Subject: [NEXTEL-1] New Radio Signal to Help Small Airports

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 04:52:59 -0400

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New Radio Signal to Help Small Airports

July 10, 2003

HERNDON, Va.

Airplanes will eventually be able to land in bad weather at thousands of small
airports thanks to a radio signal switched on early Thursday morning at the
Federal Aviation Administration's command center.

It took nine years, nearly a billion dollars and a team of space scientists to get
the satellite-based signal to do what it's supposed to: tell pilots where they are
in the air within 5 feet.

The system corrects the global positioning system's signal, which is only accurate
within the space of a football field.

Federal aviation officials said turning on the signal was a huge step forward in
exploiting the potential of GPS for air traffic control.

Once the system is fully deployed, the FAA (http://www1.faa.gov/) will be able to
phase out some of its expensive ground-based navigational aids.

"It is a form of rocket science," said FAA chief Marion Blakey, acknowledging the
project is several years behind schedule and over budget.

Still, she said, the wide area augmentation system represents a huge technological
leap from the days before World War II, when pilots navigated by following
bonfires on the ground.

The new system works like this: Signals from GPS satellites, which get distorted
in the ionosphere, are received by a network of ground reference stations. The
stations correct the signals and relay them through a master station, which relays
them back up to communications satellites. Pilots receive those signals in the
cockpit.

Phil Boyer, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, predicted
small airports will flourish because they will no longer need at least $2 million
worth of ground-based navigation systems for planes to land on their runways in
bad weather.

The system will also allow airline pilots to fly shorter, more direct routes and
faster descents, so more planes will be able to land per hour, Blakey said.

Charlie Keegan, the FAA's associate administrator for research and acquisitions,
said the system will make it safer and easier to fly. Pilots using the wide area
augmentation system (http://gps.faa.gov/Programs/WAAS/waas.htm) can fly their
approach to the runway by aligning the plane with a line on a display in the
cockpit.

The FAA has designed 560 approaches for 281 airports and will design another 300
within a year, Keegan said.

Only a dozen or so pilots now use the wide area augmentation system with
ground-based backups in their planes, he said.

The FAA hasn't certified receivers yet, but expects to do so by this fall. Boyer
said 25,000 private pilots have a receiver that can receive the new signal with a
minor upgrade.

Japan and Europe are building similar systems that will be compatible with that in
the United States, creating a worldwide navigation capability.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said commissioning the system "moves us
closer to realizing the aviation potential of GPS and the precision it can add to
the world's safest and most complex airspace system."

http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&oi=news&start=0&num=1&q=http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/breaking_news/6276154.htm

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