CAE Electronics is preparing to deliver a future air-navigation system (FANS) workstation to India, for installation in the Calcutta air-traffic-control centre. The workstation will enable India to offer fuel-saving routes over the Bay of Bengal to airlines operating Boeing 747-400s with FANS-1 avionics.
The workstation is similar to one supplied to New Zealand in March 1995 to enable FANS-1 operations to begin on routes over the South Pacific. The Indian system has been expanded to allow aircraft to be tracked using voice position reports via HF radio, although only aircraft equipped for automatic dependent-surveillance (ADS) and controller-pilot data-link communications will be allowed to use the new routes.
CAE says that India plans to begin trials in November and hopes to have its system operational in January. FANS-1-equipped aircraft will be able to avoid an airspace bottleneck on traditional routes from the Far East to Europe which, is causing delays and increasing fuel consumption.
CAE is also upgrading the New Zealand system to add flight-data-processing capability and create a complete oceanic-control system. To be operational early in 1997, this will display radar and ADS data and HF position reports and allow both procedural and data-link control of oceanic traffic. The company has also supplied a FANS workstation to Hong Kong for trials involving Cathay Pacific, leading to use in early 1997.
FANS workstations, are proliferating with other manufacturers' systems, operational in Australia and Tahiti and at the Oakland oceanic centre, on the US West Coast. A workstation is being commissioned at Magadan in Russia's Far East, and systems are to be installed in Indonesia and Thailand.
Source: Flight International
