BAE Systems Insyte, a British high-technology missions systems and information management company, has announced it will bid for a South African requirement to investigate possible radar interference from planned wind turbines.
"Insyte has already done such a study for a wind farm planned to the east of London," reports Insyte Head of Business Development: Asia Pacific and South Africa Steve Kilvington. "Heathrow Airport was concerned this would interfere with its air traffic control radars. We were able to establish that wind turbines at the planned location would be below the radar horizon from Heathrow and would not interfere with its radar."
The South African Air Force (SAAF) is reportedly concerned that the wind turbines could interfere with the base’s radar as the rotating arms of the turbines’ giant propellers could reflect radar pulses in multiple directions, which could create an interference pattern on the radar screen or, even worse, generate anomalous returns on the screen, confusing the air traffic controllers, and so causing them to issue instructions that cause, not prevent, a crash.