Airbus has crystallised its long-held plans for an on-board airport navigation system (OANS) for all its fly-by-wire types and has contracted European avionics giant Thales to produce it. Thales says the OANS, a surface position awareness system integrated with other cockpit functions, will be deployed first in the A380.
OANS certification in the A380 is expected for the third quarter of 2006, says Thales, so it will not be embodied in the earliest deliveries of the type, but it will be retrofittable. The first prototype will be delivered to Airbus for operational testing "in just over a year".
The airport map - with aircraft position shown on it - will be presented independently to both pilots on their navigation displays (ND), in one of two selected modes or ranges. The on-screen charts will be interactive, with the pilots able to seek information like the best potential routes from the apron to the runway in use, or to display the cleared taxi route, and they will be warned when the aircraft is approaching a runway. This is not, however, an enhanced vision system and does not show other aircraft or vehicles on the airport.
Boeing/Jeppesen's Class 3 electronic flight bag system - which KLM launched operations of on its Boeing 777 fleet in 2003 - already offers an airport moving map function, which the airline has praised for its contribution to surface operations safety (Flight International, 16-22 November 2004).
Thales says its system will provide additional functionality by being integrated with control systems. For example, it has a system - dubbed "brake to vacate" - for setting the automatic braking on landing to slow the aircraft evenly for exit at a specified taxiway.
Source: Flight International
