SESAR Launches Major Flight Demonstration Project for Augmented Approaches

Post by Alyce Shingler on December 27, 2014, updated on January 24, 2020

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Woodrow Bellamy III

[Avionics Today 12-23-2014] A new consortium formed by the Single European Sky ATM Research Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU) will perform more than 200 demonstration flights at airports throughout Europe to validate new approach and landing technologies. The new consortium, called Advanced Approaches for all Airports (A3), is looking to use the demonstration flights to develop new approach and landing solutions that will increase air traffic throughput while also reducing aircraft emissions and noise over communities located near airports throughout Europe.

Computer rendering of an RNP approach into an airport runway. Photo: Hughes Aerospace.

NetJets Europe is leading A3’s demonstration flights, named the Augmented Approaches to Land project (AAL). The project will use advanced approach and landing procedures based on five different technologies; curved Required Navigation Performance paths (RNP), Ground and Satellite-based Augmentation Systems (GBAS and SBAS), Synthetic Vision Guidance System (SVGS), and Enhanced Flight Vision System (EFVS).

These different approaches provide benefits for operators with more efficient flight paths into airports, as well as the airport itself, as they eliminate reliance on inflexible ground-based Instrument Landing System (ILS) equipment. GBAS systems are designed for aircraft equipped with GPS landing system technology, which most current production Airbus and Boeing airplanes feature.

“It will demonstrate that augmented vision and satellite-based augmented navigation can improve the access while reducing the environmental impact of all types of airspace users into all types of airports,” said Jean-Phillippe Ramu, SESAR project manager, second in command Gulfstream V/550 at NetJets Europe. “We believe that the project will show what will be the approach and landing operations of tomorrow.”

One of the more progressive aspects of the demonstration will be the trials that feature the use of synthetic vision technology. SVGS technology, such as Honeywell’s SmartView system, provides a three-dimensional view of an airborne aircraft’s surrounding terrain, obstacles, airports and runways. Honeywell has applied for a Supplemental Type Certificate for SmartVision Lower Minimums (SVLM) that, if certified, would allow pilots to navigate using synthetic vision down to a 150 feet decision height with visibility as low as 1,400 feet.

Curved noise abatement Required Navigation Performance (RNP) procedures with transitions to satellite navigation based approaches (GBAS and SBAS) will be demonstrated during the trials. A3 also has a goal of developing and publishing new airport procedures during the demonstration period.

Deploying more Performance Based Navigation (PBN) procedures, such as those mentioned above, is one of the top goals of the overarching Single European Sky project in Europe and the NextGen Air Traffic Management (ATM) modernization project in the United States. During a recent interview with Avionics Magazine, Chris Baur, president and CEO of Hughes Aerospace Corp., discussed the benefits of eliminating operator and airport reliance on ILS equipment. In 2013, Hughes lead the effort to establish the first public RNP procedure at the world’s busiest airport, Chicago O’Hare.

“There’s really no business case for legacy navaids anymore. Its just a horrific expense, you have to constantly calibrate them, validate them, maintain them, and you’re limited as to how you can operate,” said Baur, who is also a commercial airline pilot.

“Everything with these legacy navaids is also linear you have to fly out to catch your radio beam and track it inbound. The GBAS, the [GNSS Landing System] GLS approaches, the RNP approaches, the PBN catch all eliminates all of that,” he said.

Honeywell and Elbit Systems will be supplying the avionics for the demonstrations, while Dassault Aviation andAirbus will provide airframe manufacturer and aircraft systems support. Lufthansa and Swiss Airlines will also participate in the demonstration flights, which will occur at small and medium airports including Perigueux, Bergerac, Bordeaux, Ostrava and Bremen, as well as large airports Frankfurt and Zurich.

http://www.aviationtoday.com/the-checklist/SESAR-Launches-Major-Flight-Demonstration-Project-for-Augmented-Approaches_83821.html#.VJ7LmF4ACY

Hughes, Honeywell Expanding PBN Deployment at Myanmar Airports

Post by Alyce Shingler on December 5, 2014, updated on January 24, 2020

Thursday, December 4, 2014

Woodrow Bellamy III

[Avionics Today 12-3-2014] Hughes Aerospace and Honeywell Aerospace have announced a partnership with Myanmar’s Department of Civil Aviation to bring Performance Based Navigation (PBN) procedures to the nation’s busiest airports. In recent years, both companies have embarked on a global initiative to assist airports with redesigning the airways within their airspace to allow them to move away from legacy ground-based navigation aids and forward to PBN procedures. The satellite procedures enable shorter and more direct routes as well as more efficient takeoffs and landings that help operators reduce fuel burn and CO2 emissions.

