Effects of Weather Information Observability and Uncertainty on Pilot Assessment of Weather Conditions and Decision Making

General aviation (GA) pilots use different types of weather information when assessing weather conditions during pre-flight weather briefing tasks. Of concern is low altitude weather dynamics and variability between surface weather reporting stations where conditions are known. The study presented here investigated pilot decision making regarding interpolation of weather conditions to multiple potential target destinations, between known weather reporting stations, subject to the effects of differing terrain and microclimate weather patterns. Participants included 24 GA pilots, ranging from 156 to 40,000 h experience, who estimated flight rule conditions at three target locations each (including an actual accident site) in multiple geographic regions and observability of weather reporting stations. Pilots rarely provided correct estimations of flight rule conditions at target locations; accuracy did not always improve with increasing observability of other nearby reporting stations. Despite these errors, pilots were confident in their estimates of flight rule conditions at target locations.