Towards a pilot-centered turbulence assessment and monitoring system

摘要

Currently the best available real-time information concerning turbulence comes from pilot reports (PIREPs). PIREPs should state aircraft location, time of occurrence, turbulence intensity (i.e., light or moderate chop; light, moderate, severe, orextreme turbulence), frequency (occasional, intermittent, or continuous), cloud proximity, altitude or flight level, aircraft type, and duration (ASA, 1999).A shortcoming of the current turbulence assessment and reporting system is that reports are not aircraft specific (Holcomb, 1976 as reported in Lee, Stull, & Irvine, 1984). Aircraft have different sensitivities to turbulence (ranging from 0.015 to 0.046g/feet/second) caused by parameters such as typical operating airspeeds and air density, weight, wing surface area, and wing sweep angle (Lee, et al., 1984). In addition, reaction to turbulence varies at different locations in the same aircraft (Bass,1999).