Latest news with #Turbulence
BBC News
2 days ago
- Science
- BBC News
Turbulence is increasing. Here's how the aviation industry is trying to smooth things out
Climate change is creating stronger turbulence. Aircraft designers hope innovative new techniques will reduce its effects. "We saw blood on the ceiling… It was just complete havoc." This was one passenger's description of the scene after a Singapore Airlines flight was hit by severe turbulence while passing over the south of Myanmar in 2024. A lot of people were on the floor." Early this spring, a United Airlines Boeing 787 also hit severe turbulence while cruising above the Philippines. A flight attendant was thrown against the ceiling, resulting in a concussion and a broken arm. Turbulence incidents like these are increasing as a result of human-caused climate change. Severe clear-air turbulence (Cat), meaning very rough air that is invisible to satellites, radar and the human eye, has increased 55% since 1979 – when reliable meteorological records began, according to research by Paul Williams, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Reading. Turbulence is expected to treble worldwide by the 2050s and will likely have a major impact on routes across East Asia and the North Atlantic. It could affect people's willingness to fly at all. Among the most common reasons people give when justifying a fear of flying are loss of control and a past experience with turbulence. But turbulence, besides being potentially dangerous, also costs the aviation industry money, causing wear and tear to vehicles and lengthening some flights as pilots try to evade it. Such manoeuvres mean using up more fuel and increasing emissions. Although turbulence is usually a matter of discomfort rather than injury or death, the rising volume of chaotic motions in the atmosphere means airlines, scientists and engineers are faced with coming up with ways of mitigating the problem. Turbulence Solutions based in Baden, Austria, has developed small "flaplets" that may be added to larger flaps (or ailerons) on aircraft wings. The flaplets adjust their angle slightly in order to counteract changes in airflow based on pressure readings taken immediately in front of them on the wing's leading edge. It helps to stabilise the plane, a bit like how birds use tiny adjustments of their feathers while flying. The company says its technology can reduce turbulence loads felt by passengers by more than 80%. So far it has only tested the technology on small aircraft – though CEO Andras Galffy, himself an aerobatics pilot, feels confident that it will scale to support far larger planes. "The common view is you can either avoid or accept turbulence and deal with it by buckling up and reinforcing the wing," he tells me. "But we say you don't need to accept it. You just need the right counter-signal. For light aircraft there was always this pain but even for commercial aviation it's getting more serious because turbulence is increasing." Flying directly through eddies, vortices and updrafts with minimal disturbance requires not only precision engineering but a lot of advanced mathematics and an analysis of fluid dynamics. (Air, like water, is a fluid). The picture will always be complicated because the fundamental nature of turbulence is that it is chaotic. Small perturbations, from how wind deflects off a building to the wake of another aircraft, can change the behaviour of currents in the air. It's hard for humans to comprehend, but it might be easier for AI. "Machine learning is very good at finding patterns within high dimensional data," says Ricardo Vinuesa, a researcher in fluid mechanics, engineering and AI at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. "Turbulence might just be the perfect application for AI." In a recent experiment, Vinuesa and colleagues from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and TU Delft tested an AI system that controlled "synthetic jets" of air on a simulated aircraft wing. The AI itself was trained using deep reinforcement learning, a process whereby the model learns using trial-and-error, a little like when a toddler learns to walk. "Rather than measuring upstream, we can use AI to create very accurate numerical simulations of what airflow is doing based on measurements taken directly at the wing," he says. "And where neural networks are usually considered black boxes, we use explainable AI, which allows us to determine which measurements are most important to the predictions generated by the model." Vinuesa and his colleagues are working with tech companies to develop the technology further. Last year, a team from Caltech and Nvidia deployed extreme turbulence inside a wind tunnel to test an