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An aircraft report (AIREP), colloquially air report, is a message from an in-flight aircraft to a ground station. These reports describe weather conditions in the upper layers of the atmosphere. AIREPs are prepared in conformity with requirements for position and operational and/or meteorological reporting and are also the name for coding of the report, being encoded according to the AFMAN manual 15-124 pages 32-35.
AIREPs are normally comprised of the aircraft's identifier, position (latitude, longitude, and altitude), date and time, flight level, ETA over its next reporting point, destination ETA, fuel remaining, and meteorological information. AIREPs are usually reported at intervals of 10 degrees longitude and are used primarily by airline class aircraft due to the increased tendency of these aircraft to fly at higher altitudes (i.e. better fuel efficiency).
Meteorological observations are of wind, air temperature, cloud amount, cloud cover, cloud height (cloud base and cloud top), and special phenomena; and are important data for numerical weather prediction. They are particularly useful over the Southern Hemisphere, South America, and western Pacific where other observations are sparse. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) freely shares the information globally via the Global Telecommunication System (GTS).
In the United States, the Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) receives the data and transmits it to the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP).
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Earth-based meteorological equipment and instrumentation |
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Earth-based meteorological observation systems and weather stations |
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