1Federal AviationAdministration

Turbulence-related Efforts Within the FAA

July 27, 2010

Interagency Weather Research ReviewTurbulence

• Facilitator: Tammy Farrar, FAA Aviation Weather Group, Turbulence Project Lead

• Speakers:– Bob Sharman, “FAA AWRP-sponsored Turbulence

Nowcasts/Forecasts”– Wayne Feltz/Tony Wimmers, “Satellite-based

Inferences/Convection”– John Williams, “NASA-Sponsored Research in

Global DSS”

2Federal AviationAdministration

Turbulence-related Efforts Within the FAA

July 27, 2010

Back Up Slides

3Federal AviationAdministration

Turbulence-related Efforts Within the FAA

July 27, 2010

Turbulence Impact on Aviation• Threat to passenger and flight attendant safety

– From 1980 – Jul 27, 2010, Part 121, Enroute• 253 turbulence-related accidents• 28,934 total passengers carried

– 3 fatalities (0.01%)

– 122 serious injuries (0.42%)

• 1243 flight attendants, 556 pilots– 0 fatalities

– 204 (16.4%) serious flight attendant injuries, 0 pilot injuries

1Graphical Turbulence Guidance (GTG) Safety Benefits Analysis, MCR Federal, LLC, Oct 6, 2009.2http://www.faa.gov/passengers/fly_safe/turbulence/

4Federal AviationAdministration

Turbulence-related Efforts Within the FAA

July 27, 2010

Turbulence Detection AlgorithmEddy Dissipation Rate (EDR)

• Current Deployment– UAL: Accelerometer-based algorithm on ~100 757’s– DAL: Improved winds-based algorithm on ~80 737-700/800’s– SWA: Winds-based algorithm currently on 10 737-700’s for testing.

Planned deployment on ~340 total aircraft– Efforts begun to deploy onto 767 fleets at UAL and DAL– Possible deployment onto CON(UAL) 737 fleet– Possible upgrade to UAL 757 algorithm

• UAL & DAL data displayed on Experimental Aviation Digital Data Service (ADDS) In Situ Turbulence Viewer– Access restricted to participating airlines at this time

• DAL EDR Proof of Concept Demo– On-going thru Jan 15, 2011

5Federal AviationAdministration

Turbulence-related Efforts Within the FAA

July 27, 2010

Average 24 hour EDR coverageUAL ~100 a/c

DAL ~80 a/c

SWA 10 a/c

Images courtesy Research Applications Laboratory, NCAR

Projected GTG releases – next 7 years (updated 1 Oct 2010)

Version Capabilities Op. date*/enter CMTDGTG1 Upper levels 3/2003*

RUC20GTG2 Improved GTG1 2/11/2010*

+Mid levels+Uses UAL in situ

GTG2.5 13 km WRFRR 7/2011 cutout grids+VWA insitu (UAL+DAL+SWA)

GTG3 13 km WRFRR native grids 3/31/2012+MWT+Optimized use of insitu+1-18 hrs

GTGN1 NTDA2/DCIT/insitu 6/30/2012GTG3mid+upper levels, 0-15 min

GTG4 Improved GTG3 FY15+Ensembles/Probabilistic forecasts+all altitudes, full WRFRR domain

GTGN2 NTDA3 FY15+GTG4+0-FL450, 0-1 hr

Global GTG Global – GFS based FY15

GTG5 Improved GTG4 FY17+CIT/HRRR

GTG6 Improved GTG5 FY19< FL650

GTG1

GTG2

GTG5

GTG3

GTG5

GTG4

Source: P. Lester, “Turbulence – Anew perspective for pilots,” Jeppesen, 1994

Seg 1 versions

GTG6