Persistent thick smog is affecting visibility at the Delhi airport and dense fog might be just a fortnight away. This winter, however, flyers and airlines can look forward to some accurate fog forecast thanks to an infrastructure overhaul by the meteorological department.
Fog forecast is tricky business as the dynamics of fog sometime changes rapidly. One of the most crucial meteorological infrastructure that is required at an airport to get real time fog updates is a Runway Visual Range (RVR) machine and this year, the met department is replacing the old machines at the airport's runways with new ones and also adding more machines on standby. In simple terms, RVR is the distance at which a pilot can see the surface markings on a runway while landing.
Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport has earlier witnessed situations when malfunctioning RVR machines have eventually led to flight disruptions. With the airport now witnessing more than 1,000 flight movements a day, a technical glitch like this would result in utter chaos.
Taking no chances, the met department has installed eight RVR machines at the airport's third runway 29/11, even though the norm for fog landings require just three – one each at both ends and one in the middle. Dr. R.K. Jenamani, Director-in-Charge of the IGIA met unit said that while three new RVR machines have been installed as standby, two have been added at both ends specifically for Low Visibility Take Offs (LVTO).
29/11/15 Sidhartha Roy/The Hindu
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Fog forecast is tricky business as the dynamics of fog sometime changes rapidly. One of the most crucial meteorological infrastructure that is required at an airport to get real time fog updates is a Runway Visual Range (RVR) machine and this year, the met department is replacing the old machines at the airport's runways with new ones and also adding more machines on standby. In simple terms, RVR is the distance at which a pilot can see the surface markings on a runway while landing.
Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport has earlier witnessed situations when malfunctioning RVR machines have eventually led to flight disruptions. With the airport now witnessing more than 1,000 flight movements a day, a technical glitch like this would result in utter chaos.
Taking no chances, the met department has installed eight RVR machines at the airport's third runway 29/11, even though the norm for fog landings require just three – one each at both ends and one in the middle. Dr. R.K. Jenamani, Director-in-Charge of the IGIA met unit said that while three new RVR machines have been installed as standby, two have been added at both ends specifically for Low Visibility Take Offs (LVTO).
29/11/15 Sidhartha Roy/The Hindu
