort is Mr. Tim Miner, a pilot for a major airline and a recently selected Colonel in the USAF Reserves where he serves as a Weather Officer.  He also is a member of the National Safety and Training Committee of the Allied Pilots Association (APA).

Many organizations and individuals contributed their interest and expertise in aviation weather to try to create the most comprehensive tutorial in flying in the vicinity of convective weather.  It is a "course" for the next eight weeks when you will be able to ask the "subject matter experts" about anything we discuss.  It will be a tutorial after that when the links and text remain but no questions will be answered.  Of course, we welcome your feedback at all times. 

It is not our intention to make a meteorologist of every pilot, air-traffic controller, or dispatcher.  This course is a public service effort of the NWA to provide communication and interaction between the aviation operator and the aviation weather provider.  Every attempt was made to insure the currency and accuracy of the information that you receive.  However, the NWA cannot know the specific guidance that everyone taking this course receives from their employer, military organization, or their local instructor pilot or FAA inspector.   The responsibility is still on every operator to fly safely.

Over the next six weeks, until the end of  May, 2001, we want to explore aviation operations around convective weather with six lessons.  The subjects will be:

Lesson 1: Thunderstorm Meteorology  
Basic thunderstorm weather conditions.

Lesson 2: Thunderstorm Hazards to Aviation
How a thunderstorm can impact your flying.

Lesson 3: Avoiding Thunderstorms in the Terminal / Airport / Aerodrome  
Flight planning tools.  Visual clues and systems to let you know that a thunderstorm is within the 5 mile radius of an airport.

Lesson 4: Avoiding Thunderstorms Enroute 
Flight planning tools and enroute strategies to avoid the impact of thunderstorms while flying.

Lesson 5: Windshear and Microbursts  
A detailed look at how weather systems, Air Traffic Control, and pilots depend on each other to prevent the deadliest hazard of thunderstorms.

                    Lesson 6: Lessons from Previous Accidents
                            Some accidents that all pilots can learn from.           

If you are still interested in joining us in this adventure, please let us know some things about you.  All information is confidential and used only to get feedback to the NWA and the instructors.  Please email a registration to the course including your name, organization, email address and whether you are a General Aviation, commercial, or military pilot.

Your first assignment, in preparation for Lesson 1, is to link to the following websites.  Become familiar with the organization of the whole text and read the material.  

1.  Get your own copy of the FAA's AC-006: Aviation Weather .  This is the most basic textbook for the course.  You can link to the FAA's website and download it for free.  Skim the chapters on moisture, stability, and clouds.  Read Chapter 11 on Thunderstorms.  NOTE: SOME STUDENTS MAY HAVE TROUBLE WITH THIS LARGE DOWNLOAD.  WE HAVE PLACED CHAPTER 11 ON A DIRECT LINK IN OUR LESSON LIBRARIES FOR YOUR USE.

2.  Go to the USAF Safety Website and read five articles on flying and thunderstorms from the May 1999 issue of Flying Safety MagazineFlying Safety Magazine.  This is a VERY LARGE pdf file so if you have problems downloading, please don't worry.  You can proceed with lesson 1 anyway.