Computer rendering of an RNP approach into an airport runway. Photo: Hughes Aerospace.

Hughes Aerospace President and CEO Chris Baur, an air transport, business jet, helicopter and General Aviation (GA) pilot with more than 35 years of commercial and military flying experience, will be traveling to Myanmar to perform a flight validation of the new takeoff and landing routes. Myanmar’s two main international airports, Yangon and Mandalay could use the new procedures to reduce overload in air traffic, as they currently handle a combined three million passengers annually. Hughes, in partnership with Honeywell, has helped to lead some of the biggest airspace redesign projects throughout the U.S., Europe and the Middle East, leading the transition into this new global era of taking advantage of onboard equipment to fly safer and more efficient landings and takeoffs.

“In Myanmar, we were early to go into the country and show them what the benefits are, we’re working with them right now doing some validation of the procedure concepts that they came up with at Yangon and Mandalay,” Baur told Avionics Magazine. “Yangon is their capital and busiest airport. I’ll be going over myself in January to meet with the directorate general and his staff and fly the procedures.”

The Myanmar airports are part of the Asia-Pacific region, which is currently experiencing some of the fastest increases in demand for air transportation services. As that demand continues to rise, civil aviation authors face the challenge of safely increasing capacity, efficiency, and access, particularly in regards to some of the terrain-challenged airports in the region. Currently, Hughes and Honeywell are among third-party developers of PBN procedures that are certified by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to help the international aviation community transition to a global performance-based airspace.

“Utilizing our combined expertise in PBN procedure design, process and quality control, navigation database creation, and Flight Management Systems, our team is reviewing and validating a number of new [Global Navigation Satellite System] GNSS-based departure and arrival procedures developed by the Myanmar Department of Civil Aviation,” Brian Davis, vice president of the Asia Pacific airlines division at Honeywell, told Avionics Magazine.

“Beyond Myanmar, we are active in numerous projects all around the world to promote, support and enable the global movement to adopt PBN for enhanced aviation safety and efficiency,” Davis added.

The main benefits of PBN procedures for airlines are their ability to address current limitations of air transportation capacity. Some of the specific advantages include, “better access to terrain/airspace-challenged airports; parallel runway, converging and adjacent airport operations; lower Minima resulting in fewer weather-related delays and diversions; reduced flight time due to optimized routing; and more reliable, repeatable flight paths,” said Davis.

Hughes and Honeywell also recently introduced PBN procedures in the Philippines. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines’ Daniel Z. Romualdez Airport in Tacloban as well as surrounding areas. The Typhoon knocked out the airport’s sole ground-based navigation aid, causing them to make a transition to PBN and switching to satellite-based technologies that use area navigation procedures in order to enable a lowering of the approach minimums that were in place using the legacy aids prior to the occurrence of the disaster.

“We made the offer of providing them with the flight procedures at no cost. We subsequently got a license to be a third-party public procedure design organization by the government of the Philippines and we presented our procedures to the director general of the Philippines,” said Baur, adding that the airport and airlines that fly there are now developing the new procedures.

“When you look at the [VHF Omnidirectional Range] VOR approach that was there before, the VOR was destroyed by the Typhoon. The GNSS procedure that we built that was GPS-based, provided them with lower minimums than the VOR and obviously its Typhoon-proof, there’s nothing on the ground for them to maintain and they’re going to get more benefit out of it — and in the process we made the approach and the transition much more efficient, which reduced the amount of track miles that the aircraft would fly so it reduced the environmental impact as well as the fuel used by the aircraft used to service Tacloban,” Baur said.

Now, Honeywell and Hughes are bringing their integrated CNS approach to deploy PBN with a focus on the inter-relationship between Air Traffic Control (ATC) engineering, Safety Management Systems (SMS) and flight operations to the two busiest airports in Myanmar. According to Baur, the majority of aircraft flying into both Yangon and Mandalay airports in Myanmar have the onboard FMS and GPS technology required to fly the new more efficient procedures.

“We work with differential GPS, which is really the future,” said Baur, adding that most GPS systems have about a 10 meter accuracy in measuring the position of the aircraft along its flight path during an approach to the airport. “If you can augment the GPS signal, you can bring the accuracy down consistently. One way that it’s done is through space-based augmentation, or SBAS, which in the U.S. they would call WAAS. That’ll bring the accuracy down to one to two meter accuracy as you know you can develop a three-dimension path in space, and [Localizer Performance with Vertical guidance] LPV approach and that LPV approach will give you essentially what a CAT I [Instrument Landing System] ILS would without the ground-based infrastructure,” said Baur. “The other part of differential GPS is GBAS, or Ground-Based Augmentation. GBAS takes the GPS constellation and brings it down to a 10 centimeter accuracy.”

