David Learmount/SEATTLE
INDIA HAS DRAWN up plans to replace its terrestrial air-traffic-control (ATC) system with a global-navigation satellite-system (GNSS)-based communications, navigation and surveillance/air-traffic management (CNS/ATM) by 2015.
A Government study shows that the new system has the potential to yield tenfold increases in system air-traffic capacity and in safety margins, according to Indian Airlines' flight-safety manager Capt. Vijay Ginotra, speaking at the Flight Safety Foundation's 8 November seminar in Seattle, USA.
The scheme would use the GNSS and, probably, its Russian equivalent, GLONASS, says Ginotra. It will be used to provide aircraft navigation and automatic- dependent surveillance (ADS) in India's oceanic airspace, and for overland en route sectors. It will also be the primary aid for non-precision approaches.
Oceanic system performance is to be enhanced by receiver-autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM), and land systems by RAIM and wide-area augmentation stations, to give airport approaches to Category 1 precision-landing levels. Local-area augmentation systems may be used later to deliver Cat II approaches.
The first stage, beginning in 1996 and lasting for five years, says Ginotra, involves improving the quality of VHF communications, creating a country-wide satellite- communications network, starting on the automation of ATC, and introducing Mode S secondary-surveillance radar. The programme for implementing the GNSS plan starts this year.
Source: Flight International
