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Impacts

Aviation Impacts

Aviation Impacts

Aviation safety has improved dramatically since RAL’s discovery of low-level wind shear, once responsible for hundreds of airplane fatalities. Our research engineered ways to detect and convey this hazardous phenomenon, as well as develop training materials instructing pilots when to steer clear. But our aviation safety work wasn’t finished. Further research found ways to discern and address other hazards that threaten aviation safety. Diagnosing and predicting turbulence, icing, visibility, and thunderstorms give air traffic controllers and airlines valuable planning windows, as well as the decision-making tools to avoid these hazards.

Benefits and Impacts

Avoiding Turbulence

GTG is most useful for strategic route planning to avoid turbulence. This technology improves safety, airspace capacity, and efficiency

BoltAlert®: Predicting Lightning Threats

Lightning alerts are provided with a lead time of up to 30 minutes, with alerts updated every 2 to 5 minutes.

Such a capability to alert of impending lightning impacts is of particular interest to airports, sites for handling or testing equipment, fuel, ammunition and missiles, outdoor venues (e.g., baseball parks, swimming pools) and special events (e.g., Olympics), construction and open-air mining sites, utilities (e.g., energy, electricity transmission), recreation (e.g., hiking, camping, boating), transportation, and many others more.

Calculating Snow and Icing before Takeoff

WSDDM provides airline and airport operations personnel critical information on the timing and effectiveness of aircraft deicing fluids. Use of the system during de–icing operations has been shown to reduce end of runway deicing; a significant cost savings. United Airlines saved $1M in one snow event at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

Detecting Wind Shear and Turbulence at Hong Kong International Airport

This system generates alerts for easy interpretation by pilots, controllers, traffic managers and aviation forecasters and allows aircraft to operate safely when operating at this very busy international airport.

FastEddy®: A GPU-Accelerated Microscale Model

Saves money, power and time with this LES modeling method. FastEddy®offers a powerful tool for microscale operational, educational, and more comprehensive research applications.

Forecasting Weather Hazards for Transoceanic Flights

This product is uplinked to airline cockpits via electronic flight bag systems to support safe and efficient flight operations and re-routing decisions.

Identifying and Alerting Pilots of Turbulence at Juneau Airport

The JAWS allows aircraft to operate into and out of Juneau Airport in a safe and efficient manner.

JAWS-like systems could be used at airports around the United States experiencing similar terrain–influenced turbulence. Pilots flying into and out of airports located in Maui, Reno, and Las Vegas, and other sites in Alaska, for example, could benefit from JAWS technology, and new prototypes would benefit from lessons learned during the Juneau alert system's development and maintenance.

Identifying and Tracking Thunderstorms

TITAN is used for meteorological and hydrological research, forecasting related to aviation, severe weather forecasting, precipitation analysis, and conducting and evaluating weather modification projects. This technology is provided freely through a UCAR license.

In-Flight Icing Guidance

The Current Icing Product (CIP) provides an hourly diagnosis of the potential of encountering airframe icing conditions over the CONUS at 13-km horizontal and 500-ft vertical resolution.

The Forecast Icing Product (FIP) provides forecasts out to 15 hours.

Probability, expected severity, and the potential for supercooled large drop conditions (freezing rain and drizzle) are included in the output files and displays.

Producing High-Quality Weather Forecasts in Remote Regions

LOGICast™ is being used as a core forecasting technology by commercial weather companies. Leveraging this system, other applications now include road temperature forecasts along an entire roadway, and soil temperature forecasts for agriculture.

Providing Go/No-Go Weather Information to Air Ambulance Pilots

The HEMS tool became operational at the Aviation Weather Center in 2015. User reports showed ambulance pilots rely on the HEMS tool to make quick, life-saving decisions.

Providing Reliable Detection of Hazardous Weather and Predictions

This FAA funded project is a collaborative effort NCAR, MIT-LL, NOAA-ESRL. Annual benefits to the national aviation system are estimated to be $27M.

Reducing Turbulence-Related Incidents

NTDA is operational on all NEXRAD systems; this technology has helped reduce turbulence-related incidents by diagnosing the location of turbulence near storms.

Synthesizing Weather Information for Preflight Planning

Since 1996, pilots, dispatchers, the military, airlines, and airports have benefited from increased weather awareness because of the comprehensive weather information available on ADDS. Today, Operational ADDS is hosted at the National Weather Service Aviation Weather Center. This site gets an average of 10 million hits per day with major users being commercial airline and general aviation pilots.

Microburst seen from aircraft, Las Vegas NV, July 7, 2015.

Photo courtesy of Paul Hurst. Used with permission.

Understanding and Detecting Wind Shear

Since the full deployment of ground-based systems like LLWAS and Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR), coupled with improved pilot training and onboard warning systems, there have been no commercial wind shear-caused airline crashes in the United States for over 25 years.

Contact

Please direct questions/comments about this page to:

Scott Landolt

Director, Transportation Meteorology Applications Program

email

Impacts

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This material is based upon work supported by the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, a major facility sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation and managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.

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