1. General Aviation Weather Service in Finland Klaus Haikarainen / FMI 18.3.2010

2. 2 General Aviation in Finland 1418 aircrafts (2009; excl. airliners) 7209 aviation license holders (2009; excl. ATPL) General aviation flight hours 105 798 (2008; gliders, motorgliders, ultralights & balloons included) Operations count low if compared to Central Europe Operations count low especially during winter because of challenging weather conditions

3. 3 GA weather service organized by Finavia Finavia Corporation Finavia provides air navigation services in Finland Fully state owned company Turnover ~300 M€ (2009) ~1800 employees (2009) 25 aerodromes

4. Finnish Meteorological Institute FMI Research and service institute Over 600 employees, more than half of them in research and development Turnover 61,7 million euros in 2009 Main research areas Climate change Air Quality Meteorology Marine Research Earth Observations Arctic Research 4 FMI headquarters in Helsinki

5. 5 FMI as service provider Aviation and military weather service 4 locations: Helsinki, Tampere, Kuopio and Rovaniemi Integrated production of civil & military aviation weather service – cost effective Quality management system and ISO-9001 certificate GA weather service given by phone from Helsinki Media: telephone, fax, internet, text-TV Financing of civil aviation weather service Finavia buys service & development from FMI at cost price No direct financing from state budget or whatsoever

6. 6 GA Weather products GAFOR (BBBB=) TAF, METAR SWC Scandinavia (00, 06, 12 and 18 UTC) Upper air charts Web & mobile products http://fcaa.foreca.com/ http://lentosaa.fmi.fi/sar/ gliding forecast made as volunteer work http://www.suio.fi/ennuste - WRF model initialized by GFS data http://www.suio.fi/ennuste Metars, Tafs & Gafors available via text-TV

7. 7 GAFOR in Finland Cloud height O D M X 1500ft 1000ft 500ft 1500m5000m8000m Visibility Visibility and cloud height criteria

8. 8 GAFOR in Finland GAFOR issued at 03 and 12 UTC and also 20.30 UTC for areas 30/39 (northern Finland) Validity 9hrs Forecast areas based on geographical / meteorological characteristics

9. 9 An example of Finnish GAFOR FBFI41 EFLK 170200 AAA GA-FCST FOR AREAS 11/17 VALID 0412 WX LÄNTISILLÄ JA LOUNAISILLA MERI-ALUEILLA JA LÄNSIRANNIKOLLA SATAA VÄHÄN LUNTA. PÄIVÄLLÄ VÄHÄISIÄ LUMIKUUROJA VOI TULLA PAIKOIN MUUALLAKIN. WINDS 11/17 SFC 220-270/05-10KT 2000FT 270-350/10-20KT 5000FT 270-340/10-20KT 0-C LEVEL 11/17 NIL ICE LCA MOD INC BLW FL100 TURB NIL GAFOR EFHK 0412 BBBB 11,12,14 O BECMG 0609 M -SN 13,15 O LCA TEMPO 0912 M -SN 16,17 D ST BECMG 0810 O LCA TEMPO 1012 M -SN=

10. 10 Future development Graphical GAFOR – or similar LLF AutoTAF? Semiautomatic Low-Level SWC produced on a meteorological workstation? Output also in some LLF format? Pilots would like to have more & better products, but unfortunately nothing is free 