Bauer said the Honeywell-Hughes partnership will have more announcements about new PBN projects throughout the Asia-Pacific region and other parts of the world in early 2015.

“Any time somebody publishes a procedure I celebrate it, it’s a victory, it’s what the aviation community is gradually moving toward,” said Baur. “Most of the world is evolving and the low-hanging fruit seems to be GNSS approaches, GPS-based [Standard Instrument Departures] SIDs and [Standard Terminal Automation Replacement Systems] STARs.”

– See more at: http://www.aviationtoday.com/av/topstories/83657.html?hq_e=el&hq_m=2993025&hq_l=11&hq_v=0bcf5e07bd#.VIHOQDHF-Ag

Honeywell and Hughes to Introduce PBN to Myanmar Airspace

Post by Alyce Shingler on December 1, 2014, updated on January 24, 2020

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

[Avionics Today 11-26-2014] Honeywell Aerospace and Hughes Aerospace will assist Myanmar’s Yangon and Mandalay international airports to develop satellite-based navigation technologies for optimizing takeoff and landing routes. Performance-based Navigation (PBN) procedures, made possible by satellite technologies, allow for shorter and more direct routes and more efficient takeoffs.

Yangon and Mandalay are Myanmar’s two main international airports, capable of handling more than 3 million passengers each annually. This is the first step in an effort to improve procedures at Myanmar airports by the Department of Civil Aviation, which plans to install PBN procedures at other international and domestic airports in the country.

“These new PBN instrument flight procedures will transform Myanmar’s existing airspace, supporting not only safer, all-weather access but improved reliability and growth opportunities for the future,” said Chris Baur, president and CEO of Hughes Aerospace.

Chicago O’Hare gets first RNP approach

Post by Alyce Shingler on November 15, 2014, updated on January 24, 2020

Hughes Aerospace

Chicago’s O’Hare airport recently implemented its first RNP (required navigation performance) instrument approach. The satellite-based precision approach is part of the new generation of GPS approaches popping up at airports around the nation and the world. Chris Baur, president and CEO of Hughes Aerospace, the company that developed the approach, told Examiner on Wednesday that the new approach is an environmentally friendly alternative to current land-based approaches.

Instrument approaches are the procedures used by pilots to locate the landing runway when the weather precludes a visual approach. At large airports like O’Hare (KORD), the typical method of tracking to the runway involves an ILS (instrument landing system) approach. ILS approaches use land-based transmitters to send signals to the pilots that bring the airplanes to the touchdown point on the runway both laterally (with a localizer) and vertically (with a glideslope). This requires two separate transmitter facilities for each runway that utilizes an ILS. This can be cost-prohibitive for small airports.

RNP approaches utilize satellite navigation technology instead of ground-based navigational facilities. The aircraft’s flight management computer is programmed to fly a predetermined course along a series of waypoints, locations on a map that do not have to coincide with any geographic feature, toward the runway. Because the airplane is following GPS waypoints, approaches can easily be planned to avoid terrain features or noise sensitive areas. They can also be developed over water where land-based facilities are impractical. At some airports, RNP approaches even follow a curved path to the runway using RF (radius to fix) segments, such as this approach at Atlanta’s Peachtree-DeKalb airport (KPDK).

The RNP, required navigation performance of the approach, determines the accuracy of the approach and has an effect on the minimums, how low the pilot can go without seeing the runway. The required navigation performance for approaches can be as low as 0.1. This means that an airplane’s navigational system must be accurate to with 0.1 nautical mile radius 95 percent of the time. This is referred to as performance-based navigation (PBN).

Baur says the new approach has several advantages over traditional ILS approaches. The RNP approach uses GPS satellites so there are no “costly ground based Infrastructure, architectural weakness and repetitive flight inspections” that are required of traditional ILS facilities. This can reduce costs for maintaining the approach.

Ground-based facilities are also subject to interference from local weather conditions. Baur notes that snow from the infamous Chicago winters can accumulate on antennas and cause a degradation of the navigation signals just when accuracy is needed most. “In the event of the loss or degradation of the ILS, traffic flows and arrival rates can be maintained” with RNP approaches, Baur says. This can translate into fewer delayed or canceled flights for airline passengers. Baur also points out that, because RNP approaches are designed with the stabilized approach concept in mind, they will likely result in fewer missed approaches or “go-arounds.”

“Collectively this reduces the overall environmental impact to the airport and surrounding community,” Baur says.

There are some disadvantages to RNP approaches as well. RNP approaches require special pilot and aircraft certification. Baur notes that many, but not all, modern airliners are equipped with avionics that are capable of RNP approaches. Manyairlines have already incorporated RNP approaches into their training programs. Many, if not most, private airplanes are not equipped to fly RNP approaches. This means that smaller aircraft flying into smaller, rural airports cannot benefit from RNP approaches where their value could be greatest.

