Meteorologists see unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) as providing a major breakthrough in weather observation and data collection, offering the potential to significantly improve weather forecasts, which could directly translate to safer air travel.
The primary use of UAS in meteorology is to gather basic information on atmospheric conditions. The old axiom in meteorology is “the more you know about the weather now, the better your forecast will be.” Typically, weather is monitored from surface-based weather stations and from weather satellites. In addition, radiosondes, balloon-borne weather instrument packages, can obtain a vertical profile of the atmosphere, but they are expensive systems and are launched only twice a day and from sites that are far apart and only on land.
For years, some commercial jetliners have been equipped with weather sensors, and they report data on pressure/height, temperature and wind speed/direction from locations and at heights previously unavailable….
