Posted by John McHale
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass., 12 July 2011. Engineers at the Aerospace Management Systems division for Weather Programs at the Air Force's Electronic Systems Center are designing new software for FalconView weather systems to help improve situational awareness.Essentially the Hanscom expterts are merging FalconView Weather -- a system that that displays current and forecasted weather conditions for military use -- with the Portable Flight Planning System's (PFPS's) FalconView mapping capability. Warghters will be able to out weather information, such as observations, forecasts, pilot reports, and radar, in overlays FaclonView map softwarePFPS is a suite of software for planning air missions. "FalconView Weather provides the warfighter with actionable weather information," says Gerry Flynn, ESC program manager. "It allows them to avoid weather hazards, such as thunderstorms and dust, especially overseas in areas such as Southwest Asia." MITRE engineers developed the prototype under ESC's Battle Management Directorate alongside service members in Nevada, Air Force Special Operations Command, several Air National Guard units, and the Joint Command Post in Iraq. Last year the Weather Program office obtained Warfighter Rapid Acquisition Program funds to further develop the prototype for field use."In just 18 months since we were notified of the WRAP funding, we selected a contractor, went on contract, operationalized the prototype in a first release, established training and 24/7 help desk support and are set to field a substantial upgrade after operational test in July 2011," says John Dreher, the Integration and Capabilities Section chief at the Weather Program Office. "And with the upgrade, the team has been able to take advantage of emerging Air Force and Navy weather web services, which significantly reduce integration costs and schedule and has provided an order of magnitude increase in available weather products." Other enhancements for the updated version include improved user interfaces to create areas of interest, to tailor and control product displays, and to easily select weather products for automated update. Operators also get a streamlined software install and uninstall as well as the ability to support low network bandwidth users using previously retrieved and stored weather products.FalconView Weather will leverage the capability to integrate weather with other systems, such as the Joint Mission Planning System. Due to the fact that the FalconView Weather software code is platform independent, only minor changes are necessary to work with other system's map displays. The target goal of a single software baseline, supporting PFPS and JMPS, is for some time in 2012, ESC officials say.
