by Jannes Neumann
OSTIV Diploma
The OSTIV Diploma is awarded to:
Prof. Emeritus Dr. Edward (Ward) Hindman
for his paper, presented at the XXXI OSTIV Congress in Uvalde, Texas, USA, 2012, and published in Technical Soaring, Vol. 37, No. 2, 2013
“An on-line meteorological self-briefing system for glider pilots”
Citation
Persisting weather conditions with aligned lift allow for the most spectacular long-distance flights. Glider pilots around the world are keen to know detailed meteorological features of the atmospheric boundary layer, wave characters and slope updrafts for the planning of soaring flights especially in unfamiliar areas. In his paper, Prof. Dr. Hindman describes an experiment where he imported a unique, on-line meteorological self-briefing system for glider pilots, developed by Olivier Liechti, Ralf Thehos and Erland Lorenzen, from Europe to the USA. This system is operational in Europe at the German Weather Service (DWD). Prof. Dr. Hindman replaced the DWD model by an operational USA numerical weather prediction (NWP) model. Using the system, a pilot is able to ‘fly’ a planned task through a numerical weather prediction to determine the task’s feasibility. After the flight, the forecast can be checked using the resulting flight-recorder file. In his paper, Prof. Dr. Hindman explains and demonstrates this revolutionary system, and reports the successful validation results of an experiment in USA in 2009. Due to the universal applicability of these NWP models tested for predictions in 2012, the method can be regarded as a quantum-leap in analyzing and optimizing flight paths.
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