Article 12 Weather information service

GENERAL

(a)The USSP collects the weather information necessary to support UAS operational decisions in a specific U-space airspace and supports the provision of other U-space services, such as the UAS flight authorisation service.

(b)It is recognised that the weather information service intended for UAS operations is different from that provided by today’s meteorological service providers, especially when it comes to UAS operations in the ‘open’ and ‘specific’ category. UAS may fly near buildings and in areas where current aeronautical meteorological information is not always provided. Therefore, Article 12 of Regulation (EU) 2021/664 specifies the minimum content of weather information to be available for the purpose of UAS operations. It does not exclude the possibility that current aeronautical meteorological service providers may also provide this service.

TRUSTED SOURCES

(a)USSPs should use weather data that comes from authoritative sources.

(b)Where such weather data is not formally available from an authoritative source, but is required by end users, USSPs should use weather data from other (non-authoritative) sources, provided they have been verified and validated by the USSP to conform with the data quality requirements.

(c)USSPs should enable the identification of the source of the weather data in accordance with the contractual arrangements concluded with their UAS operators.

TRUSTED SOURCES

(a)An authoritative source may be an organisation that is formally recognised by the Member State to originate and/or publish weather information which meets the data quality requirements as specified by that Member State. An authoritative source may be a meteorological service provider certified in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2017/373.

(b)A non-authoritative source may be an organisation other than that defined in point (a), but which originates and/or publishes weather data derived through data gathering or measuring (e.g. by the USSPs themselves, aircraft operators, or other relevant weather information organisations, or a combination of them), which conforms with the data quality requirements as specified by the Member State.

WEATHER INFORMATION USSPs should provide weather information that contains:

(a)the location of the observation or forecast using:

(1)the ICAO designator, where available; or

(2)the geographic position expressed in the WGS 84 coordinate;

(b)the validity of the observation or forecast by specifying:

(1)the validity area/volume either via the ICAO designator and, where available, the WGS 84 position or WGS 84 area of validity; and

(2)the time of the observation and/or the validity of the forecast in UTC time.

WEATHER REPORTS Article 12(2) of Regulation (EU) 2021/664 defines the minimum weather information set to be provided by the USSP. In certain cases, USSPs may either display a subset of, or enrich, this weather data set (or additional sources of information) to:

(a)provide the information to the end user for awareness;

(b)complete the weather data set with weather information that is publicly available, such as MET information.

UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION

(a)Upon receipt of updated weather information related to current weather, the USSP should provide it to the UAS operator within maximum 30 seconds.

(b)Upon receipt of an updated weather forecast, the USSP should provide it to the UAS operator within maximum 5 minutes from the time the USSP starts processing the data.

(c)The USSP should inform the end user when the information is not up to date.

RELIABILITY

(d)The USSP should inform the end user of the source of the data at the request of the UAS operator.

(e)The USSP should provide a confidence level of the data being provided, where available, or indicate that the confidence level is unknown.

UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION

(a)It is the responsibility of the USSP to ensure that the data being consumed or referred to is the last available data set from the trusted source.

(b)The USSP is not responsible for ensuring that the data being exposed by the trusted source is effectively the last available data. This responsibility lies with the trusted source.

RELIABILITY

(c)The reliability of the data pertains mostly to the security, availability, and status reporting to the end user. USSPs should ensure that the UAS operator is presented with accurate information that has not been tampered with, and with information regarding the confidence level of the data where this is available at the source.

(d)When MET data is provided using the standard MET products (such as METAR or aerodrome local report), the confidence levels are contained within the MET standards that define these products, as specified in ICAO Annex 3 ‘Meteorological Service for International Air Navigation’.