| Title | Evaluation of Wind Algorithms for Reporting Wind Direction for Use in Air Traffic Control Towers |
|---|---|
| Record ID | 65831 |
| Personal Name Creator |
Seliga, Thomas A.; Hazen, David |
| Source | 6 p.; 87th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, January 14-18, 2007, San Antonio, TX |
| Corporate Creator | John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.) |
| Publisher | American Meteorological Society |
| Publication Date | 20070114 |
| Language | English |
| Abstract | The recommended methods of deriving wind speed, wind direction and wind gust values for use by controllers in air traffic control towers have been established by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Standard practice is to use the most recent 2-minute averages for wind speed and wind direction reports, and the most recent 10-minute maximum wind speed to determine the wind gust report. This paper compares the properties of past wind directions over different time intervals to future wind directions over a 2-min time interval. The latter interval is considered to be most applicable to aircraft on final approach and is representative of the time it takes for a modern aircraft to reach the touchdown point on the runway from the outer marker, which ranges from around 4-7-nm from the runway threshold. The results demonstrate that established algorithms recommended by ICAO and used generally throughout the U.S. are reasonable for the application. Also, no attempt is made to evaluate other possibly better ways of predicting near-term wind parameters based on more sophisticated time-series methods of parameter estimation, even though methods such as Kalman filtering are expected to produce superior results to the current, simple, methods employed in aviation meteorology. |
| Rosap ID | dot:38547 |
| Rosap URL | https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/38547 |
| TRT Terms | Wind; Wind factor; Airport control towers; Algorithms; Meteorology |
| Classification | NTL - AVIATION - Air Traffic Control; NTL - AVIATION - Aviation Safety/Airworthiness |
| Geographical Coverage |
Massachusetts |
| TRIS Online Accession No |
1701529 |
| Report Number | Paper number 116901 |
| Availability | Volpe National Transportation Systems Center, Technical Reference Center |
| Resource type | Tech Report |
| URL | https://ntlrepository.blob.core.windows.net/lib/65000/65800/65831/AMS_2007_EvalWindAlgorithmsForReportingWindDirectionForUseInATCtowers.pdf |
| Format | |
| Database | NTL Digital Repository |