Weather toolkit's latest increment fielded to first of more than 200 sites

  • Published
  • By Monica Morales
  • 66th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
HANSCOM AFB, Mass. --  Long before intelligence data comes into play, a warfighter's mission must be attuned to weather -- an often relentless competitor, and sometimes fickle ally, whose operations function 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Last week's fielding of the 651st Electronic Systems Squadron's Joint Environmental Toolkit Increment 2 is helping U.S. forces deal with this constantly present but ever-changing force. Not only will it ensure accurate weather data reaches warfighters, but it also saves time and money.

The Air Force Weather Agency, Offutt AFB, Neb., is the first of more than 200 locations around the globe to receive the second increment of JET's capabilities.

"We're proud of the JET system, the true partnership and teamwork between ESC, AFWA and the contractor, and all the work that's led up to this point," said Pat Dagle, 651 ELSS director. "We've been working hard on JET for about four years, and Increment 1 has just received authority to field from the Milestone Decision Authority. Increment 2 will grow on the solid successes of Increment 1 and deliver even more capability to the AFWA users, the C2 community and combatant commanders."

The Joint Environmental Toolkit provides the user with a single, fully integrated system of weather analyses, forecasting, and dissemination capabilities to replace a number of currently separate and disparate systems. JET helps the user characterize the environment, store information for use in Air and Space Operations Centers, integrate weather information with Army decision processes and integrate and exploit weather at strategic, operational and tactical levels. It provides a single system with common user interface, training and support infrastructure.

The 651 ELSS' effort to develop and deliver the second increment of the Air Force Weather Weapons System Joint Environmental Toolkit will further advance the capabilities of the Air Force Weather Agency to combatant commanders with the most accurate and timely weather data available.

JET Increment 1 introduced service-oriented architecture. JET Increment 2 will expand on that SOA by expanding command and control interoperability, adding emerging forecasting concepts and improving other capabilities at the operational and strategic levels.

"JET focuses on making the weatherman's job easier and allows delivery of more timely weather impact information to decision makers through machine-to-machine integration with C2 systems, " said Maj. Deleon Narcisse, JET program manager. "We took this incremental approach as an opportunity to field capability fast while continuing to expand with each successive increment."

The introduction of JET's SOA allows its services to be Web-enabled and accessed across the network rather than residing in individual legacy systems.

"It's applicable across the network, and that means that storage space is freed, time saved and required services immediately available to the user," Major Narcisse said. "With this comes the ability to share data more rapidly versus a stove-piped information flow, which is slow and cumbersome and can be unwieldy at times."

JET Increment 2 supports and improves upon machine-to-machine interfacing, expediting data exchange that historically has relied on antiquated manual or fax data exchange.

"JET puts the same, single system at all levels of weather (strategic, operational, tactical), so that everyone - from a colonel to an airman is using the same tool," said Dan Zehner, JET deputy program manager. "And because everyone is using the same system, it facilitates training, allows for seamless transition of users from one duty station to another, and facilitates the timely sharing of data up and down the operational tiers."

Another warfighter benefit stems from this boost in interfacing - the latest increment standardizes training that previously had been fragmented in four separate ways to accommodate JET's varying system components.

"Now when a weather warrior moves from USAFE to Barksdale AFB, for example, they will already know how to use the system, resulting in time saved and money saved on training," Mr. Dagle said. "It's a big burden that will be lifted off the logistics and sustainment chain."

Among Increment 2's added capability, are visual enhancements that allow for forecasters as well as customers to see weather displays incorporated into missions.

"They can see the best routes and get a really good sense of what the weather is going to be like in a particular area," Major Narcisse said.

The JET team has also focused on JET as an ESC enterprise system, collaborating with other ESC wings and groups to expand and integrate JET across the enterprise. This includes working with the 653rd Electronic Systems Wing's Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration to expand weather into the coalition environment, with the 350th ELSW's Air and Space Operations Centers, as well as within the 551 ELSW and its 951 ELSG to integrate weather into the Mission Planning System.

Looking beyond ESC, JET Increment 2 will extend to a wider audience as it works to integrate into the Army's Distributed Common Ground System.

"We integrated Army requirements into JET but will still provide the same basic functionality that the Air Force is getting," Mr. Dagle said. "That's a big step forward for the joint warfighter because the Air Force supports the Army in providing weather services to its battalions. When the Army takes off from Southwest Asia, it is getting its weather data from the Air Force and JET. "

JET has also been selected as the Net-Enabled Command Capability weather module to provide weather to combatant commanders world-wide.

JET Increment 2 will be fielded to 230 locations around the globe by 2010.