Golze In-Flight Weather

Question 1 –  What made you create Golze? (+Who are you)

Answer – Yes, I’m Sebastian Golze the founder and operator of Golze Engineering Company. My business is focused on providing Pilots inflight satellite weather data directly to their cockpit displays originally this business started as a fun project as I’m a pilot myself and I realized I could really really use this functionality after some um yeah unpleasant and encounters with thunderstorms and similar weather I realized it would be just perfect to have a more weather data and especially radar data available in flight, and so I started to explore possible options. Back in the day about 10 years ago there have been a few options but all of them have been extremely expensive and so I started on the Venture of creating a more affordable solution to this problem.

Question 2 – What you love about the product?

Answer – So having inflight weather has really improved my own flying experience especially as it took out a lot of uncertainty of the slight so even if the weather is good I have the inflight weather and I know it’s going to stay good because before I’ve been surprised a few times and if the weather is bad at least. I know yeah what to look for and which part of the flight will be challenging and if it gets too bad and something builds up too much I have the option to divert and in general, take the decisions very early and I hate to run into like dead ends so to speak where one is running out of options and so the inflight weather has really given me a lot more yeah planning advantage so that I can take necessary decisions early and most of the time this results in a most much more pleasant flight experience for the pilot and also for the passengers because we can avoid turbulence and other things much better.

Question 3 – Has the Golze system ever saved your skin?

Answer -Yeah, so the third question has the ADL system ever saved your skin? In general, I would not fly in a way which makes me completely dependable, dependent on inflight weather because obviously, you know the system is not certified, and it could fail any time but still, it has improved my flying experience a lot but mostly, as I said before by avoiding situations early and taking decisions early flying a wide deviation early and not running into the weather and then doing very stressful last minute decision.

So I would not say it has saved my life um but it certainly improved my flying experience uh and also my dispatch rate because now I feel confident to launch into some conditions which before I would not have attempted.

This is a very dangerous point you should not, yeah get too brave and be always cautious but often it turns out that the conditions forecast do not really materialize they say maybe there are thunderstorms but then the thunderstorms don’t really show up and on such days it’s just great to have inflight weather and you can do flights which you could not do before out of caution.

Question 4 – Have you used Golze to cancel a flight (Like I did my Ibiza Trip/Severe TSRA)

Answer -Yeah so the fourth question have you ever had to cancel a flight or did you cancel a flight based on the data provided by the ADL inlight weather system.

So, in general, the ADL inflight weather system as the name says it’s inflight but you also get on your iPad app and iPhone app you get the current data for weather data for pre-flight purposes and obviously this can be very helpful, but the really unique selling point of the system is the in-flight weather capabilities because you have quite some choices for internet based weather services and weather forecast and so on but it’s really the inflight capability which is then missing.

Regarding the point of having to cancel actually, I’ve been very lucky over the past say decade I do not really remember having to cancel a flight because of weather but many times I had modified a flight, so this means I departed a little bit earlier I departed a little bit later and this is I think the real art of doing it is yeah to not run into a dead stop.

Like you go to the airport you have the passengers loaded the luggage and so on and then you say I have to cancel the flight because this is a very unpleasant experience.

So in general. yeah, the art I think is to adapt your plan early and then to make it work so that in the best case the passengers. A passenger in this context usually means my family or some friends they don’t even notice there has been a modification of the plan and it simply worked out so if there’s a thunderstorm directly over the airport obviously.

In this condition, you cannot really depart and even whatever aircraft you have but then I’ve had for example in Croatia we saw that early with my co-pilot and we said “Ah but then we see the thunderstorms coming”

Either one time we rushed a little bit we said ah there’s not going to be a coffee let’s go half an hour earlier to the airport and then we just departed when we began before the thunderstorm came in or we said we let’s, let’s move it through why don’t we have a nice lunch and everybody gets a dessert and so on and then we used up some time and the thunderstorm moved over the airport and when we came there the tarmac was wet but the sun was already out again and I think this is the real art of doing this.
Obviously depending on the capabilities of your aircraft there are some conditions icing and so on where you really have to cancel a flight and cancel for several days, fortunately with our PA46, is quite capable so most of the time simply modifying the plan, just did the trick for us.

Question 5 – Navigating embedded cells, any techniques or do you avoid and divert?

Answer -So to answer this question obviously the the number one rule is you don’t want to fly into a thunderstorm cell. There’s, at the end there’s no aircraft which is designed or capable and also the crew and your passengers nobody will ever want to experience a flight directly into the core of a thunderstorm cell.

