How 5G impacts flights? – UPSC Prelims

Airlines take off and land using autopilot systems, which use data from radar altimeters to determine the altitude of the aircraft.

Hence, they are a crucial part of flight operations for pilots, particularly while seeking to make low-visibility landings in poor weather conditions.

Altimeters emit radio waves at 4.2-4.3 Gigahertz (GHz) frequency, which could interfere with a 5G band called C-Band, which lies between 3.7-4.4 GHz.

Whereas, not using auto-pilot would lead to more fuel consumption and higher costs for airlines.

US regulators left about a 200 MHz buffer between the altimeters’ frequency and the 5G C-Band frequency.

However, some airplanes like the Boeing 777 are using some older radio altimeters, which are finding it difficult to function in this buffer.

 So some US telcos have temporarily deferred the 5G roll-out.

India’s 5G auctions are expected to include spectrum bands of 3.3GHz -3.6GHz, which means the C-Band may not be operational, at least in the near future.