Met Office 4D-Trajectory 1.0.0
Current state Original JSON

Abstract

The Met Office 4D Trajectory API service supplies global meteorological data for tailored flight trajectory requests, to support flight planning services and software products. The benefits of exploiting 10km resolution meteorological data for flight planning and in-flight decision making include:

  • Save fuel costs
  • Reduce CO2 emissions
  • Improve Flight Management Computer (FMC) calculations to save fuel
  • Supply notifications of weather hazards for situational awareness and improved safety

Trajectory requests allow the user to specify a latitude, longitude, atmospheric height, date/time and weather parameters, to map meteorological data to a flight trajectory. (See API Specification)

Two API’s are available to supply the following weather parameters:

  • The 'MAIN' dataset includes our core weather parameters for aviation operations (Winds, Temperature, Relative Humidity).
  • The 'HAZARDS' dataset includes turbulence severity
    • Icing and CB Cloud Base/Top Height could be made available in due course
    • Convection data is currently available in 17km resolution, please note that the Met Office is currently undertaking validation work to supply 10km resolution CB data.

This API service conforms to the Open Geospatial Consortium Environmental Data Retrieval (EDR) Specification, delivering data in coverage JSON format.

Available March 2022.

Service Type
SWIM_CANDIDATE
Lifecycle Stage
PROSPECTIVE
Business Activity Type
AIRSPACE_ORGANISATION_AND_MANAGEMENT
AIRSPACE_USER_OPERATIONS
Intended Consumer
CIVIL_AIRSPACE_USER
PROVIDER_OF_DATA_SERVICES
Information Exchange Category
AERONAUTICAL_INFORMATION_EXCHANGE
METEOROLOGICAL_INFORMATION_EXCHANGE
Application Message Exchange Pattern
SYNCHRONOUS_REQUEST_REPLY
In-Operation Date
31-Mar-2022
Provider
Met Office

UK National Weather Service

Provider Type
REGULATED_METEOROLOGICAL_SERVICE_PROVIDER
Support

Support services available 24/7 via Met Office Customer Service Number 0370 900 0100 or email at enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk

Point of Contact
Operational need for 4D-Trajectory
Operational Need

This service provides high resolution 4D-Trajectory meteorological data required by flight planning software companies, whose products are used to optimise flight profiles (saving fuel costs, reducing CO2 emissions, boost effiency and improve safety).

GET 4D-Trajectory
Description

Allow service consumers to requests 4D tractories from two datasets: 'Main' and 'Hazard' aviation data. Main: Wind U and Wind V, Temperature, Relative Humidity. Hazards: Turbulence

Real World Effect
Consumer gets the requested data, to inform flight profile decision making.
OAUTH2 Client Credential / Bearer Token

The access to the service is based on OAUTH2 Client Credentials using Client ID and Secret to retrieve a Bearer Token.

The service adheres to SWIM YP, WS Light implementation, therefore the payload is protected during transfer and all data is protected at rest

Token valid for 1 hour

The access token is valid for one hour, therefore must be regenerated after this has expired.

Check Headers

Header information in the response will include status codes. Headers must always be checked with each request. Setting headers is based on the SWIM Yellow Profile using WS Lite.

Service Level Agreement

4DT DevOps run a 5 minute Canary 24/7. Availability will be calculated and exposed by the 4DT Team and then used to inform an availability target. Currently availability is >99%.

Example response times are <6 seconds per request with a request success rate of approximately 99.937% with an average payload of approximately 30KB.

SELF_VALIDATION

The service has been validated by numerous test activities including performance, data integrity, penetration and load tests.

SWIM compliance implementation has been tested in accordance with guidance from the SWIM Yellow Profile.

Information
Aviation Meteorological Trajectory Data

Global meteorological data from the Met Office, processed in order match forecast winds (Wind U and Wind V), temperature, relative humidity, turbulence with trajectory points.

AIRM Conformant
False
AIRM Version
N/A
Exchange Schema
TLS 1.2

The service relies HTTPS over TLS 1.2 to provide integrity and confidentiality.

 

The Service is monitored and has automated alerts that go to 24/7 Service Desk and DevOps team however no consumer visible monitoring capabilities are provided.
4DT Trajectory Service

Provides access to 4D-Trajectory meteorological data.

PROVIDER_SIDE_INTERFACE
SWIM_TI_YP_1_0_WS_LIGHT
IPV4_SECURE_UNICAST
SYNCHRONOUS_REQUEST_RESPONSE
Operations
HTTPS GET

Provides the consumer with Flight Trajectory points for the globe

SWIM Yellow Profile Compliant WS Lite enables HTTPS GET requests and associated responses. The interface shall return .covjson files.

References
Revision Save Date
Mon, 02/27/2023 - 11:26