AIRBUS INDUSTRIE, in association with Aerospatiale and the Eurocontrol air-traffic-control (ATC) centre at Maastricht, the Netherlands, has begun in-flight trials of equipment enabling ATC by datalink.
The aircraft being used in the tests are green A320s being ferried from Airbus' Toulouse, France, assembly plant to Hamburg, Germany, for completion.
Using the existing cockpit Sextant Avionique multi-purpose control/display unit and the VHF radio link provided by the onboard Sundstrand airborne communications and reporting system, on-screen messages are being transmitted ground-to-air and air-to-ground. SITA's telecommunications network completes the ground link with the ATC centre. The pilot or controller is alerted to message-arrival by a buzzer.
Pre-stored messages, such as flight-level change, can be called up and tailored on-screen, then transmitted. The system is also programmed to transmit automatically information such as position, speed, height and optimum flight level.
Source: Flight International
