Runway Status Lights
The Runway Status Lights (RWSL) system is a new technology the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is deploying to make runways even safer at busy airports. The system adds to the layers of protection already in place by providing visual alerts to pilots and drivers when runway traffic makes it unsafe to enter, cross, or begin takeoff. The lights enhance safety without affecting with normal and safe operations — an important consideration at airports that handle hundreds of operations an hour.
The system works by analyzing radar and satellite tracking data from ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) to determine where aircraft and vehicles are, and where they will be in time. When it detects potential conflicts, the system automatically illuminates lines of bright red lights in the pavement of select runways and taxiways. The lights extinguish as soon as the conflicts resolve and it is safe to move forward.
Runway Status Lights are important for ground vehicles as well as for aircraft, and work in exactly the same way. The lights help vehicle drivers avoid entering runways that are, or will soon be in use.
The system adds a vital layer of redundancy to runway safety and reinforces controller guidance without replacing it. Air traffic control clearances are still required for any operation on airport runways.
Read more about Runway Status Lights: Background, Operation, Deployment, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words status and/or lights:
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)
“She is watching her country lose its evoked master shape watching
it lose
And gain get back its houses and peoples watching it bring up
Its local lights single homes lamps on barn roofs”
—James Dickey (b. 1923)