Definition
A formal FAA process used to evaluate new aviation weather products and decide whether they are accurate, reliable, and safe enough to be approved for operational use in flight planning and in-flight decision making. Products that complete the process are designated as official FAA-approved weather sources; those that do not are considered supplemental only.
Plain English
It is the FAA's review and approval system for new weather tools. Before a weather product can be officially used by pilots and dispatchers for real flight decisions, it has to pass this review. If it passes, it counts as an official source. If it doesn't, pilots can still look at it, but only as extra information.
Context Anchor
Seen in discussions of aviation weather sources, especially when a weather product is described as new, experimental, or being moved toward operational use.
Derivation
Technology transfer originally referred to moving a tested capability from a research environment into everyday operational use. Here, it describes moving a new weather product from development and testing into approved cockpit and dispatch use.
Why Pilots Care
It controls when improved weather products such as updated radar imagery or forecast tools reach briefing services and cockpit displays.
Analogy
It is like a checklist for releasing a new cockpit tool: before pilots are expected to depend on it, it must be tested, reviewed, and accepted for real use.
Intuition Check
Do not read “transfer” as simply sending weather data from one place to another. Here it means moving a new weather capability from development into approved aviation use.
Example Sentence 1
Before relying on a new icing forecast tool for dispatch, the airline confirmed it had cleared the Aviation Weather Technology Transfer process and was approved for operational use.
Example Sentence 2
Pilots saw faster updates to METARs once the Aviation Weather Technology Transfer process completed its final validation stage.