Honeywell 3-D Weather Radar Selected by Chengdu Airlines

With a focus on safety and efficiency in the face of weather-related challenges, Chinese-based ChengduAirlines has selected Honeywell's  IntuVue RDR-4000 3-D Weather Radar for its 50 newly purchased Airbus A320 jets. Chengdu Airlines will begin using the technology on its first delivery in November 2015, allowing the airline to improve routing decisions, reduce operating costs, improve flight efficiency and ensure maximum passenger safety.

"As airlines including Chengdu Airlines are anticipating the opportunities and growth challenges brought by the One Belt, One Road initiative, they are looking for innovative solutions to increase safety, while simultaneously lowering costs and delays," said Brian Davis, vice president, Airlines, Asia Pacific, Honeywell Aerospace. "With the advanced IntuVue system, Chengdu Airlines will have enhanced pilot awareness to proactively avoid hazardous weather and virtually eliminate lightning strikes and hail damage on its 50 new Airbus A320 aircraft."

Chengdu Airlines is a domestic low-cost airline, operating its hub out of China's fifth busiest airport, Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport. As the capital of Sichuan province, Chengdu is a key transportation hub in western China, and faces variable weather patterns due to its unique terrain. The typical weather patterns of clouds, storms and rain create challenges for Chengdu Airlines, which can lead to delays and increased costs for the airline and passengers. By selecting Honeywell's IntuVue radar the airlines can safely operate in and around Chengdu airspace with better weather avoidance decision-making.

Benefits of the IntuVue Weather Radar

As the first completely new weather radar system developed in the past 20 years, the IntuVue RDR-4000 3-D Weather Radar lowers the cost of operations by more than 35 percent through increased reliability, reduces maintenance costs by more than 30 percent, and decreases system weight up to 30 percent, yielding a US$10,000 per year, per aircraft savings. IntuVue Weather Radar builds and stores a 3-D image of the weather ahead from real-time data captured by the radar, which automatically scans and gathers data from ground level to 60,000 feet wingtip to wingtip and out to 320 nautical miles.

Its 3-D image of storm cells makes it easier for pilots to more accurately navigate around, or over, the storm cell and reduces delays, turn-backs or diversions. In addition, features include the following:

Reducing the risk of encountering hazardous events by actually predicting with high accuracy hail and lightning, versus simply depicting the weather after it develops. The radar  also provides an increase in safety using the most advanced predictive wind shear detection and alerting capability with a detection range up to five nautical miles.

The industry's longest turbulence detection capability of up to 60 nautical miles. At typical cruise speed this will enable the pilots to give cabin crew and passengers warning approximately eight to ten minutes before the aircraft reaches turbulence.

Rain Echo Attenuation Compensation Technique (REACT) is able to indicate where further bad weather may be hidden behind storm cells too dense for radar to penetrate. REACT also helps pilots understand how far out from the aircraft severe storms are located, helping them continue to plan a safe flight path.