MAKERERE UNIVERSITY ASSESSING THE INFLUENCE OF WIND SHEAR ON AIR TRAFFIC OPERATIONS AT KAJJANSI AIR FIELD BY AIMAN ADAM FADUL 16/X/2378/PS A RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY, GEO-INFORMATICS AND CLIMATIC SCIENCES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE A WARD OF A DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN METEOROLOGY JUNE, 2019 DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I give my sincere gratitude to the Almighty God for the gift of life, protection, good health, guidance and for enabling me to go through this time of project writing, may His name be glorified. I would like to express my special thanks to Dr. Alex Nimusiima, my academic supervisor for the guidance and encouragement, in spite of his tight schedule took time out to organize and keep me on the correct path that enabled me to finish my research dissertation successfully. I would also like to thank my father Mr. Adam Fadul and my dear loving mother Mrs. Majdah Hamdun for all their tireless struggles, support and encouragement to make me the person I am today, May God protect you and provide for you abundantly. I would also like to extend my sincere gratitude and thanks to my family members, Mr. Yunan Musa, Mr. Kocho Shain, Ms. Zakia Musa, Mr. Frances Musa, Ms Fatuma Abdulkarim, Mr. Juram Idress Juram, and to all my fellow class mates; for their continuous support and prayers. I would also like to put forward Wasswa Peter for the time he has given in to help me accomplish my research project; thank you all. ii DEDICATION I would like entirely to dedicate this work with a lot of sincere gratitude to my dear parents. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION ........................................................................................................................ i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ......................................................................................................... ii DEDICATION ......................................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................... iv LIST OF ACRONYMS ............................................................................................................. v LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. vii ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 1.0 Back ground of the study ..................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Problem statement ................................................................................................................ 3 1.2 General objective ................................................................................................................. 3 1.3 Null Hypothesis ................................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Significance of the Study ..................................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................ 5 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ................................................................................ 10 3.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 10 3.1 Description of Study Area ................................................................................................. 10 3.2 Data and its sources ........................................................................................................... 11 3.2.1 Wind shear ...................................................................................................................... 11 3.2.2 Air temperature data ....................................................................................................... 11 3.2.3 Data on aircraft delays .................................................................................................... 11 3.3 Data analysis ...................................................................................................................... 12 3.3.1 Trend Analysis ................................................................................................................ 12 Regression Analysis ................................................................................................................. 12 CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION .............................................................. 14 4.1 The relationship between wind shear and air temperatures ............................................... 14 4.2 Relationship between wind shear and surface air craft delays at Kajjansi Airfield........... 17 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .................................... 22 5.0 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 20 5.1 Recommendations .............................................................................................................. 21 REFERENCE ........................................................................................................................... 22 iv LIST OF ACRONYMS A.T.A: Actual time of Arrival CAA: Civil Aviation Authority E.T.A Estimated Time of Arrival FL: Flight Level GES: Geographic Enterprise Solutions GDP: Gross Domestic Product GLDAS: Global Land Data Assimilation System HUKJ: Kajjansi Airfield ICAO: International Civil Aviation Organization IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change LLWAS: Low level wind shear alert systems MAF: Mission Aviation Fellowship MAM: March April May MERRA: Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research METAR: Meteorological Aviation Report MSL: Mean Sea Level (Altitude) NASA: National Aeronautics and space Administration NMC: National Meteorological Center PIREP: Pilot Report SON: September October November TFM: Traffic Flow Management TRMM: Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission UBOS: Uganda Bureau of Statistics UNMA: Uganda National Meteorological Authority WMO: World Meteorological Organization v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Regression analysis results for air temperatures and wind shears ............. 17 Table 2: Regression analysis results for air craft delays and wind shear ................. 19 vi LIST OF FIGURES Fig 1: Schematic illustration of the effects of microburst on an aircraft .................. 6 Fig 2: The schematic diagram of the effect of wind shear on aircraft during landing .................................................................................................................................... 7 Fig 3: Map of the study area .................................................................................... 10 Fig 4: Monthly variation of air temperature ........................................................... 14 Fig 5: Monthly variation of wind shear .................................................................. 15 Fig 6: Linear regression plot for air temperature and wind shear ........................... 16 Fig 7: Monthly variation of aircraft delays ............................................................. 17 Fig 8: Linear regression plot for air craft delays and wind shear ............................ 18 vii ABSTRACT Weather variability is one of the leading causes of aircraft delays. This is because weather highly affects flight safety especially for aircrafts in approach- landing and take-off-climb out phases owing to their proximity to the ground. Aircraft delays affect the aviation sector negatively due to the additional cost attached to them. This study therefore analyzed the impacts of wind shear on air craft operations in terms of delays at Kajjansi Airfield between 2014 and 2018. This was achieved through analysis of wind shear and temperature together with aircraft delays using trend analysis and regression techniques among others. Results show that there is a weak correlation between aircraft delays and wind shear with R-squared = 0.0012 implying that only 0.12% of number of aircraft delays were affected and influenced by wind shear at Kajjansi Airfield which is relative low value to ascertain that aircraft delays are wholly influenced by wind shears. Results further show that, much of the wind shear incidences at Kajjansi Air field were recorded mostly in the rainy seasons of March to May and September to November compared to the dry seasons of December to February and June to August and this is mainly attributed to the convective nature of the area, that results in the formation of convective weather phenomena and the release of latent heat that is associated with temperature inversions. Regression results for wind shear and air temperature showed a weak negative linear relationship between wind shear and air temperature at Kajjansi Aircraft with R-squared =0.0176, implying that only 1.76% of the wind shear was affected and influenced by air temperature at Kajjansi Air field. viii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.0 Back ground