Bedre værradar

Aircraft radar shows pilots airspace in 3-D

Honeywell's on-board aircraft radar gives pilots a better picture of storms and inclement weather in their path.

"We're going to die," Jackie Walden says she thought as the plane shuddered and dipped through the air.

The Colorado resident was recalling an episode of terrifying turbulence she endured while on a flight from Phoenix to Denver in April.

"It seemed like hitting a brick wall and then plummeting," she told KUSA-TV in Denver.

Turbulence such as this is one of the weather hazards that a new breed of in-flight radars - the first completely new weather radar design for commercial aircraft in 40 years - should help pilots avoid.

For the first time, the new radar, now being installed in business, military and commercial aircraft, allows pilots to "see" turbulence and other bad weather such as lightning and hail from nearly 70 miles away.

The radar, manufactured by Honeywell, "looks at the airspace in front of the aircraft in three dimensions, which is an improvement over existing radars," says Honeywell senior chief engineer Ratan Khatwa. Current radars used by pilots now take only a two-dimensional slice of the atmosphere, the width and length, for instance, of storms crossing an area.

"It provides information to the flight crew where the real weather hazards such as lightning and hail are which is not available today," he says.

Det kan være interessant å nevne at da Honeywell og fikk Collier Throphy på en Flight Safety Conference i Amsterdam, så traff Thorbjørn Amundsen og undertegnede Ratan Kathwa som var Don Batemans høyre hånd. Bateman, oppfinneren av GPWS,  hadde bursdag og inviterte oss ut på en snack. Vi diskuterte helikopterflyging offshore og sa at det vi virkelig trengte var en indikator som på en ILS slags måte ga oss en stady rate of decelleration mot et forhåndsprogrammert punkt, la oss si 40 fot over og til siden for et helikopterdekk. "No problem", sa Bateman. "Ratan wil fix it". Vi hørte dessverre ikke noe fra Ratan.......