The surface wind gust regime and aircraft operations at Sydney Airport

Surface wind gusts are studied by analyses of the properties of gust distri butions. The data come from a set of anemometers that acquires data continu ously at Sydney Airport. Probabilistic techniques are developed to identify landing and take-off directions under the greatest risk of along- and cros s-track gusts. At Sydney Airport, along-track gusts are found to be more se vere than cross-track gusts, and operations in runway direction 07 are foun d to pose the greatest risk. Conditions of strong synoptically generated wi nd are considered as well as days on which thunderstorms occurred. The tech niques developed should be applicable to data acquired from a ground-level anemometer network at any airport. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All right s reserved.