Karen Walker/ATLANTA
IT IS BEING BILLED as the largest organised event in history. The centennial Olympic Games will be staged in the capital of the USA's Deep South - Atlanta, Georgia - in July. All expectations are for records to be broken and for new athletic stars to become household names.
What is also certain is that record-breaking traffic congestion will come to Atlanta and its suburbs, potentially crippling the normal flow of business, as some 2 million visitors converge on the area. To the rescue will come new technology and helicopters.
The Atlanta Short-haul Transportation System (ASTS), which has been set up to bring together helicopters and the global-positioning system (GPS) as a back-up transport system during the Olympics, has two tough challenges. It must become a "highway in the sky" which helps business continue to take place in and around the city, despite the anticipated gargantuan ground-traffic problems. It will also serve as a showcase for the use of helicopters as an urban transport system, which may be adopted by Atlanta permanently, and also by other major cities. It must achieve both these tasks using technology which, while not experimental, has never before been applied to this type of project. It must also succeed in the high profile, highly charged and severely demanding environment of an Olympic venue.
STARTER'S ORDERS
Seemingly spurred, rather than overwhelmed, by these challenges, the ASTS programme has been brought together at a break-neck speed worthy of a gold medal in its own right. The official launch date was just one year ago, on 1 March, 1995, which means that participants will be on the starting blocks with barely 16 months of preparation behind them. This swift passage has been possible partly because of the high level of support, which the project has enjoyed. The ASTS brings together the US Federal, state and local governments, as well as private industry and local communities. In this aspect alone it is already a pioneer, because it is rare for such diverse organisations to come together and collaborate so readily. As a partnership, costs will be shared equally between the US Federal Aviation Administration, which is footing half of the anticipated $10 million bill, and the other participants.
At national level, the primary partners are the FAA, NASA, the Helicopter Association International (HAI) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The HAI has established a special industry task force to support the project - the HAI Olympic Support Committee, which is chaired by HAI chairman Thomas Marlow.
At state level, the lead partner is the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, which is coordinating the support of several local services, including the Atlanta law-enforcement agencies.
At local level, several Atlanta businesses, municipalities and hospitals have come together to create the Atlanta Vertical Flight Association. The activities and determination of this local team have created a network of heliports and low-altitude "skyways" through which goods and services will be transported during the Games.
Coordinating these efforts at a technical level is the Georgia Tech Research Institute, based in Atlanta. Its buildings next to Dobbins AFB, will become the site of the project operations centre throughout the games, and it is here, that communications and tracking equipment, is being installed so that all of the helicopters, which become part of the system - and all of their cargo - will be monitored at all times.
A key to the momentum of the ASTS project is that there is something to be gained by everybody involved, if each does his part to make it work. The emergency services and law-enforcement agencies get speedier access to wherever they need to be; industry receives a system which allows vital business to continue unhindered by the chaos happening on the ground; the HAI is given a once-in-a-lifetime public-relations opportunity for helicopters; the FAA gains a real-life chance to test such a system as a blueprint for other cities; and local councils may be able to build on what is left behind to establish their own heliport networks, thus putting themselves on the business map. If it succeeds, Atlanta may become the first Olympic host city to claim that, for some at least, it was almost "business as normal".
STRENUOUS EFFORT
An overall plan for the system has been drawn up. Essentially, the flights will be conducted over the existing interstate and large highways, which form a natural hub-and-spoke transport network in the Atlanta metropolitan area. This has the advantage of concentrating the helicopters along routes, which not only link major areas of business, but also have existing high levels of ground-traffic noise. The ASTS supporters are keen for the project to be regarded locally as "neighbourly". If large numbers of householders complain about helicopter noise, it will be difficult for any permanent transportation system to evolve from the ASTS - a key goal of the project - so strenuous efforts are being made to avoid residential areas.
Noise levels will, also be monitored at sites in and around Atlanta throughout the Games, so that if a complaint is registered, the ASTS organisers should have a record of the actual noise level at the time of the complaint and be able to use that information to assess the public's tolerance of rotorcraft noise.
The FAA regards the ASTS project as a naturally evolving research-and-development (R&D) effort which builds on five years of analyses conducted by the US Department of Transportation to enhance mixed transport systems in congested urban areas. "Major elements of the ASTS project reflect extremely critical economic areas of interest by the aviation industry," says the FAA. In particular, the project supports the FAA's goals of making helicopters and future vertical-lift aircraft an integral element of future transport systems and of improving the response time and safety of air-ambulance helicopters and aircraft through the use of low-altitude communications, navigation and surveillance systems.
