Owais Crawford
Fog can cause significant disruptions at airports, leading to flight delays and cancellations. When visibility drops below 550-600 meters, airports implement Low Visibility Procedures (LVPs) to ensure safe operations. Taxiing to the runway is particularly challenging during foggy conditions due to limited visuals, requiring pilots and air traffic control (ATC) to rely on maps and limited visual communications. Airports may also utilize instrument landing systems (ILS) to guide aircraft during low visibility, but this requires more spacing between flights. Freezing fog poses additional hazards and risks, impacting operations and slowing down traffic. These factors contribute to the potential shutdown of airports during foggy conditions to ensure the safety of aircraft, passengers, and staff.
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What You'll Learn
Low visibility
To land in low-visibility conditions, airports must have high-level instrument landing systems (ILS) to guide the aircraft during thick fog. The ILS allows planes to be directed towards the airport via radio signals during takeoff and landing. However, the runway must be clear of other aircraft to avoid interference with the ILS, resulting in wider spacing between flights. This can slow down operations, with planes going to more distant holding points than usual.
During foggy conditions, pilots may need to rely on autopilot for landing, only retaking control once the plane has touched down and is taxiing to the terminal. Freezing fog poses a serious hazard, and strict rules are in place during low visibility, slowing down traffic. Airports in the UK, such as Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Manchester, and Birmingham, have experienced significant disruptions due to fog and low visibility.
The world's foggiest airport, Arcata-Eureka Airport in California, experiences so many foggy days that the US Navy uses it to test defogging systems and for all-weather training. While modern technology has improved landing capabilities in low-visibility conditions, fog continues to impact airport operations, causing delays and cancellations worldwide.
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Taxiing to the runway
During LVPs, planes must go to holding points further away from the usual runway holding points to allow for maximum distance when taking off. This can add up to hundreds of meters to the standard holding point distance. For instance, planes may go to holding point CAT 2 or 3 instead of the usual CAT 1.
Pilots must also rely on autopilot for landing during low visibility, with autoland systems aligning the aircraft with the runway for touchdown. The runway must be kept empty until the landing aircraft clears it and begins taxiing, further slowing down operations. Airports with high-level instrument landing systems (ILS) can guide aircraft during thick fog, but these systems require the runway to be completely clear, leading to increased spacing between flights.
The challenging conditions during fog can cause severe disruptions, including delays and cancellations. For example, thick fog caused significant delays at Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport and London Heathrow, affecting travellers' plans and causing inconvenience. Foggy weather can also lead to flight diversions, as seen with a Ryanair flight diverted to Dublin due to heavy fog at Teesside International Airport.
Overall, taxiing to the runway during fog requires careful adherence to LVPs, reliance on maps and communications, and utilisation of advanced systems like ILS. These measures ensure safe operations, but they also slow down airport and flight operations significantly.
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Instrument landing systems
Airports implement Low Visibility Procedures (LVPs) when visibility drops below 600 meters (2,000 feet). Taxiing to the runway is the most challenging aspect of flying during fog due to the limited visuals. Airports with high-level instrument landing systems (ILS) can allow aircraft to land during thick fog.
ILS is a precision radio navigation system that provides short-range guidance to aircraft to help them approach a runway at night or in bad weather. It uses two directional radio signals, the localizer and the glideslope, to provide horizontal and vertical guidance. The standard approach angle of 3 degrees allows pilots to slow down and configure the aircraft for landing. The ILS approach has revolutionized the aviation industry, allowing pilots to land in some of the worst conditions and making air travel more reliable.
The ILS has three categories: CAT I, II, and III. CAT III ILS has three subcategories: A, B, and C. With CAT III C, aircraft can autoland in zero-visibility fog. While the ILS has existed for a long time, it remains one of the most used approaches worldwide.
Despite its benefits, the ILS has some disadvantages. It is expensive, with each ILS antenna array costing about A$1 million. Large buildings or terrain in front of the glide path antennas can obstruct the localizer, and the system is only effective for straight-line approaches.
Various aviation authorities are working on the next generation of all-weather aircraft landing systems to overcome these limitations.
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Freezing fog hazards
Fog can cause severe disruptions at airports, including delays and cancellations. When visibility drops below 550-600 meters, airports switch to Low Visibility Procedures (LVPs), which significantly alter operations to ensure safe practices. Taxiing to the runway is the most challenging part of flying during fog due to the limited visuals.
Freezing fog, which occurs when the temperature at the surface is at or below freezing, poses additional hazards. It not only reduces visibility but also causes moisture deposited on roadways and runways to freeze, creating icy patches. This can lead to dangerous conditions for vehicles and aircraft. Airports may need to implement deicing operations, causing further delays and disruptions.
Untreated surfaces, such as sidewalks and walkways, can also become hazardous during freezing fog events, as a slippery glaze of ice can form. This puts pedestrians at risk of falling. If the freezing fog persists for an extended period, ice can accumulate on various exposed surfaces, including trees, power lines, and signs.
Freezing fog is more likely to occur during winter when colder temperatures meet higher humidity levels. Certain regions, such as the interior western United States and parts of the UK, are particularly prone to freezing fog during this season. The valleys of the interior western United States often experience freezing fog due to cold, moist air becoming trapped at lower elevations.
The impact of freezing fog on airports and transportation can be significant, leading to widespread disruptions and affecting the travel plans of thousands of passengers.
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Low Visibility Procedures
LVPs are required to ensure safe operations during lower-than-standard category I, other than standard category II, and category III approaches and take-offs. Pilots are responsible for checking which category they can fly with their aircraft and which category they are authorized to fly by the local authorities. Controllers should know what approach category the equipment at their airfield can support.
During low visibility, the risk of runway incursions by aircraft, vehicles, or personnel increases. This risk can be managed by procedures that provide pilots with clear, unambiguous guidance on routing and holding points or ground traffic patterns. Pilots must maintain awareness of the remaining runway length using whatever external visual cues are available, such as relevant runway lighting, signage, or markings.
Low visibility take-off (LVTO) procedures can be started for any take-off with an RVR lower than 400 meters. Pilots must carefully align the aircraft with the runway before commencing take-off and can use an ILS LLZ signal for verification if available. If a rejected take-off (RTO) is carried out, pilots must be aware of the remaining runway length.
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Frequently asked questions
Fog can reduce visibility to just 100 meters, which is well below the minimum visibility needed for a manual landing (550 meters). Airports switch to Low Visibility Procedures (LVPs) when visibility drops below 600 meters, which significantly alters operations to ensure more space and time for safe taxiing and take-off.
During LVPs, passenger planes are fitted with an instrument landing system (ILS) that allows them to be guided towards the airport by a radio signal. The runway must be completely clear to avoid interfering with the ILS, so aircraft are spaced out more widely.
Taxiing to the runway is the most challenging part of flying during fog due to limited visuals. Planes must go to holding points further away than usual to allow for maximum distance when taking off, which slows down operations.
Fog can cause significant disruptions at airports, including overcrowding in terminals and long wait times for passengers.
