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Trial of a slant visual range measuring deviceEach year, fog at airports renders some landing operations either difficult or impossible. The visibility that a pilot of a landing aircraft can expect is in that case the most important information. It could happen that the visibility versus the altitude is constantly decreasing or increasing. However, it is not possible to distinguish this with the existing sensors at an airport. If the visibility is decreasing with the altitude, one has the worst case - ground fog. The standard visibility sensor, the transmissometer, determines only the horizontal visual range, which will be underestimated in comparison with the real visibility a pilot has on his landing approach. Described here is a new technique to measure the slant visual range, making use of a slant scanning device - an eye-safe laser radar. A comparison with commercial visibility sensors shows that it is possible to measure visibilities with the slant looking laser radar in the range from 50 meters up to 2000 meters and even distinguish inhomogenities like ground fog.
Document ID
19920021799
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Streicher, J.
(Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany)
Muenkel, C.
(Impulsphysik G.m.b.H., Hamburg, Germany F.R. , United States)
Borchardt, H.
(Deutscher Wetterdienst, Hamburg, Germany F.R. , United States)
Date Acquired
September 6, 2013
Publication Date
July 1, 1992
Publication Information
Publication: NASA. Langley Research Center, 16th International Laser Radar Conference, Part 2
Subject Category
Instrumentation And Photography
Accession Number
92N31043
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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