A Four-Dimensional Thunderstorm Model for Flight Simulators,
Abstract
The recent airliner crash at New Orleans indicates that windshears due to thunderstorm downbursts challenge the most experienced and well-trained pilots. Much controversy exists as to the correct flight procedures for takeoff and landing under downburst windshear conditions. Flight simulators provide a safe environment to test procedures and train pilots for hazardous flight situations, but in the past, flight simulators have been unable to realistically duplicate the complex changes that occur temporally and spatially in real-world thunderstorms. A thunderstorm model based upon real-world data has now been developed for flight simulators, which provides twelve meteorological flight parameters which change in three-dimensional space and over a thirty-minute time span with color weather radar representations of the storm coordinated in time and space. The storm data set (representing a 20nm x 20nm x 3200-ft volume) is based upon multiple Doppler radar analyses of a 1978 Illinois thunderstorm. This data has been supplemented by a well-documented, fine resolution, downdraft model to provide realistic values in the hazardous regions of the sudden downdraft and its resulting turbulent gust front.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 16, 1983
- Accession Number
- ADP003492
Entities
People
- J. T. Klehr