Radar Operations Center

SAILS (Supplemental Adaptive Intra-Volume Low-Level Scan)

SAILS is a dynamic scanning strategy meant for reducing the update times between the lowest elevation angle scans. Up to 3 supplemental lowest-angle scans can be requested in a single volume.

General Description

SAILS FAQs

The figures below illustrate a SAILS X 1 operation in VCP 12 with a termination angle of 19.5° (AVSET is off or storms are near the radar). SAILS will try to evenly divide the total volume time by the number of SAILS scans to insert the supplemental sweeps.

In this example from a non-Base Tilt site, the radar:

• Scans up to the middle of the volume scan time (3.1° here; Figure 1)
• Transitions down to collect the supplemental lowest elevation angle data (0.5°; Figure 2)
• Moves up to the elevation after the middle time (4.0°) and resumes collecting the remaining volume scan angles.