A new aviation weather Web site went online at Nav Canada Aug. 30, 2001. It can be accessed via the link to “Flight Planning” and then “weather” at: www.navcanada.ca, or directly at the following URLs: www.flightplanning.navcanada.ca (English) and www.plandevol.navcanada.ca (French). (Direct links to the new site appear on COPA’s Web site: www.copanational.org. Click on “COPA links,” then “Nav Canada.”)
The new site is the culmination of Phase 1 of a three-phase project to upgrade Nav Canada’s Internet presence for weather and flight planning, funded and directed by Nav Canada, and conducted by the Canadian Meteorological Centre (CMC) of the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC). It features all the products that are currently available on the old weather Web site and adds a few others, such as a dot-plot chart of current conditions over Canada.
The main improvements are in functionality, design and interactive databases. The site organizes weather information by function: local area, region, route and forecast and observations. The interactive databases provide the user with the latest data available when the request is submitted.
“COPA participated in the development of the revised weather site, from providing suggestions for additions to providing beta testers to help shake out any bugs,” said COPA President Kevin Psutka. “It is an improvement over the less reliable site and should enhance safety. It is also identical to the format and content that will be available on the Nav Canada flight briefing kiosks, a feature that COPA pushed for in order to maximize the ease of use for pilots no matter how they access the weather online.” Psutka added that, “This site is a great tool for flight planning but urges everyone to use it in addition to a thorough briefing with a Flight Service Specialist rather than a replacement for it. COPA is pushing Nav Canada to complete the full capability as soon as possible, including NOTAMs and flight plan filing online in order to minimize the potential for bottle-necks at the Flight Information Centres.”
The main new feature that distinguishes the site is its ability to create and store individual user profiles. The user is able to save a weather data folder and then to recall the folder later to get updated data. This will be a popular feature since many users, pilots and dispatchers are repeat users who request the same weather data folders every day. The user can add or delete the folders and edit them.