Obviously in a thunderstorm you will have a wide area of dangerous and unpleasant weather but then you have a very rather small cell areas which are really the the dangerous parts, which can break up your aircraft and the first thing is do not let yourself fool into the experience that you did it a few times and it worked out.

Because you have quite a good chance of not hitting the core. So I had one customer who has been flying through all kind of weather for many years and said oh it’s no problem it’s just a little bumpy but then one day he run out of his luck and he hit one of those core and he’s been in serious difficulties, and had to declare an emergency and so on.

And so yeah this is really important yeah not to yeah it’s not to taking lightly a thunderstorm is really a dangerous situation for an aircraft.

So in regards to navigating them if they are directly over the airport of the departure or destination obviously you have to modify your plan, you have to divert if it’s. It’s a destination you have to hold if you can wait it out a little bit, you have to wait at the at the departure aerodrome, so you have to work around that.

For enroute weather, the best technique if your aircraft obviously is capable is to climb because most of the time you will have a a base layer of cloud and then you will have the thunderstorm towers growing out of it.

But obviously in summer if you have no turbo charger, no oxygen it will be very difficult because, yeah quite often the the base layer might be flight level 150 or so depending on which region you fly the Alps. Obviously especially because the terrain is already already high

And so this is difficult but if you can try to climb out out out of the base layer which obviously means that the most dangerous part of the flight is the climb because then you will still be in IMC and then obviously use the your your equipment.

So if you have it. The inflight weather system to see where the cells are and if you have onboard radar obviously also use that for short range detection, so onboard radar and general aviation aircraft usually it is limited in power.

We have it in our PA46 but it’s maybe 50 miles and only 90° opening angle so, you really see like the cell which is directly in front of you but you don’t see the big pass how it’s going to continue if it’s a line and so on.

So yes use your equipment if you have the onboard weather.

My general recommendation is yeah to avoid any cells by at least by a 20 nautical miles margin, and if possible on the windward side because most of the time it will drift downwind with the prevailing wind, the altitude wind, not the ground wind and so if you go on the windward side even if you have a little bit delay in the data link data.

You are usually on the safe side, but also watch out for other signs there can be dangerous lightning and so on. Even outside the cores, you can also have to yeah to expect any system malfunction on any inflight weather system.

There are many components involved, it’s the satellite the weather service – into your display and so on, and most of those components are not certified to, the degree of any primary flight display or similar equipment.

So always use that with caution, and use it for situational awareness only and use your other senses.
So to sum it up, I think inflight weather, is yes a very capable tool, it helps a lot especially if combined with other factors. If you can see out the window a little bit. If you have onboard radar and other equipment.

Flying completely in IMC with your only tool of weather avoiding, being inflight weather I would be very cautious. So yeah sometimes you might not be able to avoid it, but I would be very cautious and avoid the the weather by a wide margin.

Maybe also talk to ATC, they have a different radar system, which is a little bit redundant so it might be a good idea to, yeah reconfirm your assumptions about the weather by talking to ATC.
Also regarding all ATC it’s going to be a little bit longer answer because the question is so difficult regarding ATC.

I also recommend to actively speak to them and for European ATC; Do not expect that they have help you with thunderstorms from their side. They’re completely used to commercial traffic, which have a much more powerful onboard radar systems and so in general they give you the route which works for ATC and then they expect the pilot to complain and to say if that does not work out.

So if your heading does not work out they expect you to say “I would request avoidance heading 20 to the left 20 to the right”; whatever helps you but this is really the call of the pilot.

I have seen in the United States that ATC, is a little bit more active in trying to guide you around any cells. European ATC in my experience they will send you straight through it and then it’s your job to request for an avoidance heading.

Once you request it they’re extremely helpful, they will do whatever they can to, yeah to make it work for you, but it’s your call to basically start the process of avoiding weather.

Question 6 – Costs of Product/Best Product to promote?

Answer – Yes, what is the the cost and what are the products involved. So obviously to get in-flight weather you have to have some kind of in-flight weather receiver. Some hardware equipment, which is able to communicate with the satellite because that’s where the data comes from, and then communicate with your display which usually is your iPad.

But then, for our system can also be your integrated avionics like a; G3X, IFD 54, 440 .GTN 650,750, G500 and some versions of the G1000, G3000 displays and so on.

And so the the hardware ,we need we offer three devices so there’s a fully portable battery powered ADL 180 which looks like that so that goes directly onto your glare shield, then the next option is the smaller but USB powered ADL 160.

