"It's Like Looking Out Your Window"

In Alaska, where the difference between the sky and the mountain is often less than the width of a single-engine aircraft, seeing is believing. That's why a lot of pilots in the Great White North are starting to swear by a new FAA program that literally lets them eyeball crucial mountain passes along their routes.

"It's like looking out of your window instead of studying data," said Mike Stedman, director of operations at Wings of Alaska. "We don't need to go out and burn the fuel and find out that you cannot land." Stedman was quoted by the Juneau Empire.

In fact, the service is rapidly becoming popular among other pilots as well. The Empire reports the National Weather Service, Coast Guard, and Alaska State Troopers all use the site to make their fly/no-fly decisions. Overall, the site received 3.3 million hits last year alone.

The FAA plans to install 165 camera sites by 2010.

"What pilots most appreciate is a holistic view of the weather that is not offered by automated weather systems and is otherwise only available at those sites manned by weather observers," said Susan Gardner, manager of the Alaska Weather Camera program. She told the Empire that, along with her staff, she's been traveling across the state talking with pilots, getting input on exactly where these cameras should be placed.

Remote viewing technology is by no means a new development in Alaska. In fact, the Coast Guard and the FAA together installed a camera system in Valdez to keep an eye on the Alaska oil pipeline terminus.

"They put that camera in because of all the air traffic coming in to bring the supplies and equipment to begin the pipeline," Gardner told the Juneau paper. "The visibility was so poor or the weather was deteriorating. The camera provided them with valuable information on whether to come in or not."

For the past eight years, the FAA's Alaska Regional Office has been working to develop video monitoring system. But that program, in spite of its success, languished with little Congressional attention, until it got a $5 million federal grant last year. With that money, Gardner says she'll refurbish existing cameras, replace analog units with digital cameras and continue to improve the system.

FMI: http://akweathercams.faa.gov