Giving Color to Aviation Safety
New Graphics Enhancements Debut on 1800WxBrief.com
By Jeff Arnold, Flight Service
Recent upgrades to Leidos Flight Service weather products now allow pilots to access enhanced weather graphics, offering clearer and more comprehensive data to support flight planning and decision-making activities.
These newly improved graphics offer a more detailed and intuitive presentation of critical weather data, including turbulence forecasts, icing conditions, convective outlooks, and more.
We’ve replaced static graphical forecasts for aviation (GFA) charts with GFAs on the interactive map. The GFAs have six distinct layer controls, along with complete legends, time and altitude sliders, and textual graphical overlays that include:
- Ceiling & Visibility
- Clouds
- Precipitation
- Winds
- Turbulence
- Icing
Additionally, the new Leidos Flight Service weather products have been thoroughly integrated with our briefing engine. The relevant validity and forecast periods and timeframes were added to the top of the image.
The GFAs are structured similarly to the G-AIRMETs in the briefing product and are displayed for the relevant portions of the flight during the expected traversal time.
New changes to the 1800WxBrief.com Interactive Map
The layer controls tab on the interactive map is now sorted into three sub-menus or categories: Weather, Nav, and Local. The Weather sub-menu focuses on weather tools, charts, and graphical depictions of weather phenomena. The Nav sub-menu displays airspace and special use airspace. Finally, the Local sub-menu provides area knowledge information, local frequencies, topographical data, and more. The area knowledge information is a collection of data gathered from the experiences and insights of Flight Service Specialists.
The new Nav sub-menu will contain the following layers:
- Airspaces (e.g., MTRs, SUAs) (Relocated)
- U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)
- More to follow in future releases
The interactive map opacity slider allows users to adjust the transparency of graphical overlays, making it easier to view multiple data layers simultaneously. Additionally, improvements to the interactive map search functionality now allow for exact match searches to be conducted and easily identified in the map view.
Coming in Future Releases
Future releases include additional interactive map layers to properly overlay NavAids, airports and heliports, airspace color coding to match sectional charts, and more.
We are excited about these enhancements and remain committed to continuously improving our services to better serve the aviation community. As always, pilots are encouraged to provide feedback on these updates to help us refine and optimize their experience. Feedback can be submitted from the bottom of any 1800WxBrief.com page by selecting “Request Help or Submit Feedback.”
Visit 1800WxBrief.com for more information, and to explore the new graphics.
Jeff Arnold is a graduate of Oklahoma State University, has held flight and ground instructor certificates for over 16 years, and is a former Leidos Flight Service weather briefer and air operations manager. Jeff currently serves as the director of innovation and outreach for Leidos Flight Service.