This one needs USB power all the time. But then you see you have a smaller box this one has some extra features; ADSB traffic and AHRS. This is the bare one it’s also quite a bit cheaper.

And then we have the fully installed device which is this ADL 190. This comes also with AHRS and manual change paperwork and so your maintenance shop can install it and basically you don’t see it ever again.
And so which one matches better, for your needs, there’s no rule for that so really down to your personal preferences. Obviously if you rent an aircraft you will need a portable device and then if you have USB power, this is very nice and and quite affordable.

But often the power situation is not clear and so having the fully independent battery powered device is is a good solution, if you are ferry pilot, if you rent different airplanes if you’re flight instructors and you don’t know what aircraft you’re looking at.

If you have your own aircraft, having an installed device can be a very nice solution but sometimes there’s some installation effort and costs. So yeah, that must be taken into account.
The prices of the device you can find on our website; but basically they’re different models and so on you will see.

But it starts at let’s say €500 EURO and it goes to €1200, €1300 depending. So this gives you a little bit the range and then on top of that you will have the the satellite service.

So there are different options; but the most common option which like 80 or 90% of the customer choose is that to have a continuous service plan so it’s a little bit like a phone deal and then you have a cost of €39.50 plus vat. If VAT is applicable in your case, per month for the service and then you have 20 downloads which means 20 updates of the weather included which also accumulate in future.

So most people get along with those with those download budget very well. So you can say the monthly running cost of the system is then €39.50 plus VAT if it’s applicable. So this gives you any idea.

There are some competing systems you can research on them, there’s a system from GARMIN called GSR 56, and you also have some I would call them more real internet solutions for aircraft, but all those systems are much more expensive so, if you have it installed you’re are looking at over €10,000 for the installation probably even €15,000 and then more like €80-100 per month to run it so roughly twice what it cost.

So the ADL system is really the by far the most affordable solution for in-flight weather, regarding the hardware cost and also regarding the subscription cost

Question 7 – Are there any exciting plans for Golze?

Answer – So the seventh question is about, yeah future developments and latest news. So, during the last years it’s been possible to really make the ADL system compatible with nearly all display solutions pilots typically use.

So in the very beginning the ADL device was just limited to being able to communicate with the ADL Connect app which is our own app. But then this expanded, and now we can actually display the weather on foreflight, on Sky demon and on GARMIN pilot.

So we have the major pilot apps on the iPad covered and also for the installed avionics, we now have compatibility with the Avidyne system. So we have the Avidyne 440, 540 X5000, and then the latest is we also have um a way to make it compatible with many of the GARMIN products.

So this goes from GPS 695, to the GTN series, goes to the G3X G1000, G3000, G500 G600 and even so many more.

So because it’s like the FIS-B data format, and in the US FIS-B is very popular as we support this data format the ADL devices can really now display on nearly all solutions and so the foreseeable future is yeah to communicate this to all the pilots. Because I realised that even many of the existing customers, they they did not keep updated on on all the technical progress so they have a device which actually can do a lot more than, yeah than they currently use it for.

So the plan is to do yeah less feature improvements, because now we really went full circle, we have all the compatibility; which was asked for you can also connect your FLARM device, the traffic devices and have this data integrated in the same data stream that also works your flight plan transfer from GTN 750, 650. GNS 430, 530 and so on.

So yeah we have really all the the Inter connected, that was ever asked for and now the really big challenge is really to yeah to tell everybody about it and to instruct everybody on on how to actually use all those features because, yeah I realized that this is a big project. Ah so this is the foreseeable future for the ADL In-flight weather system.

Question 8 – How would you like the relationship between The Flying VLOG to develop with Golze?

Answer – Yes so the eight question is about the yeah future of Robbie’s YouTube channel and his flying VLOG. So I hope that you, as a pilot Robbie you can really improve and fly through more part parts of Europe and gain much more experience as a pilot, an IFR pilot.

Yeah to really make use of the aircraft as a traveling machine. This has been a a big step for me in the past, so for a long time; I’ve been a would say more a VFR fun pilot and then I realised if I really want to see Europe and I want to use this for traveling.

I need a more capable license, and then later on this also led to to some changes on the hardware, so the aircraft used. And I’ve reached the point I’ve not taken the airlines in many years, so I’ve not gone overseas in a whist, and for anything else – I fly myself and so I wish that you can, also yeah improve as a pilot and I hope that the in-flight weather system you are using with the ADL 200 is really helping you, yeah to improve all your capabilities and to have a few very great trips.

So good luck with that.

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