Travis wrote:
*****
I think that some clarification of the use might help. I can imagine
two scenarios:

1) enroute - in this case, you know the track and ground speed from
radar. You have the filed TAS. You have no idea of the crab angle or
heading. This sounds like the information you presented in your
question. However, enroute, who cares what the wind correction is. I am
having trouble imagining how this would help a controller - in training
or not.
*****

This is for enroute training, Travis. It is not the crab angle we are
after, but the winds aloft. If we could pull the actual (or even just
forecast) winds aloft into this system, we'd be set. Unfortunately,
I'm told that data cannot be used for this purpose. I don't know if it
is inaccessible or if there is a contractual reason we can't get to it.
The bottom line is that we have only radar data to estimate the winds.

I see no other way of estimating the winds with this data. I hope that
this eventually provides us a workable solution. I've seen too many
trainees make bad decisions because they didn't consider the effects of
the wind to discount the usefulness of this information. A fair number
of operational errors occur because controllers don't use the wind to
their advantage.

By the way, my wife fell in love with Chicago on our trip last weekend,
so I'll be in your neck of the woods much more often. Atlantic
Aviation at Midway made us feel very welcome. :-)


Chad Speer
PP-ASEL, IA
ATCS, Kansas City ARTCC