Evaluating Wind Hazards with Ensemble Forecasts for Advanced Air Mobility Operations

Advanced Air Mobility is a nascent concept within air transportation where passengers and goods are moved between local, regional and urban locations while flying at low altitudes. As the operational tempo of these flights increases, it is envisioned that flight operators will need to operate in various weather and climatological environments. Given the climatological diversity, users will need information from a broad range of weather sensing and forecasting and decision support technologies to ensure safe and efficient flight. Wind impacts will pose challenges due to the likely wind sensitivity of the vehicles and the lack of existing infrastructure at low altitudes to predict, detect and mitigate hazardous conditions within the airspace. In this paper, we describe a methodology for identifying wind hazards from probabilistic low altitude wind forecasts to support the safe operation of AAM flights within the environment. The models provide a risk assessment of a flight's ability to travel through airspace given the wind information present within the forecast. The level of route blockage that these hazards impose is assessed. Four case days in the Dallas Fort-Worth metropolitan area were generated to test the methods. The results demonstrate the degree of operational feasibility over a range of hazardous wind conditions.