I stumbled across this.

http://zeitcam.com/directory.php?category=Airports

Awesome. Need to get some of those added to pilotcams.org

Here's the link to the official FAA weather camera site: http://akweathercams.faa.gov/

Interesting story how this system came to be. A fellow named Jim Buckingham, who is a US Army LtCol and pilot, needed a PhD project. He came to a few Alaska aviation safety outfits, and proposed to install three weather cameras, and put the images up on the internet, if he could find some $$.

Long story short, he managed a $50,000 grant from NSF, and got air taxi operators to provide free transportation of the cameras, etc to remote villages.

With that money, he bought, transported and installed three sets of weather cameras in three villages in interior Alaska for three years.

The FAA didn't see much promise in the concept, but Senator Ted Stevens certainly did, and arranged to have a supplemental tucked in the FAA Alaska Region's budget. The FAA drug their feet on this, until they realized it would be pretty ugly to explain to Stevens why they didn't spend that money and it went back to the general fund. So, the FAA reluctantly started installing weather cameras around the state.

Long story short, I doubt that the FAA has had a single project that met with such universal approval by pilots. Funding continued to expand, and cameras and capabilities did as well.

A fellow named Kimo Vallar has run that program for a number of years, and has done a great job, turning feedback from pilots into results.

It is a VERY interesting project, and has been very successful to date. One of the reasons it became so successful is that these units are relatively cheap (like one fifth the cost of an AWOS) and with the advent of automated weather observers, the reliability of weather reports declined. Pilots trust the cameras more than the ASOS/AWOS in many cases.

Great system, and there are many many cameras with online feeds throughout Canada and the US, often directed at traffic reporting, but equally useful to pilots.

MTV

Want to see one of those crews installing the Lake Clark
West cameras?


http://www.youtube.com/user/alaska42

and watch "taking care of business" and "our commute"

They were good folks and did the job well

GR

Those totally remote cameras were much more expensive than the others, which could be run off local power and have telephone connections to send data.

Looks like a beautiful day in the Great Land, darn near all over...

MTV

Downside is the FAA now uses them for violations.

nice site I like you can time lapse on some.

Timbre,

Simple answer: Don't violate = No problemo....

Or, at least do it outside the view of the camera... At least one air taxi pilot was on the www for an hour early in Buckingham's program, taking a whiz off the wing of a Lance in full view of the camera...

Gotta hate it when that happens.

MTV

These Alaska weather Cams have become an integral part of my flight planning. I will check the weather cams in key locations along my flight path several times prior to launch.

It used to be that flight service would have no pilot reports for an area, or would have to rely on forecasts as to whether a pass would be open or not. So usually we pilots would say "well I'll go take a look" only to find out that you can't get through and have burned up a lot of fuel trying (or worse yet, it is marginal but you try it any way). But the weather cams in Alaska take a lot of the guess work out of the decision process now.

Even local flight service stations routinely check the weather cams as an adjunct to their weather briefing.

These things have been great for Alaska -- costly, but probably saved lives and certainly millions of dollars in fuel.

Nizina

Eric,

Actually, the weather camera program is one of the least expensive programs the FAA runs. Those camera installations are cheap compared to most stuff the FAA buys, and maintenance is really pretty minimal.

Good system. Everyone should thank Jim Buckingham for coming up with the concept, and putting it in place.

MTV

MTV

I remember when Jim had his beta test on the internet. It looked like a great tool, but never in my wildest dreams did I think that the FAA would adopt it.

It is a great(!) system for Alaska.

I have also met Kimo Vallar, and he really enjoys installing and maintaining the system. He is looking to put units up at Tazlina Lake, and Chitina and Gulkana in the near future.

Eric

Nizina-

I also rely on FAA web cams same as you do. They're great. So are a lot of non-FAA cams, like Talkeetna Air Taxi's, for example.

Last fall I learned that in the lower 48, the XM weather-linked GPS's can actually let you look at FAA web cams in flight. Wouldn't that be great to have up here.

Next best thing is if FSS is willing to look up a cam and describe it for you over the radio, but by my understanding, they are prohibited from doing this with 3rd party cams, such as TAT's.

-DP

DP

Just to have XM weather would be great -- but weather cams as well? -- be still my heart.

Too bad about third party cams, but I can understand FAA's reluctance. I've considered putting a cam on my air strip, but not sure I would want to put it out on the internet for the general public -- hard to say who might try to drop in.

Nizina

denalipilot wrote:Last fall I learned that in the lower 48, the XM weather-linked GPS's can actually let you look at FAA web cams in flight. Wouldn't that be great to have up here.

Wow, that is incredible. Is that only an option for the newer models, ike the 696? I wonder if the screen res is good enough on a Garmin 496 to display the cam image. Would be very cool if they added that feature to the 496 firmware.

Here is a homebuilt site in Port Alsworth running on Starband

http://www.tanalianbiblecamp.org/webcams.htm

GR

Portage Creek wrote:Here is a homebuilt site in Port Alsworth running on Starband

http://www.tanalianbiblecamp.org/webcams.htm

GR

Thanks. It is good to know about the Port Alsworth one. I've used the ones in Lake Clark pass and they are very helpful.

Nizina