Two new runway safety projects announced by the US Federal Aviation Administration this week are part of a retooled business strategy the agency is rolling out to help convince airlines to invest early in automatic dependent surveillance - broadcast technology, which the FAA wants to mandate after 2020.
"Business needs better information for making investment decisions," says Mike Romanowski, director of NextGen integration and implementation for the FAA. An update to the agency's roll-out plan set for January will include "integrated benefits" that will spell out how equipping with ADS-B will improve safety as well as delays, capacity, fuel consumption and emissions, he adds.
In the safety arena, Honeywell is to receive $3 million to test human factors issues related to using ADS-B technology in the airport environment to prevent runway incursions, in part using the expertise of a select group of Alaska Airlines and JetBlue pilots. Tests will take place next year in a simulator and in live exercises at Seattle Tacoma and Paine Field airports using Honeywell's King Air and Convair 580 equipped with the surface equivalent of an airborne traffic alert and collision avoidance system.
TCAS, which uses signals from altitude-encoding transponders to alert aircraft of potential collisions, is not accurate enough to use in the terminal environment, however, and is generally disabled during that portion of a flight. Using ADS-B to drive a similar system with audio and visual alerting information in the cockpit, however, would provide the needed accuracy to use the device at all times.
"The idea is to validate the technology, determine if there are any technology hurdles and help to set the ground rules for future FAA standards in this area," says Mike Grove, Honeywell's director of marketing and product management for surveillance systems.
ACSS in parallel will receive $6 million to equip 20 US Airways Airbus A330s with cockpit displays that will be used to display traffic during tests at Philadelphia International airport to help the FAA develop standards for using the technology as well as to introduce airlines to the possible uses of ADS-B.
The contracts were announced by FAA acting administrator Bobby Sturgell at the Air Traffic Control Association's annual conference in Washington on 3 November, unbeknown to both contractors, who in some cases had yet to finalise the elements of the deal.
Source: Flight International
