US CERTIFICATION OF the Honeywell/Pelorus SLS-2000 satellite-landing system (SLS) has been put back by six months, to the end of 1996.
The first satellite-landing system will be certificated to US Federal Aviation Administration special-category 1 (SCAT 1) levels at Newark, New Jersey, rather than at Minneapolis/St Paul, as had been expected earlier.
Mike Smith, general manager, Honeywell business and commuter aviation systems, declines to specify why, but says: "Certification has slipped. We will certificate to SCAT 1 first at Newark by the end of the year, with Minneapolis afterwards."
Keith Akare of the company's business- and commuter-aviation systems division says that the delay is largely because of the complexity and the pioneering nature of the SLS programme.
"This is the first time such a system has been certified. We're working through issues with the FAA, and it is also very software intensive," says Akare.
The FAA is now reviewing and approving the geological surveys of all the related positions of global-positioning system (GPS) receivers and runway ends.
The SLS-2000 will serve all runway ends within a radius of up to 55km (30nm) and will give precision-approach capability to runways where such approach procedures are not available.
The system at Newark, has been selected by Continental Airlines and when certificated, will be the world's first differential GPS system used for precision approaches in revenue service.
The Minneapolis/St.Paul project will add approach-level capability to Category I and Cat II and, eventually, allow growth to Cat III.
Honeywell says that, in addition to sales in the USA and previously announced sales in Australia, Canada and Russia, the system has now been purchased for unidentified sites in the UK and the Philippines.
Source: Flight International
