Business

This New 3D Radar System Will Make Flying Safer And More Efficient

Posted November 07, 2014 10:00 pm

Kevin Loria

We were setting out to fly straight at a storm to test Honeywell's new 3D weather radar, but sadly the nearest bad weather was hundreds of miles away.

No matter. Flying in a 1952 Convair 580 that's "built like a tank," we left New York's LaGuardia Airport and flew toward a storm system in Virginia.

Honeywell's IntuVue 3D weather radar analyzes data from 17 different angled "slices" of space at once, showing all of the weather that's in front of the plane, from the ground all the way to 60,000 feet.

Traditional radar systems only look at one slice of space at once, making it hard to know without recalculating the radar if there's a storm above or below one's current position. Older systems can also be confused by the curvature of the planet, requiring more calculations and more adjustments from the pilot.

"At the end of the day, from a pilot's perspective [the new system] is a simpler radar to use. You can turn it on, not fool with it, and get what you need," says Bill Lusk, a pilot and manager of daily operations for Southwest Airlines, which has started to use the newest version of the IntuVue systems in its 737s. "Makes it simpler to determine the route you need while doing less work."

The new technology should make planes safer and also reduce weather-related delays, as airlines will be able to fly in bad weather more confidently and plan better routes.

<img class="full" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5457f79569bedde44959ce5d-1200-800/storm-chasing-6.jpg" border="0" alt="storm chasing 6.JPG" style="color: #000000;">The radar system itself fits into the nose of the plane. Even though it's a smaller plane, the Convair 580 has a 30-inch space in the nose for the radar, the same size as the space in most 737s and 757s. That's another reason why it makes a great test aircraft for products that will eventually go in big airliners.

<img class="full" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5457f795eab8ea030fe7854c-1200-924/storm-chasing-5.jpg" border="0" alt="storm chasing 5" style="color: #000000;">Below, you can see the radar screen itself. It's right in the center, between all the dials. The system sees a full 180 degree view of what's in front of the plane, including weather systems above and below the current altitude.

<img class="full" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5457f793ecad046f7aa13418-1200-781/storm-chasing-2.jpg" border="0" alt="storm chasing 2">Along with the radar there was a small tablet in the cockpit that tracks National Weather Service data. Honeywell coordinates its weather research with NWS, NASA, the EU, and other partners.

Onboard, we had headsets at our seats that we could use to chat with each other during takeoff and landing. I got to hear what happens when someone forgets to put their phones in airplane mode. You get to hear that static sound that sometimes pops into speakers when a phone is looking for service.

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