Safe landing during rough weather
How does a plane land in heavy wind?
What problems can snow cause?
How to land a plane when thick fog reduces visibility?
All these questions occupy the mind space when we think
about safe landing during rough and tough weather conditions. But before we get
to know how safe landing is actually done, it is necessary to be aware about
what happens when undesirable weather appears surprisingly.
Snow and ice
Heavy snow can decrease the visibility whereas ice can
get accumulated on the runways. For this, airports have to remove the snow and
de-ice the runways for allowing the aircraft to land safely. Since, flights
can’t take land until the runways are vacant it leads to delays and
cancellations.
Wind
Aircrafts are affected by wind as they have a large
surface area. Moreover, a huge fin at the back that acts like a weather vane
pushes the plane in the wind thereby making landing more challenging. Although
there can be number of techniques that can be followed depending upon the
aircraft to stop the wind blowing it away from the runway but it demands right
direction, indications and experience to implement.
Fog
One of the weather conditions that hamper the landing of
aircraft safely is fog. It not only makes the aircraft resist from successful
landing on the runway but also creates obstacles on ground by making the task
of locating taxiway and terminal building.
How safe landing is ensured then?
Well apart from pilots experience and expertise, ILS
technology fully supports in landing an aircraft safely.
What is ILS?
ILS – Instrument Landing System is a type of
navigation guidance that facilitates an instrument-based technique for
guiding an aircraft to approach and land on a runway.
• It enable a safe landing even during challenging
conditions such as low visibility by making use of a combination of radio
signals.
• It provides the aircraft with a recommended path so
that it can maintain its position; whether it’s horizontal position at the
center of the runway or the vertical position for a smooth landing.
• An ILS comprises of lateral and vertical guidance
subsystems. The first system works for providing lateral guidance restricting
the aircraft shifting from the recommended path that is localizer and the
second system provides vertical guidance that prevents any vertical deviation
from the recommended path of descent that is glide slope or glide path.
• ILS guides with the help of two spatially separated
transmitters that transmits a pair of amplitude-modulated signals for both
desired directions – lateral and vertical, thereby ensuring landing safety to a
great extent.
• In case, the aircraft deviates from its path, the
aircraft positions are adjusted accordingly with provided inputs to bring it
back to the positions of exact cancellation.
Bottom Line
As safe landing during rough weather involves both -
human excellence and technology intervention, therefore the best airlines and
airports keeps on innovating to ensure that they have the latest version of
everything so that passenger and airport safety is never compromised; ILS is a
vivid preview of that, so support airport and frangible technology for safe
landing and safe flying.