Originally Posted by Dont Hang Up
Laser anemometers can become unusable in very clean air (such as high at high altitude) due to the lack of particulate matter to scatter off. Having said that, water droplets in clouds would do nicely. And the fact that such a device can operate from behind glass could remove the problems of icing faced by a pitot or ultrasonic (or direct pressure) solution.
Hi Dont hang Up
There are laser devices that can provide air data in clean air, without the presence of particulate matter in the atmosphere. I think these are perhaps cutting edge technologies?
In terms of costs, I'd be very surprised if the initial installations prove to be cheaper that the current systems but over the life of an airframe it could be?
Originally Posted by falconer1
personally think, that pitots as they are , are good enough, or let's better say, should be good enough..
what I do not find ideal is that such a vital system component, considering that a lot of the airplane's flight control system and pilot interface depends on correct pitot / static / tat probe data, that, first, the most modern designs seem at times to be defect by design ( i mean that technology has been out there for a long time, what happened in the engineering departments of the suppliers and OEMs??,) and second, it may not be ideal that OEMs use more than one
I think this situation is a little like the mechanical vs FBW issue, they both have their advantages and disadvantages but for larger/expensive airframes FBW seems to be the way to go.
As you mentioned air data systems are critical components of an aircraft. The only thing that can be done is to make them as reliable as possible and install redundancies.
BTW how are posters able to use 'a' instead of '@' when typing laser?
Cheers
Obi