Different Technologies Used in an Airport
RadarRadar dishes like these are used to track planes in flight. They circle around steadily and send out a narrow beam of radio waves that deflect off objects, such as planes. They work especially well with electric objects, so planes reflect these waves easily. Radar makes the airport much safer because we can tell where planes are accurately and precisely coming from.
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RadioRadio is constantly used in airplane departure, approach, ground control, tower control (which is what the picture is), emergency services and a lot more. Daily airport operations would run extremely slow, the airport would be very dangerous considering you can't talk to planes coming in.
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LightingLighting may seem like a silly thing to consider as an important technology, but it actually is. Airplanes would not be able to see the runways clearly when they were landing/taking off. Also lighting is also used to tell pilots if they are allowed to land on specific runways, or plainly land at all.
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Historical Significance to Windsor Locks
These technologies are important to Windsor Locks because we have never had a devastating plane crash at Bradley Airport. There was one accident back in 1995 where a small passenger plane crashed because of technical errors in the altimeter, but only one person was injured. If we did have a crash it could have changed the entire town's view on the airport. Right now the airport brings in lots of people which means there is lots of work that is needed to keep the airport running, and also the surrounding businesses such as the restaurants, car rentals, gas stations, etc. The airport definitely has a major socioeconomic impact on our town and we would not be the same without it.