The ASTS members have conducted two trials to date, primarily to validate signal strength at major points in the network and the ability to communicate at all times. No technical problems have presented themselves. In April or May, a disaster-management exercise will be conducted and, in June, the whole system will be built up and meshed together in preparation for the Olympics in July.
Some 13 heliport sites have been identified in the Atlanta area - although lease arrangements have not yet been finalised for all. They include Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport and the region's two main general-aviation airports of Peachtree Dekalb and Fulton County. Up to 50 helicopters will actively participate in the scheme and be equipped with the necessary datalink avionics (see box). Those helicopters will include 22 aircraft of the law-enforcement agencies and US National Guard, three emergency-medical-service aircraft, two corporate charter aircraft (one each, from Coca Cola and Southern) and two R&D helicopters (one each from the FAA and NASA).
PACKAGE RELAY
Also involved will be up to eight helicopters provided by Petroleum Helicopters (PHI) for the commercial-package and document transport service. PHI, which is based in LaFayette, Louisiana, and is the world's largest commercial-helicopter operator, won the contract to provide this service against competition from several other bidders. The company expects to transport about 550,000kg of cargo during the Olympics period. Major customers will include companies such as UPS, based in Atlanta, and they will pay for the service they use. PHI says that it hopes to be able to provide an efficient service, and make "a small profit".
PHI will not be soliciting customers, they will be found, by the ASTS organisers in advance. Almost all cargo collection and drop-off will be pre-scheduled. Georgia Tech senior research engineer Charles Stancil warns that there will be little capacity for ad hoc business. "We will run out of flight hours and dollars if we take on too much ad hoc work," says Stancil. "We must stay within our flight-hour budget, even though I think there will be a tendency to try and do a little bit more."
PHI will use a mix of Eurocopter BO.105s and Bell 412s for the service. All cargo will be bar-coded and tracked from the beginning to the end of its journey. This is regarded by PHI as its biggest challenge in the project. "The flying should be simple - tracking the cargo will be the large chore," says PHI's vice-president and director of operations Gerry Golden. "Companies such as UPS and FedEx do it as a routine within a rigid system, but it will be a learning experience for us." Golden is confident, however, that PHI has a sound background for the task. The company moves thousands of people and tonnes of cargo to and from offshore platforms each year, but recognises the Atlanta project for the unusual opportunity it brings. "We have a chance here to be involved in the development of a new urban transport system. Our strong suit is the use of helicopters," says Golden.
TRACK RECORD ASSESSED
The commercial success of the ASTS will be an important factor in whether such a scheme has a long-term future in Atlanta and, ultimately, for other cities. One of the disappointments so far has been the failure to interest any operator in providing a premium-price passenger-transport service during the Games. Marlow says that this could still be provided, but that time is running out.
Another major participant in the scheme - but one without any commercial goals - is Bell Helicopter, which is involved through the $10 million Olympics sponsorship donated by parent company Textron. As an official sponsor, Textron is using the resources of three of its divisions - Bell, Cessna and EasyGo - to provide various forms of transport. Cessna will provide an executive-jet service in the region, primarily to and from the US cities, which are hosting the soccer games, and EasyGo will provide 1,000 utility vehicles, such as golf carts, for use by officials within the Olympic stadia.
OLYMPIAN COMMITMENT
Bell has committed to providing 18 helicopters, two of which will provide executive transport for officials of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG), including ACOG chairman Billy Payne. Other helicopters will be used to support the crews of the television-broadcast teams, which are covering the Games. Bell's coordinator for the project, O K Moore, says that the company is now building up to fulfilling its commitment "in a first-class manner". For the executive-transport service, the company will probably use Bell 230s, or, to showcase them, the new 430 or 407. For the television-crew requirements, the 206 LongRanger will be used.
All of the Bell helicopters will be fitted with the datalink avionics which will equip the other helicopters in the ASTS scheme, but Bell's role as a sponsor gives it a unique viewpoint and very different tasks from those of the commercial operation. "We are working closely together and, of course, will abide by all the rules and regulations of the ASTS. Safety is a prime concern for all of us," says Moore. "But the majority of our flying will be in venues."
As well as flying over the stadia, the Bell helicopters will be used by camera crews to film events such as the cycling marathon. Although this will take the helicopters into residential areas - something that PHI will try to avoid - Moore points out that they will be relatively high, at 800-1,000ft (240-300m), because that is the optimum height for relaying video signals.
Much of what the ASTS will achieve this summer will be apparent to the millions of people who will watch or take part in the Games. The scheme has, however, already attracted worldwide attention from cities which might copy Atlanta's example in applying helicopters to a traffic-congestion problem, so ASTS members know that they are under starter's orders to give a winning performance.
Source: Flight International
