423 How Pilots Can Avoid Turbulence and Find Smoother Air with SkyPath

Max talks with Maya Shpak, CEO of SkyPath, about how pilots can avoid turbulence and find smoother air by combining crowdsourced observations, aircraft data, and machine-learning predictions.

The idea for SkyPath came from an airline captain and check airman who encountered turbulence and realized that the iPad already carried in the cockpit contained accelerometers capable of measuring aircraft movement. Much like a traffic app gathers information from phones on the road, SkyPath could collect ride-quality observations from participating aircraft, send them to the cloud, and return an updated turbulence picture to other pilots. Maya says the system now receives data from about 40,000 users each day.

An iPad observation is only one of five sources used by SkyPath. The system filters accelerometer readings, removes noise, and normalizes each report for aircraft type. That adjustment is important because light turbulence in a large business jet may feel moderate in a smaller general aviation airplane. When two pilots have iPads aboard the same aircraft, SkyPath can compare the two devices and identify a questionable reading.

SkyPath also derives turbulence information from ADS-B vertical-rate data. Many aircraft provide both ADS-B reports and iPad observations, allowing the company to compare the two and refine its conversion algorithm. This expands coverage into areas where no participating iPad-equipped aircraft has recently passed.

The platform also incorporates PIREPs and eddy dissipation rate, or EDR, reports. EDR is an aircraft-independent measure of atmospheric turbulence widely used in commercial aviation. SkyPath can convert its sensor information into EDR-compatible reports while using existing EDR data to supplement its own observations.

The fifth source is SkyPath's predictive model. More than 200 meteorological parameters from NOAA and other government sources are fed into a machine-learning system trained with SkyPath's observational data. This produces estimated ride conditions where direct reports are limited. Maya says this is particularly useful to general aviation pilots flying below normal airline cruise altitudes, although the company generally sees better accuracy above about 5,000 feet.

Pilots can use SkyPath before takeoff or during a flight. They may enter a call sign or flight number, paste a route from another electronic flight bag, or operate without a filed IFR flight plan. In its bearing mode, the app monitor