Pilots flying out of or approaching the Mumbai airport will now get an accurate runway visual range, with the meteorological department set to install an indigenous instrument soon to provide information at one third the current cost.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is responsible for navigation services at the airports. Accurate visibility information plays a crucial role in safe landing and take-off of an aircraft.
IMD is in discussion with the CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories (CSIR-NAL) to install Drishti, an indigenous transmissometer, at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA).
“We are planning to install the system here as it has worked very well at the Delhi airport. It is indigenous and, more importantly, far more accurate than the current imported systems in use at the airport,” said K S Hosalikar, Deputy Director General, Western Region, IMD. Currently, most airports in the country use transmissometers that are imported. Drishti is the only indigenously-developed transmissometer of its kind available in India and has been functional at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi since 2011.
Drishti was first installed at the New Delhi airport in 2011. It is provided with landline and Wi-Fi communication from runway to the Air Traffic Control (ATC) room and also features web-enabled remote accessibility for data and health monitoring of the system from anywhere in the country.
“It costs just one-third the price of an imported system, yet gives more precise readings. The instrument is highly sensitive. It can predict visibility as close as four metres near the ground,” said Shubha V, Chief Scientist, Airport Instrumentation, NAL. “In fact, the Drishti system installed at the New Delhi airport in 2011 has never had a failure or maintenance issue to date! And we ‘made in India’ even before it became a catchphrase,” she added.
IMD had been till now importing spare parts in case of a breakdown of instruments providing visibility data. With an indigenous system, where every component has been designed by local scientists, the maintenance time in case of a failure is less.
Source: http://indianexpress.com
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