David Learmount/SANTIAGO DE CHILE
No other country is as long and thin as Chile. Few other countries contain such vast distances and terrain so unkind that its main 5,500km (3,420 mile)-long north-south trunk road has to retreat temporarily into Argentina to reach the south.
This makes efficient air transport crucial to the nation's economic and social wellbeing and for travel to the USA (12h away from the capital, Santiago) and Europe (14h).
Chile's air traffic services (ATS) are responsible for a massive part of the southern Pacific and Antarctic airspace. The civil aviation authority, the Direccion General de Aeronautica Civil (DGAC) must oversee the air transport system with a limited budget derived from user charges and airport taxes. Chile has what could basically be described as an open skies policy "with all nations who provide reciprocity and whose technical standards are good enough", says Jose Manuel Sanchez Cvitanic, DGAC planning director. Its task includes planning, bilateral aviation negotiations, certification and licensing, ATS and air traffic management (ATM), safety oversight and the infrastructure. It also provides ATS for the Chilean military.
Airport privatisation is under way and will be complete by 2001. Remote airports will be operated by the DGAC for social reasons.
Latin American priorities in communications, navigation and surveillance (CNS)/ATM during the next decade are the reverse of the accepted acronym, says Sanchez Cvitanic: ATM comes first, CNS second. He explains: "It's all to do with cost and the fact that the traffic density simply does not call for it." Developments like reduced vertical separation minima (RVSM) are not required either.
In Chilean airspace, the DGAC provides primary radar cover for most of the country. Secondary radar covers the busier sectors from Arica, on the Peruvian border, to Puerto Montt in the south because extra precision is needed; Chile is so narrow that the north/south airways are close. From Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas in the far south, global positioning system (GPS) satellite navigation is the primary means of navigation but, elsewhere, VOR/DME navigation beacons will be kept in terminal areas for at least 15 years, says Sanchez Cvitanic.
Santiago Airport has a Category III instrument landing system (ILS). Other airports have Cat I ILS. Sanchez Cvitanic predicts that Cat I ILS will be replaced by augmented GPS once its integrity is proven - to this end, the DGAC's Cessna Citation II is undergoing wide area augmentation system (WAAS) operational trials.
Since the Americas Conference in 1996, Chile has worked with the US Federal Aviation Administration on the GPS WAAS. By the end of this year, the nation will have five active WAAS stations. Already live at Santiago, Antofagasta and Balmaceda, the new WAAS stations will be at Juan Fernandez and Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean (see map). GPS is also the primary means of navigation for Easter Island.
There is no need to operate an automatic dependent surveillance (ADS) system in Chile's oceanic flight information regions, says Sanchez Cvitanic, because the traffic is not dense enough, although the route from Santiago to Papeete, Tahiti, may get ADS. If it does, it may be operated using a high-frequency datalink.
Chile is proud of its air transport safety record. "We have never recognised the FAA's International Aviation Safety Assessment Programme, even though Chile's DGAC was rated Category 1," says Sanchez Cvitanic. Considering, however, that the FAA rated the safety oversight standards in eight Latin American aviation authorities as Category 2 (improvement necessary) and eight more as Category 3 (unacceptable), Chile stands out.
In co-operation with the International Civil Aviation Organisation, Chile and other Latin American states have improved safety and standardisation. Leadership responsibilities have been assigned to three states: Chile for licensing of flightcrew, Brazil for flight operation control and Argentina for airworthiness issues.
Latin America until recently had a poor safety record, but Chile has consistent high standards. The DGAC points out that its emblem has only one word on it: Seguridad (safety).
Source: Flight International
