Malaysia Airlines - Orient Aviation

AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT
BREAKTHROUGH
Qantas tests groundbreaking landing system; major cost savings expected
By Tom Ballantyne
Air por ts and airlines are
queuing up to acquire a new
precision landing system
recently i nt roduced i n
Australia, which will help
reduce the 12% inefficiencies in global air
traffic management identified by the United
Nations and slash the US$13.5 billion of
wasted jet fuel every year.
The system, developed by Honeywell
and currently operated by Airservices
Australia, is being pioneered by Qantas
Airways.
“We crossed the threshold with Qantas
and it just opened up the floodgates,” said
Keith MacPherson, manager of global
navigation satellite systems (GNSS)
for Airservices Australia, the country’s
aviation regulator. The breakthrough
involves use of a new precision landing
system called GLS, or Global Positioning
Satellite Landing System, that will
dramatically change approach and
departure infrastructure at airports over
the next decade.
Unveiled by Qantas, which has
been using the system in flight tests for
months, GLS will ultimately make the
existing instrument landing system (ILS)
redundant with huge environmental and
operating cost benefits.
“This is a new precision landing
system using satellite technology to
make landings more efficient, accurate and,
ultimately, environmentally friendly,” said
Qantas chief pilot, Captain Chris Manning,
when unveiling details of GLS in Sydney
where it first went into operation.
Honeywell, which provided the groundbased
augmentation system (GBAS)
equipment needed to make a GLS work,
and Airservices Australia, which installed
and now operates it, are working together in
a joint venture bidding for the contract for
two systems for Mumbai and New Delhi
airports in India.
The two have already secured a deal
to install GLS at Tianjin, south west of
Beijing.
“They want to put it in within the next 12
to 18 months, get a feel for it and get the pilots
to use it before they go to a fully operational
system,” said MacPherson.
“Right now we have 127 airports from
Saudi Arabia right through to the Pacific
islands working with us. Saudi Arabia is
planning for 2009. After Mumbai and New
Delhi, India has 34 more airports it wants to
do. China has 134. Hong Kong is talking to
‘We crossed the
threshold with
Qantas and it
just opened up
the floodgates’
Keith MacPherson
Airservices Australia
us at the moment. Malaysia is putting five
systems in by 2009 or 2010. The Philippines
has one going in by 2010. So the ball is well
and truly rolling.”
Why the surge in enthusiasm? “GLS is a
replacement for ILS which has been around
for some 70 years,” said Manning. “It is a
major breakthrough, a major change in what
we do. This is the single biggest gain in the
aviation industry to assist the environment,
other than engine technology.
“GLS provides more accurate and stable
tracking information than conventional
approach systems. It can be coupled to
flexible, curved approach paths providing
more fuel efficient and environmentally
friendly flight paths to the runway.”
Essentially, what GLS does is to allow
aircraft to use global positioning system
(GPS) satellite data for the first time during
landing, something that was not possible
previously because GPS raw data is accurate
only to between 15 and 20 metres and does
not meet the precision landing requirement
of accuracy to at least three metres. The
new GLS system can achieve accuracy to
one metre using a GBAS.
The benefits do not end there. Current
ILS equipment costs around $1 million
each and must be installed at each end of
every runway.
At an airport like Sydney, with three
runways, that means it needs six ILS
systems, which are also costly to maintain
and must be calibrated regularly. A single
GBAS costing some $900,000 can be used
for all runways.
It also provides data for up to 90
approaches within a 23 nautical mile
radius, meaning a single system can
cover all landing approaches in a big city
with a couple of major airports and several
general aviation facilities.
GLS allows for dramatically increased
flexibility, including shorter approach
paths. It also lets airlines manoeuvre more
easily around noise sensitive areas.
Qantas is no newcomer to this kind of
role. In 2003 it was the first airline outside
North America to use GPS capabilities. It
took delivery of the world’s first GLSequipped
aircraft, a B737-800, in May 2005.
Last November it completed the world’s first
GLS landing in revenue service.
At present it operates five to 10 GLS
flights a day and about a third of its B737
fleet is now GLS equipped. The airline’s new
B787s, which begin arriving next year, will
all come with GLS, as will its A380s. The
system is expected to be fully operational at
Sydney by August or September next year
and will then be rolled out at other major
Australian airports.
18 ORIENT AVIATION JULY/AUGUST 2007