Virginia Aviation History Project: THE COCKPIT WEATHER DATA LINK
Pilot Weather Advisor – How It Came To Be
Norman Crabill – Aero Space Consultants
Pilot Weather Advisor, the concept for displaying weather data in the cockpit of airplanes, was sparked by work being done at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) in the late 1970s.The technology was first developed in LaRC`s Storm Hazards Program to provide better information to the pilot flying into thunderstorm weather. The subsequent development of the commercial version involved many people who made suggestions and made it work, and it was not till 1993 that the patent was obtained and sold to the WSI in 2002. Today, versions of it are available on panel mount displays in aircraft as well as on iPads and other portable devices.