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Navigation System to Be Tested Again at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport

Posted on: Monday, 25 July 2005, 09:00 CDT

Jul. 25--The Federal Aviation Administration plans to restart testing at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport of a global satellite navigation system that guides pilots along more direct departure routes.

The FAA tested the program last fall but halted that trial after just a few days because several incidents at the airport raised safety concerns.

Officials said at the time that there was no risk of collision during the incidents, although in one case, jets flew 2.78 miles from each other, less than the federally mandated three-mile minimum distance.

This time, new procedures are in place to help prevent mistakes and to make them easier to detect, according to the FAA.

Some of the changes include the addition of extra space at some points in the flight pattern -- a potential cushion in case there are any errors. The extra space is less than a mile, said FAA spokesman John Clabes.

A second change requires that a controller validate information that pilots enter into computers.

"Just until they get used to the new departure procedures," said JoEllen Casilio, the air traffic manager for the FAA's tower and traffic control office at D/FW Airport.

Don Dillman, managing director of flight operations for American, told pilots earlier this month about the changes.

"Now, if you feel we're adding a lot of redundancy, you're right. We can't afford to mess this up," he said in a hotline message.

There will be some selective validation flight trials over the next two months. The program will officially begin again in September.

"We and the FAA have improved the air traffic control procedures, and they've gotten those procedures out to the controllers," said John Hotard, a spokesman for Fort Worth-based American Airlines Inc.

"We are going to be putting out information to pilots prior to September, so they'll know what the procedures are."

Delayed several times for various reasons, the next-generation navigation and air-traffic system known as RNAV has been on the wish list of the nation's airlines, airports and the FAA for years.

The new system is more dependent on onboard computer software than ground-based controllers or the conventional radio-signal-type navigational aids used for decades.

The aviation industry wants RNAV in the hope that it adds capacity to congested airports and relieves an overburdened air-traffic control system.

Airports say the program would cut delays, while airlines say the program would help save fuel.

RNAV would increase the number of aircraft handled at D/FW by about 14 percent, according to the Air Transport Association, allowing the airport to absorb all of its projected growth over the next decade.

With the current system, pilots change headings when they're told to do so by air traffic controllers. The new procedures use sophisticated global positioning capabilities already onboard most airplanes that guide pilots along more specific and repeatable flight paths.

"This significantly reduces routine controller-pilot communications, allowing more time on frequency for pilots and controllers to handle other safety-critical flight activities," FAA administrator Marion Blakey told the Committee on Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Subcommittee on Aviation in May.

The government made working on this system a priority several years ago when the nation was facing gridlock at airports, but it hasn't always been smooth sailing. In April, 13 RNAV departure procedures went into operation at the world's busiest airport, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International. That airport also has had some problems with the system.

The issues in Atlanta resulted when pilots punched the wrong departure runway into the computer before take off, officials said. To mitigate the problem, tower controllers are now giving initial radar vectors leading into the RNAV routes.

Initially, some thought the program would be back up at D/FW by the end of March, but red tape slowed down the reintroduction. People were afraid of making another mistake.

The "biggest concern is that the pilots fly the departures with the same precision that they fly the approach," Casilio said. "It's a new way of doing business."

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AMR,

Source: The Dallas Morning News

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