The FAA Monday gave approval to Honeywell's Smartpath
Precision Landing System, clearing the way for increased safety and
efficiency at airports by providing precise navigation service
based on GPS. The first U.S.-approved system is located in Memphis,
TN and will become operational early next year.
"The approval of Honeywell's system marks the successful completion
of a partnership between the FAA and Airservices Australia to build
and certify a ground based augmentation system (GBAS)," said FAA
Administrator Randy Babbitt. "We expect GBAS to become an asset to
airports around the world." Airservices Australia is expected to
approve their system soon at Sydney Airport, Australia.
GBAS augments the GPS to provide precision approach guidance to all
qualifying runways at an airport. It monitors the GPS signals to
detect errors and augment accuracy by transmitting correction
messages to aircraft via local radio broadcast. GBAS will initially
supplement the legacy Instrument Landing Systems currently used at
airports.
The FAA's NextGen Implementation Plan identifies GBAS as an
enabler for descent and approach operations to increase capacity at
crowded airports. The Honeywell system is approved for precision
approach operations down to 200 feet above the surface. GBAS will
be improved over the next few years to guide an aircraft down to
the runway surface to support zero-visibility operations and
provide precise positioning service to enable performance-based
navigation, area navigation (RNAV) and required navigation
performance (RNP) operations.
RNAV enables aircraft to fly on any desired flight path within the
coverage of ground or spaced-based navigation aids, within the
limits of the capability of the self-contained systems, or a
combination of both capabilities. As such, RNAV aircraft have
better access and flexibility for point-to-point operations. RNP is
RNAV with the addition of an onboard performance monitoring and
alerting capability.
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