AI-powered sensing and prediction system for drones with promising results. Researchers at Nasa's Langley Research Center tested a purpose-built microphone capable of detecting ultra-low infrasound frequencies created by whorls of clear-air turbulence up to 300 miles (480km) away. Another approach that has been in active development since at least 2010 involves the use of Light Detection and Ranging (Lidar) to create a 3D map of the air around a plane, much as self-driving cars create a point cloud of nearby objects and vehicles, in order to navigate their environment. A 2023 Chinese study proposed a "dual-wavelength" Lidar system, which they claim can observe light-to-moderate Cat between seven and 10km (4.3 to 6.2 miles) ahead of the aircraft. Unfortunately, the lower density of air molecules at high altitude means the instruments become too large, heavy and energy-hungry to be of use in existing commercial aircraft. The convergence of manufacturing, AI and new sensors could transform aviation in the second half of the 21st Century. But what happens today? Before take-off, pilots check weather briefings and study jet stream charts. They consult flight planning software and check forecasts such as the Graphical Turbulence Guidance (GTG) to which Paul Williams contributed. "About 20 years ago we could forecast around 60% of turbulence," he says, "today it's more like 75% and I suppose it's my career goal to push that number up and up." When I ask what holds back progress, Williams says it is access to turbulence data measured by aircraft. "Research scientists have to buy the data, and it's not cheap." More like this:• Aircraft turbulence is worsening with climate change• The aircraft that may fly like a flock of geese• How long-haul travel may change With advanced computation, AI and ever-more satellites, weather forecasting is improving, but there is a general lack of wind measurements above the Earth's surface. What we do know comes from around 1,300 weather balloon sites around the planet and the accelerometers on roughly 100,000 commercial flights that take to the skies each day. Turbulence Aware from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) anonymises and shares real-time turbulence data and is now used by airlines including Air France, EasyJet and Aer Lingus. For passengers, there are a growing number of apps that provide access to data seen only by pilots and dispatchers up to now, one of which is Turbli. "I use Turbli," says Williams. "I've found it to be reasonably accurate given the proviso that they don't know your exact route so can't be 100% accurate. But it's a little like a hypochondriac googling their symptoms," he adds. "I'm not sure it always helps." -- For more science, technology, environment and health stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Kelsey Grammer Boards ‘Hell Ride'; Karlovy Vary Names Chair; Tarf Enters Theatrical Distribution; ITV Soap Boss Retiring
Kelsey Grammer To Lead Theme Park Thriller 'Hell Ride' From Frasier to rollercoaster. Kelsey Grammer will lead Hell Ride, an upcoming theme park thriller from Altitude. Directed by Magnus Martens (SAS: Red Notice) and written by Altitude joint CEO Andy Mayson (No Way Up), the film is billed as a 'white-knuckle survival thriller' that follows a group of high school seniors who break into an abandoned theme park for one final wild night, only to find their night spiralling into a nightmare. Mayson, Molly Conners (Triple 9) and Amanda Bowers (Riff Raff) are producing and Altitude is introducing it to buyers in Cannes. Pic reunites Grammer with part of the creative team he worked with at another upcoming thriller, Turbulence, and some of the VFX team from that pic and No Way Up will work on Hell Ride as well. Grammer is represented by UTA and Vault Entertainment. More from Deadline ITV For Sale: Behind The Headlines Of A Deal That Everyone And No One Is Talking About Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Green & Maria Pedraza To Star In Thriller 'Just Play Dead' - Cannes Market Elizabeth Olsen Joins Kristen Stewart & Oscar Isaac In Hedonistic '80s Vampire Thriller 'Flesh Of The Gods' - Cannes Market Krystof Mucha Named Karlovy Vary Film Fest Chair Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) has named Kryštof Mucha as its Chairman, and will leave the President position the late Jiří Bartoška held in memoriam. Bartoška passed away earlier this month aged 78. Mucha, who joined KVIFF in 1997, has been its Executive Director since 2004. 'Despite the very sad fact that the world of culture has lost one of its most important personalities, we want to assure the public that the Karlovy Vary festival will continue to possess the level of quality that Jiří Bartoška and his team have always given it,' said Jan Jírovec, Head of the Rockaway Arts group that majority owns KVIFF. Remaining on. Mucha's team will be Artistic Director Karel Och and Head of Production Petr Lintimer. 