Real-time wind data manna for airlines

Govt lab is working towards providing tailwind and other atmospheric data that will help cut 5-10% in fuel costs.

HYDERABAD: This should be music to the ears of airline operators — particularly those who run the low-cost ones — who are facing the heat of high ATF prices that have climbed 30% in the past six months.

For, the National Atmospheric Research Laboratory, (NARL), an autonomous institution under the department of space, is working out plans to set up a system that will provide tailwind and other atmospheric data to aircraft in real-time, resulting in 5-10% savings in fuel costs.

The data will be more precise and reliable than that provided by traditional balloons and satellites, say scientists at the research centre based at Addanki near the temple town of Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. 

Fuel usually accounts for 25-30% of operational costs of any carrier in India. The increased air traffic in the Indian skies and airports after the boom in low-cost carriers will only mean this cost will go up while international fuel prices hover around the $70 per level.

An expert committee has submitted its recommendations on the project to the DOS, which is now likely to pose it to the Planning Commission for approval to be funded totally by the department, Dr D Narayana Rao, Director NARL told DNA Money.

Between 10-12 Stratosphere-Troposphere, radars at various universities and scientific institutions across the country, will be set up to gather atmospheric data that will be collated at a central hub, he said.

If all goes well these radar stations, that will capable of measuring winds, waves, turbulence and stability in the lower troposphere, should be up and running by the end of the 11th Five Year Plan. Some of the radars are proposed in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi, Visakhapatnam and Nagpur, Rao said.

“We are not looking at a commercial use of the system as the very objective is to use it for research,” he said adding that it would be up to the civil aviation ministry if it wanted to benefit from the spin-off of the project. 

While satellites are there to provide atmospheric data they will not be able to give the wind velocity with such precision as the terrestrial ST system being planned, Rao said.

Interestingly, neither the civil aviation authorities nor the airlines are aware of the potential of the proposed system.

The NARL head is planning a one-day seminar in August to appraise the industry of the potential.

However, the saving to the aviation industry is just one aspect pointed out Rao stressing that the improved weather forecasts and the strategic applications that the ST radars can be put to was of more significance.

Incidentally the NARL has the world’s second-largest mesosphere-stratosphere-troposphere (MST) radar, with the one in Peru being the largest. The MST radar is a state-of-the-art instrument capable of providing estimates of atmospheric parameters with very high resolution on a continuous basis essential in the study of different dynamic processes in the atmosphere.