Hello, aviation weather enthusiasts.
A few short days ago, I thought we'd be lucky to reach 200 registrants for next week's Spring 2026 FPAW Meeting. That forecast, like so many other of my prognostications, has gone down in flames.
As of this instant (1515E on Friday, 2-17-26), we have 234 folks registered for the meeting. And I could not be happier to report that MANY of them are students, either from our host Oklahoma State University, the nearby University of Oklahoma, or faraway schools Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the Florida Institute of Technology. I'm sensing that there might be a bit of an informal competition going on right now for biggest student contingent. If that is, indeed, the case, I think it fair for me to suggest that the Oklahoma State University students need to (pardon the pun) get on their horses, because an out-of-state university appears to be well out in front.
I'd also like to announce that the agenda, including pre- and post-meeting activities, has been finalized, and is accurately (I hope) reflected on the Spring 2026 FPAW Meeting webpage. Spoiler alert - if you're planning to attend the meeting in person, you'll absolutely, positively want to sign up for the new Day 1 post-meeting tour of the OAIRE Excelsior Lab, which you can do via the sign-up sheet located IN THE MEETING ROOM. Don't believe me? Check out the linked video in the agenda.
In addition to the agenda, a very comprehensive update to the Maps and Tricks document (thank you, Trinity Patton!) was just uploaded to that same site, as was a nearly complete Biographies of the Presenters, Panelists and Speakers document. Regarding the latter, there are some true aviation weather heavy hitters in the lineup (excluding yours truly, of course).
Let me end by reminding everyone that the easy, online registration form will be closing in the very near future. After it does, meeting invitations, one for each day, including detailed agendas and a means of requesting WINGS credits, will be pushed out to the emails of all registrants. If you want to get into the meeting after that, you'll have to use the Contact link on the FPAW web to request late registration, and hope that the relevant person (me) is in a position to get you signed up in a timely manner.
So, my strong suggestion is to get signed up now, before throwing your Spring 2026 FPAW Meeting attendance fate into my hands.
See you next week!
Matt Fronzak
FPAW Co-Chair