'For many years, I had the wonderful opportunity to work with Jiří Bartoška and to see how he thought and where he was taking the festival,' said Mucha. 'I believe that, together with Karel Och and Petr Lintimer, we will succeed in continuing his legacy.' Tarf Media Pushes Into Irish Theatrical Distribution EXCLUSIVE: Ireland's Tarf Media is pushing into local theatrical distribution. The film sales company told Deadline it is now offering a 'complete end-to-end distribution package from theatrical in Ireland to international sales and streaming.' Tarf founder Eoghan Burke is working with Anna Lavery PR and Distribution to bring films to Irish cinemas, while continuing to act as a sales agent. Dublin-based Tarf is known for handling international rights on films such as Cocaine Werewolf and A Dickens of a Christmas. Before last year's Cannes, Tarf struck a partnership deal with Good Deed Entertainment. ITV Soap Supremo John Whiston Retiring John Whiston, the ITV exec who has overseen the UK network's flagship soaps, is retiring after 27 years. In his most recent role as Managing Director of Continuing Drama and Head of ITV in the North, the long-serving exec has led editorially and commercially on Coronation Street and Emmerdale, both of which still command audiences of millions each evening. He also oversaw ITV series such as including Vera, A Touch of Frost and Heartbeat. At the end of the month, he will hand over to Executive Producer for Continuing Drama Iain MacLeod, who is upped to Creative Director and Matt Cleary, who becomes COO of Continuing Drama, which keeping his current post as Director of Production for UK Scripted at ITV Studios. MacLeod will report to ITV Studios Managing Director Julian Bellamy. Whiston said: 'I've always said I've got the best job in TV. I used to say it privately in case ITV stopped paying me. It has been nothing short of an honour, as well as a blast, to work on the Soaps this last decade or so. We've had joy, we've had fun and we've had seasons in the Sun. We've also had misery and mayhem. We've had motorway crashes, tram crashes and floods. We've had stories which have squeezed your heart till tears came out of your eyes. And we've covered pretty much anything and everything that people have to face in their own lives and we've done that with care and humanity. And all that is down to the 600 or so people – the writers, crew, cast and editorial – who have kept the show on air and at an incredible quality day in day out. And it's them who have made my job ridiculously easy. Just don't tell ITV.' Best of Deadline Everything We Know About The 'Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping' Movie So Far TV Show Book Adaptations Arriving In 2025 So Far Book-To-Movie Adaptations Coming Out In 2025
Asharq Al-Awsat
05-06-2025
- Climate
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Violent Turbulence Hits Ryanair Flight in Germany, Injuring 9
Severe storms in southern Germany forced a Ryanair flight to make an emergency landing late Wednesday after violent turbulence injured nine people on board, German police said in a statement Thursday. The flight, traveling from Berlin to Milan with 179 passengers and six crew members, encountered turbulence so intense around 8:30 p.m. that the pilot was forced to make an unscheduled landing at Memmingen Airport in Bavaria. Eight passengers and one crew member were hurt, The Associated Press reported. Three people were taken to the hospital in Memmingen for treatment; the other injured people were released after receiving outpatient treatment. As a precaution, all passengers were checked for injuries by the emergency services. Authorities did not permit the plane to continue flying, and the airline arranged bus transport for passengers. Milan is about 380 kilometers (236 miles) south of Memmingen. Elsewhere in the region, storms damaged several homes in Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, according to the German news agency dpa. In the Donaustetten district, strong winds tore roofs off multiple row houses, rendering them uninhabitable, though no injuries were reported. Fire officials suspect a small tornado or waterspout caused the damage. The German Weather Service (DWD) is investigating, according to dpa. Storm-related emergency calls also came from other areas in southern Germany, where damage was mostly limited to fallen trees and flooded basements. The DWD warned of further storms Thursday, with hail, strong winds, and localized heavy rain expected.
