AviTech Reader

Those of us ho have ever flown past or to mountainous destinations or regions can hopefully smile as they read through this article…even though some will be disappointed because it is not yet in their country. Still, if you have had your flight diverted to some town you did not like going to due to turbulence then just hold on for this. Here I Kenya, I advise the KCAA and KAA to work together and bring this system to JKIA-though it is not that prone to turbulence anyway.

What is this I am blowing trumpets and vuvuzela’s about all around without explaining just what it is? I am talking about an advanced airport system developed by the National Center for Atmospheric Research(NCAR) and installed at Juneau in July 2012. I heard about it in TWIE episode 121 where I liked the way Vince Penman presented the system. I then followed it up and read more about it here. It provides information that pilots can use to control aircraft to evade catastrophic turbulent spots. It is based on a network of instruments and computational algorithms to analyze the ever-precarious atmospheric parameters.

The system was launched at Alaska’s Juneau International Airport and research is on to tailor-modify the system for use at other airport hit by turbulent at frequent intervals e.g airports in Northern California and the Mountain West to New Zealand and Norway. The predecessor to this system is a similar one designed by the same company and used at Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok Airport.

At the Alaskan Airport, it is known as the Juneau Airport Wind System(JAWS). The system has not only reduced flight delays but has literally almost done away with the turbulence risk of flying into and out of Juneau. One of the scenarios is when there is a lot of turbulence and it simply highlights a nice path for landing and take off.

Something else I learnt was that the system did not just come to pimp up the airport. There was a time when turbulence has led to closure of this airport at some times when it is so risky to come in or go out. But then, this was not the best way to do things when we know that the only way out of this place was by airplane or boats. This necessitated that the problem be surmounted by all means. The NCAR team that worked on this used research aircraft and computer simulations to investigate the different wind patterns and effects of glacier in addition to anemometers and wind profilers that really help accumulate a lot of data for this project.