Delhi Hazed Over - Like every Other Year

Its winter in Delhi and the mist hangs heavy. Travel becomes a daunting task and most dread it. But going places never stops. People have to answer when called. I find it difficult to commute to and from work.

I was reading the TOI and they have a variety of interesting headlines:

Capital blues: Fog disrupts flights, rail traffic
Bright, sunny start to New Year? Fogget it
Flights come a full circle
For most, fog plays party pooper on New Year eve
Planes, trains... nothing moves in fog-hit Delhi
DGCA puts airlines on mat
Woman threatens suicide amid travel chaos
Fog to dog schedules this season too

I am moving to Bangalore on Saturday, the 13th of January. I get nightmares thinking of the D-day. What if my flight doesnt take off? What if it takes off, but never lands (i mean gets lost in the dense fog and loses its way?). I admit, I have pretty far-fetched ideas and never practice restraint, when I begin writing. I will not think of all this now. I will think of it later.

But reading stuff in the newspapers like the following, gives me a hopeless feeling:
1. On second January an Air Deccan flight took 22 hours to reach Chennai.
2. All flights except the CAT III B-enabled Indian flights had to be either rescheduled or cancelled due to the foggy conditions, airport sources revealed.

3. The city woke up to dense fog on New Year day with weak light filtering through the maze of tree branches, virtually leafless in winter, making it a mysteriously romantic morning. But for those catching flights, the erratic winter romance was fast turning into a perfect nightmare. Nothing took off or landed until 8.30 am, and after that, only a few CAT III-B enabled international flights hesitantly took off. All domestic flights — most of them with CAT-ignorant pilots — sat on the tarmac like beached whales.

I was reading up details regarding CAT( It is a four legged small animal.A feline mammal usually having thick soft fur and no ability to roar).

I came across two usages:

One stands for Clear Air turbulence. It is caused when bodies of air moving at very different speeds meet. What results are pockets that cannot be detected without the use of instruments with optical techniques such as scintillometers (I will refrain from writing about it although I did some digging - because I am bored). Even with scintillometers it is very difficult to detect these clear air turbulences and is hazardous for air navigation. There may be some bodies of air that are moving vertically, while some may be moving at a diagonal and others horizontally. This causes the aircraft to accelerate suddenly and may cause injuries when the crew is thrown around over a particularly perilous pocket.

We cannot do much, except do our best at avoiding such unfortunate incidents. When pitched against the powers of the vast skies, we mortals do not stand a chance.

The second is the usage which comes into picture around winters in Delhi:

In case of CAT IIIB operations, we refer to Category IIIB of RVR(Runway Visual Range). The RVR value for CAT IIIB is 150 ft. More details can be found on it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runway_visual_range .

Runway Visual Range (RVR) is an aeronautical term defined as the range over which the pilot of an aircraft on the centre line of a runway can see the runway surface markings or the lights delineating the runway or identifying its centre line.

It is of consequence that people are missing out on commitments because of delayed flights and feel helpless and stranded, but what is of greater consequence is, why is there a dearth of training and CAT III B systems on Indian flights?