The Independent
05-06-2025
- Climate
- The Independent
Violent turbulence hits a Ryanair flight in Germany, forcing an emergency landing and injuring 9
Severe storms in southern Germany forced a Ryanair flight to make an emergency landing late Wednesday after violent turbulence injured nine people on board, German police said in a statement Thursday. The flight, traveling from Berlin to Milan with 179 passengers and six crew members, encountered turbulence so intense around 8:30 p.m. that the pilot was forced to make an unscheduled landing at Memmingen Airport in Bavaria. Eight passengers and one crew member were hurt. Three people were taken to the hospital in Memmingen for treatment; the other injured people were released after receiving outpatient treatment. As a precaution, all passengers were checked for injuries by the emergency services. Authorities did not permit the plane to continue flying, and the airline arranged bus transport for passengers. Milan is about 380 kilometers (236 miles) south of Memmingen. Elsewhere in the region, storms damaged several homes in Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, according to the German news agency dpa. In the Donaustetten district, strong winds tore roofs off multiple row houses, rendering them uninhabitable, though no injuries were reported. Fire officials suspect a small tornado or waterspout caused the damage. The German Weather Service (DWD) is investigating, according to dpa. Storm-related emergency calls also came from other areas in southern Germany, where damage was mostly limited to fallen trees and flooded basements. The DWD warned of further storms Thursday, with hail, strong winds, and localized heavy rain expected.
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Indie Powerhouse Production Company 'Phiphen' Marks 10 Years of Redefining the Film & TV Landscape
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey--(Newsfile Corp. - May 1, 2025) - Phiphen, the award-winning independent film and television production company, proudly celebrates its 10-year anniversary, marking a decade of championing bold storytelling, supporting visionary creators, and producing genre-spanning content for global audiences. Phiphen Founder and CEO, Molly Conners To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit: Founded in 2015 by Emmy-nominated producer Molly Conners, Phiphen has established itself as a dynamic force in the entertainment industry. From standout films like Butcher's Crossing and Coup! to its most recent release — Wish You Were Here, the acclaimed directorial debut of Julia Stiles released by Lionsgate and Universal — Phiphen consistently delivers stories that resonate both critically and culturally. The company also produced the 2024 action-thriller Turbulence, starring Olga Kurylenko, Jeremy Irvine, Hera Hilmar, and Kelsey Grammer, and directed by Claudio Faeh. Currently in post-production, Turbulence was shot on location in the Dolomites and London. As part of its expanding slate, Phiphen has announced the start of principal photography on THE STALEMATE, an absurdist Western comedy shooting in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The film stars Ben Foster, Manny Jacinto, and Fiona Shaw, and is directed by writer/director Nicholas Arioli. The story follows a robber and sheriff locked in a bullet-less standoff deep in the Old West. Phiphen's foundation was made possible by the visionary support of its founding board member, Rich J. Berthy, whose early belief in the company helped shape its mission to empower diverse voices and push creative boundaries. In 2022, the company expanded into post-production with the opening of Phiphen Post Studios, a full-service facility in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Co-founded by Jane Sinisi and Conners, the studio has become a creative hub for East Coast filmmakers, offering state-of-the-art resources and a collaborative environment. Further growing its creative reach, Phiphen recently launched Phiphen Games, a new division focused on immersive, narrative-driven interactive experiences. The studio's debut title, Ruffy and the Riverside, is set to release in June 2025, blending heart, humor, and adventure in a bold step into the world of gaming. "Reaching the 10-year mark is a testament to the incredible artists, partners, and team members who've helped shape Phiphen into what it is today," said the company in a statement. "From day one, we've been driven by a passion to tell stories that matter and a belief in the power of collaboration. We're proud of our journey so far and excited for what's next." Phiphen will commemorate its 10th anniversary with a special event later this year, bringing together longtime collaborators and supporters to reflect on a decade of creative achievement and look ahead to the future. About PhiphenPhiphen is an independently owned film and television production company founded in 2015 by award-winning producer Molly Conners. Named after the Phi phenomenon — the optical illusion that gives still images the illusion of motion — Phiphen is inspired by cinema's power to move and connect audiences. The company develops and produces original content across genres and platforms and supports talent at every stage of their careers. In addition to its production work, Phiphen operates Phiphen Post Studios in New Jersey and Phiphen Games, its interactive media division. Media Contact:PhiphenBetsy Rudnickbetsyrudnickpr@ To view the source version of this press release, please visit Sign in to access your portfolio
