Over the years, windshear has been a contributing factor in a significant number of airline accidents and fatalities. This paper looks at the history of windshear detection systems and recent developments toward providing this capability for regional and corporate aircraft. It also addresses a common misconception that these types of aircraft have sufficient power to outclimb any microburst encounter. An additional benefit to having windshear detection capability on-board an aircraft is the ability to use the increased capabilities for turbulence detection at cruise altitudes. And while turbulence is not a major factor in fatalities, it has become a significant safety issue, resulting in a large number of injuries. To select flight paths with smoother air, flight crews currently combine the information provided by the weather radar, weather forecasts, and in-flight pilot reports to alert them to areas of turbulent air that other aircraft have passed through. Unfortunately, all these have not been totally effective in avoiding turbulence-related injuries and fatalities. This paper includes an analysis of turbulence incident data to identify potential causes and to determine effective means of reducing turbulence-related incidents and accidents. It also covers recent technical developments for an integrated airborne windshear and turbulence detection and avoidance system. The system includes onboard sensors such as radar, laser radar (LIDAR), and infrared radar (IR), as well as fusing of datalinked information such as in-situ data from other aircraft and forecastowcast data from ground-based weather product providers.
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