Not all wind shear is created equal. Some of it issues from large, wet thunderstorms. That kind can be detected nicely by Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR), a system that can save your life. Wet wind shear exists in the eastern United States, in places such as Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW), New Orleans (MSY), Charlotte (CLT), and New York Kennedy (JFK), all of which have experienced fatal wind shear crashes.
There’s another, more subtle, yet potentially dangerous, type of wind shear. So-called “dry wind shear” can spoil your day too. They burst from dry gust fronts, among other things. To better detect them, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is working with Lockheed Martin on Lidar detection. Lidar uses pulses of infrared light, and receives data when that light reflects off naturally occurring dust particles in the air. Coupled with TDWR, wind shear has less of a chance to hide.
Lockheed Martin’s system is called WindTracer®, and it’s being tested at busy Las Vegas McCarran International Airport (LAS). At LAS, Lockheed Martin says the frequency of dry wind shear is roughly three times that of wet ones.
FAA has purchased WindTracer from Lockheed Martin, and hopes to have the system fully operational in 2009.
That’s good news for flyers frequenting the deep desert aerodrome, an airport that ranked 14th busiest on the planet in 2007 when it handled 47,595,240 passengers.
Detection is the key to avoiding wind shear accidents. Over the years, a number of flights have run afoul of this most pernicious of weather phenomenon. The most notable crash: the August 2, 1985 crash of Delta Air Lines Flight 191 at Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW), in which 137 died.
The accident was a seminal moment in the history of aviation safety. It accelerated an industry-wide effort to “bell the cat” by deploying devices such as Terminal Doppler Weather.
© Cheapflights Ltd Jerry Chandler