Further, RNP approaches are nearly, but not quite, as accurate as an ILS. An ILS typically has minimums of 200 feet and ½ mile visibility, but can go even lower in some cases. This means that the airplane can descend as low as 200 feet above the ground without making visual contact with the runway. The RNP approach at O’Hare has minimums of 330 feet and ¾ mile visibility. In most cases, the higher minimum will not make a difference, but in a snowstorm or fog, the extra 130 feet might make the difference between landing and going around.

In spite of the drawbacks, Baur feels that RNP and PBN are the future of aviation. “Today most of the major US Airlines and many of the foreign airlines have received authorization for RNP AR [arrival] procedures, as well as many corporate operators,” he says. “I feel RNAV (RNP) as well as RNP AR will continue to grow and provide benefits. The number of participating operators will also increase with improved access through avionics.”

Hughes Aerospace has already developed RNP approaches in numerous countries around the world. Baur notes that the approaches would be valuable to airports that are concerned with terrain, noise abatement, airspace restrictions or maintaining arrival rates in the event of a disruption of ground-based facilities. They are also an alternative to the high cost of traditional ground-based approach facilities. As technology improves as entry costs for RNP-capable avionics improve, RNP approaches will become more and more common around the world.

HUGHES AEROSPACE CORPORATION DEVELOPS FIRST RNP APPROACH PROCEDURE AT WORLD’S BUSIEST AIRPORT – CHICAGO O’HARE INTERNATIONAL

Post by Alyce Shingler on October 1, 2014, updated on January 24, 2020

Hughes Aerospace Corporation and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) worked closely with stakeholders to design and implement the first Required Navigation Performance (RNP) Instrument Flight Procedure at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. This cornerstone of Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) technology provides the public with an environmentally friendly approach procedure that is purely satellite based and does not require the installation or maintenance of costly ground navigation equipment

Chicago Chart

Hughes Aerospace led the effort to deliver this technology by designing the procedure as well as performing the Instrument Flight Procedure Validation activities in their own aircraft. Additionally, Hughes Aerospace will maintain the procedure in accordance with its FAA approved maintenance program.

PBN utilizes RNP technology to transform how airplanes navigate the sky. The FAA, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and regulators worldwide are addressing the impact of air traffic growth by implementing PBN capabilities and efficiencies while simultaneously improving safety, reducing aircraft environmental impact and increasing user access.

“We enjoyed the opportunity to work closely with the FAA and various stakeholders to bring this technology to O’Hare, the traveling public and the Air Transport industry,” said Chris Baur, Hughes Aerospace President & CEO.

“With the majority of the operators at O’Hare equipped and certified for RNP AR, we are excited to see this new procedure providing benefits immediately,” said Jeff Witt, Managing Director of Navigation Services at Hughes Aerospace.

Hughes Aerospace Corporation possesses licenses and certifications from several countries throughout the world for Instrument Flight Procedure Design and is endorsed by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as an Instrument Procedure Design Organization for both Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) and Conventional instrument flight procedures. Additionally, Hughes Aerospace participates with the ICAO Performance-Based Navigation “Go-Team” as a stakeholder in the Global PBN Movement.

For questions about this release, please contact Alyce Shingler at info@hughesaerospace.com

For more information from the FAA on NextGen, visit http://www.faa.gov/nextgen/

FAA Issues Hughes Aerospace Corporation Authorization as a Third-Party Service Provider

Post by admin on September 17, 2014, updated on November 15, 2019

FAA ISSUES HUGHES AEROSPACE CORPORATION AUTHORIZATION AS A THIRD-PARTY SERVICE PROVIDER FOR PUBLIC RNP AR INSTRUMENT FLIGHT PROCEDURES

Hughes Aerospace worked closely with the FAA for the past two years to achieve FAA Third-Party Service Provider certification for Required Navigation Performance (RNP) Authorization Required (AR) Instrument Flight Procedures. This rigorous process was performed in accordance with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Advisory Circular 90-110.  The FAA has been recognized globally for leadership involving Performance Based Navigation (PBN) and the successful implementation of NextGen, which is transforming how airplanes navigate the sky. The agency is addressing the impact of air traffic growth by increasing the National Airspace System (NAS) capabilities and efficiency while simultaneously improving safety, reducing aircraft environmental impact and increasing user access. The FAA implements PBN routes and instrument flight procedures that leverage emerging technologies and aircraft navigation capabilities, while embracing the need for certified Third-Party development, validation and maintenance of these valued instrument flight procedures under strict FAA surveillance and oversight. (more…)