FAA to Demonstrate Affordable GPS Technologies

The Federal Aviation Administration, in conjunction with the University of Alaska Anchorage and the Alaska aviation industry, is hosting an open house to view satellitebased technologies that promise to dramatically reduce the number of accidents in Alaska and will ultimately be applied to the National Airspace System throughout the country.

The Capstone project is instrumental in reaching the FAA's goal of reducing the accident rate for all sectors of aviation by 80% by the year 2007, said FAA Administrator Jane Garvey. These technologies will help us address two key safety priorities at the FAA - controlled flight into terrain and runway safety. Alaska is one of the last great frontiers in aviation safety, and Capstone will go a long way in mitigating the hazards of this challenging environment.

Capstone will equip up to 150 aircraft used in passenger, mail or freight operations with an avionics package designed to improve situational awareness of the pilots by putting weather, terrain and traffic information in the cockpit for the first time. Essentially, pilots will be able to have the same information in the cockpit that air traffic controllers have on the ground. All this information will assist in averting mid-air collisions and controlled flight into terrain.

To complement this operation, the FAA is also publishing non-precision approach procedures and installing the automated weather observation system at 10 village airports in the Yukon- Kuskokwim Delta region of southwest Alaska. The FAA will also install 12 ground broadcast transceivers. The airports in question usually consist of a short gravel-surfaced runway with edge lighting. There are no terminal electronic navigation aids and weather observation stations are generally very far apart. There is little radar coverage in the demonstration area at low altitudes and icing conditions preclude most of the small aircraft from flying in instrument meteorological conditions.

The avionics package consists of a Global Positioning System navigation/voice communications unit, a multifunction computer display and a digital datalink radio operating on the Universal Access Transceiver mode. The display includes a GPS-based terrain database of Alaska on a ¼-mile grid accurate to approximately 100-feet of elevation. The display delivers to the pilot airplane-to-airplane Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast position reports from other aircraft and eventually will display ground-to-air Traffic Information Service aircraft position reports.

The display will include both visual flight rules and instrument flight rules charts, graphic weather and text messages, and moving map capabilities. For more information, on the latest GPS News see global positioning systems.

Author Notes:

Rod Muir contributes and publishes news editorial to http://www.handheld-gps-reviews.com.  A wealth of information about Global Positioning Systems for commercial or personal use.