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Mahesh

19/11/24 09:54 AM IST

Smog disrupts flights

In News
  • With the national capital enveloped in a blanket of noxious smog, flight operations at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi have been impacted.
Instrument Landing System
  • ILS provides azimuth guidance. Azimuth refers to the horizontal angle between a reference direction (in this case the runway) and a line to a point of interest (the aircraft).
  • This information is provided with the help of the ILS localiser (LOC), whose antennae are usually located on the far end of the runway.
  • These radio antennae transmit two narrow intersecting beams, one from slightly to the right of the runway’s centreline and the other to the left.
  • Where they intersect provides the centreline of the runway.
  • This information comes to the pilot flying the aircraft in the form of the vehicle’s displacement from the runway centreline, which then allows her to course-correct horizontally.
  • The ILS provides the correct vertical descent profile for the aircraft. In other words, it tells the pilot whether the aircraft is too high or too low at any given distance from the runway. This is done with the help of a glidescope (GS).
  • The GS antennae work in the same manner as the LOC antennae, they are just turned on one side.
  • Located generally somewhere along the middle of the runway, they transmit two narrow intersecting beams, one slightly below the required vertical profile and the other slightly above it which, with the point of these beams intersection providing the optimum descent position of an aircraft.
Categories of ILS
  • ILS approaches are categorised based on two parameters: decision height (DH) and runway visual range (RVR).
  • DH refers to the lowest altitude during descent till which pilots can rely solely on the ILS.
  • At this altitude if the RVR — the distance over which a pilot can see the runway’s lights or markings — is below a certain threshold, then the landing has to be aborted.
  • Whether an aircraft is capable of making a certain category of ILS-based landing is a product of the equipment it has aboard, the equipment on the ground, and a pilot’s training.
  • Currently, six Indian airports —  Delhi, Lucknow, Jaipur, Amritsar, Bengaluru and Kolkata — are equipped to handle CAT IIIB operations.
  • India does not have a single airport capable of CAT IIIC operations. Airports such as New York’s John F Kennedy Airport and the London Heathrow Airport support CAT IIIC landings.
Source- Indian Express

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