The US Federal Aviation Administration has awarded UPS Aviation Technologies a contract for at least 150 shipsets of avionics to be made available to small commercial operators in Alaska, finalising plans for an operational evaluation of free flight.
The three-year Capstone programme will involve most of the aircraft operating commercially in the Yukon-Kuskokim Delta area of Alaska. Participants will be equipped to evaluate the effectiveness of graphical displays of weather, terrain and traffic in improving safety in the region.
Air taxi and charter services using small aircraft are the main mode of transport in Alaska, where poor weather and difficult terrain results in frequent accidents. The Capstone objective is to reduce accidents by almost 40%, increasing to 80% when coverage is expanded across the country.
Aircraft will be equipped with a suite of UPS-developed avionics comprising approach-certificated global positioning system (GPS); multifunction display; and automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) datalink radio.
Using the Universal Access Transceiver (UAT) datalink, aircraft will broadcast their GPS positions and receive weather reports from ground stations. Traffic information, weather graphics and terrain depictions from an onboard database will be presented on a moving map display.
UPS will provide the network of UAT ground stations, which will be linked via satellite to Anchorage air traffic control centre, where ADS-B and radar reports will be fused for display to the controller. Later in the evaluation, the complete air picture will be uplinked to participating aircraft.
The FAA will approve 10 GPS non-precision approaches to village airports in the region as part of the trial. The ground infrastructure will remain in place after the trial and operators will keep the equipment in their aircraft.
Capstone is part of the FAA's Safe Flight 21 programme to validate key free flight operational benefits.
Source: Flight International
