The first flight of an aeronautical telecommunication network (ATN)-equipped aircraft in revenue service is expected to take place as part of Europe's Preliminary Eurocontrol Test of Air-Ground Data Link (PETAL II) by mid-July.
PETAL II is the Eurocontrol-led three phase validation of air-ground datalinks in an operational air traffic control (ATC) environment, involving air traffic controllers at Europe's Maastricht area control centre in the Netherlands and aircraft crew communicating by digital datalink backed up by traditional voice messages. PETAL II was launched in April 1998, with the first two phases testing controller-pilot datalink communications (CPDLC) using the North European ADS-B Network (NEAN) VHF datalink-4 infrastructure and the satellite communication-based future air navigation system (FANS-1/A).
Test flights using American Airlines Boeing 767s equipped with Rockwell Collins ATN avionics started in late June when the airline received US Federal Aviation Administration certification for the crew to receive and send mission-critical datalink messages. Four 767s are due to participate.
Software is supplied by Airtel ATN, with communications travelling via ARINC's VHF digital link network.
ATN flights will continue until November when a new operational input and display system is due to be installed at Maastricht, with flights to resume in March/April.
PETAL is a major element of Europe's Link 2000+ plan which is designed to result in the implementation of datalink across the continent to allow airspace capacity to increase. American's 767s will also participate in US trials towards ATN-based CPDLC datalink.
Source: Flight International
