maa@ssc-bee.UUCP (Mark A Allyn) (02/26/86)
(I am re - posting this because I don't know if I posted the original correctly) I am presenting this idea to the net to get any reaction to it both positive and negative. I am especially interested in reactions from those in the travel business, those familiar with weather and meterology, especially fog conditions. As those in the Seattle area are aware of, there was severe fog during the weeks prior and during last Christmas (1985) that virtually shut down Seattle Tacoma Airport as well as other airports for nearly two weeks and upset travel for thousands of people. During this crisis, I was made aware, during discussions with friends of mine, that the Brittish, during World War II, had a system called Operation FIDO. The Brittish, at that time, suffered from severe and frequent fogs. Operation FIDO consisted of employing several large gasoline burners placed alongside the runways of airports. hat were used to raise the fog cieling by heating the air in the vicinity of the runway and causing circulation. An idea has come to my mind that a similar approach could be done at airports like Sea Tac today in order to minimize disruption to travel by fog. My proposal would be to construct deflectors at periodic intervals along the parimeter of the runway sections of airports; deflectors similar to those used to protect roads and hanger areas from jet blast. In the event of fog, a number of aircraft, preferably jets, whose exhaust is hot, would back up to the deflectors and run their engines, thereby hopefully causing the same effect as that accomplished by Operation FIDO. I realyze that running jet engines like this may cause fewer flying hours until the next FAA mandated maintenance checkup, but I think that there can be ways around this. Examples would include the airport re-imbursing the airline for the lost engine time or changing the FAA rules slightly to allow this kind of operation to be exempted from the engine time between maintenance. Please 'bounce this around a little' and give me feedback, both positive and negative. I intend to write a proposal and present it to the Port of Seattle to be implemented as a plan of action in the event the airport is affected by fog conditions. I desperately need ideas on this in order to substantiate my position. Feel free to call me if you don't want to post on the net. Thank you very much in advance!! Mark A. Allyn Boeing Aerospace !uw-beaver!ssc-vax!ssc-bee!maa Phone 206-773-3437 (work)
markb@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Mark Biggar) (03/11/86)
In Arthur C. Clarke's semi-autobiographical novel "Glide Path" he
describes this system and said it was only used 2 or 3 times because the
turbulence caused by the heating of the air made it almost impossible
to land a plane of the strip.
Mark Biggar
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,akgua,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!markbdaver@felix.UUCP (Dave Richards) (03/14/86)
********** I hesitate to post a reply to all these newsgroups. If interested, see net.aviation. Dave