Wed, Jan 29, 2003
Passenger Flight to San Francisco Used RNP Satellite-Based
Precision Approach
Alaska
Airlines has operated the first passenger flight to make a
precision approach at San Francisco International Airport using a
Required Navigational Performance satellite-based navigation
system.
The flight, Alaska Flight 592, departed Seattle on Thursday,
January 23, at 5:55 p.m. and arrived on schedule in San Francisco
at 8:04 p.m.
Unlike a regular approach using ground-based navigational aids,
the flight relied on a precision guidance approach using RNP, which
draws data from the network of satellites known as the Global
Positioning System and an onboard navigation database to guide the
aircraft along a precisely defined, computer-plotted flight
path.
"This represents a significant step toward the use of an RNP
guidance approach in San Francisco to help improve traffic flow
when operations ordinarily would be restricted to just one runway,"
said Kevin Finan, Alaska's vice president of flight operations. "It
also represents a truly cooperative effort between the FAA, the
airport, the airlines, the Air Line Pilots Association, and the
National Air Traffic Controllers Association, all of whom have
worked hard over many years to make this first step possible."
This
marks a new milestone for enhanced use of RNP on commercial
passenger flights in the Lower 48. Alaska pioneered the use of RNP
in 1996 in Juneau, Alaska, where weather can limit access to the
airport located at one end of a narrow mountain channel. Since
then, the airline has expanded its use to six other airports in
rural Alaska, where similar weather conditions and geography are
present.
In San Francisco, the RNP approach is being developed to allow
RNP-equipped aircraft to land on the airport's second runway under
conditions that currently limit airport operations to just one
runway. The airport is also introducing an enhanced radar system to
provide a similar capability for simultaneous landings in certain
conditions for non-RNP-equipped aircraft.
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