The use of airborne laser radar (lidar) to measure wind velocities and
to detect turbulence in front of an aircraft in real time can signifi
cantly increase fuel efficiency, flight safety, and terminal area capa
city. We describe the flight-test results for two coherent lidar airbo
rne shear sensor (CLASS) systems and discuss their agreement with our
theoretical simulations. The 10.6-mu m CO2 system (CLASS-10) is a flyi
ng brassboard; the 2.02-mu m Tm:YAG solid-state system (CLASS-2) is co
nfigured in a lugged, light-weight, high-performance package. Both lid
ars have shown a wind measurement accuracy of better than 1 m/s. (C) 1
996 Optical Society of America.