The Invisible Threat of Wind Turbines
Field of wind turbines. Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash West Texas has huge swaths of land covered with ever-larger wind turbines. These turbines are a significant threat to aviation, as has been established in several studies of turbulence and visibility. The threat will grow as turbines become ever larger. The latest development is a turbine by General Electric with a 850 ft (260 m) tall tower and 350 ft (107 m) long blades that will likely show up in Texas some time in the future. There are two problems for pilots: The blades are difficult to see from the air, and they produce significant turbulence downstream. While the turbulence of single turbines has been studied in detail, little is known about the effect of an entire field of turbines. Here is a demonstration that fields of turbines can create powerful turbulence. Below is a screen shot of a Garmin Pilot map taken on May 29, 2021 when we were planning a flight from Dallas to Albuquerque, NM. It shows a field of turbine