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The Future of the Flight Inspection World A Crystal Ball Look into changes ahead , based on current trends and developments
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Copyright Year | 2006 |
| Abstract | The Flight Inspection community is faced with a variety of changes that will have a significant impact on the way we will execute our profession in the nearas well as in the long-term future. The following paper tries to address some of these changes and their potential impact on our industry. The most apparent change will come from the implementation of PRNAV/RNP. Apart from shifting the focus from calibrating signals in space to a more procedure design verification and database integrity process, one of the interesting questions for flight calibration organisations will be to see which system(s) will be introduced as a backup to the primarily GNSS-based PRNAV / RNP concept. Different options are currently under discussion (DME/DME, INS, LORAN), which all will have a marked impact on the technical and operational aspects of a flight inspection unit. The paper continues with an outlook to future developments in navigational systems. Here, so called Enhanced Vision Systems (EVS) and Synthetic Vision Systems (SVS) systems showed great progress in the last two years. The author investigates how this might translate into future navigational and procedure concepts and their associated calibration requirements. The paper then switches to future trends in Flight Inspections Systems. Under ever increasing cost and efficiency pressure, further miniaturization will become even more important. The resulting aspects in crew number and airframe size are discussed. Finally, in this context, the author addresses the issue of so the called Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), which made significant progress over the last years, and investigates their potential for the flight inspection role. IMPACT OF PRNAV / RNP The aviation industry is currently at the doorstep of introducing a major change of its navigational infrastructure with the introduction of the Precision Area Navigation / Required Navigation Performance (PRNAV / RNP) concept. A quick word on terminology: PRNAV and RNP are not yet internationally harmonized terms. Different authorities and entities, FAA; ICAO and EUROCONTROL, still use slightly different definitions and acronyms, which are not always 100% compatible. Table 1 below gives a first impression as just how opaque the current terminology picture still is: Table 1: Current terminology and acronyms in use. Source: Fitzsimons / AIN To cover all these different aspects of terms and definitions would go far beyond the scope of this paper. For details the interested reader might turn to the appropriate literature listed under the reference at the end of this paper.[1] For ease of communication, this author uses the term PRNAV / RNP in the context of a navigational concept, which main characteristic is a shift in the required navigational performance provided from discrete navigational aids on the ground to onboard navigation solutions, based on, primarily spaced-based, navigational systems, like GPS. Before this paper addresses the impact of this paradigm shift on the Flight Inspection Community and its Flight Inspection Service Providers (FISPs), we should have a short look at the background of the PRNAVV / RNP concept and its underlying implications and open issues. BACKGROUND OF PRNAV / RNP / OPEN ISSUES The main rationale behind the introduction of PRNAV / RNP was twofold: 1. Increase airspace capacity by safely reducing separation minima, based on improved navigational performance of the air traffic 2. cost savings by eliminating / reducing ground based navigational aids Space-based navigational systems, and here primarily GPS, have always been regarded, more or less, as the main components of this new concept. And GPS has indeed been a major break-through: it provides a low-cost, world-wide navigational service with unprecedented precision. It quickly conquered the aviation community, and today is a major, indispensable part of that industry. With the potential of space-based navigational systems clearly identified, other nations or group of nations started to develop their own systems: Russia stated its GLONASS system more or less at the same time as the USA introduced GPS. After years of neglect, the Russian government just recently vowed to restart investment into the system, with the aim to have GLONASS in full operational mode around 2012. The Europeans created their own system, GALILEO, and after the usual hiatus of multi-national projects over cost, control, work-share and related issues, a pre-production satellite (GIOVE A) has successfully been launched at the end of 2005. A second test vehicle is to follow soon, with the aim of having all space vehicles in place, and reaching full operational capability, by 2011. So, in the near to mid future, aviation will be able to rely on 3 different spaced-based navigational systems, a fact that initiated a change in nomenclature as well as today we talk about GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) rather than GPS. In the wake of the euphoria surrounding the introduction of GPS in the operational world in the 1980s, Air Navigation Providers and authorities worldwide were quick in drawing up plans to retire their ground based navigational system, and switch to GNSS completely, envisioning significant cost savings in the process. Both the FAA as well as the German DFS, for instance, in their Radio Navigation Master Plans of 1996, stipulated the complete withdrawal of all conventional navigational aids, including ILS Cat III, by 2010. Now, only 4 years away from that deadline, it is fairly evident that this will not happen, and the appropriate Master Plans have been revised accordingly. What caused that change? The Future of the Flight Inspection World A Crystal Ball Look into changes ahead, based on current trends and developments 192 06T0935_IFIS_PRG_164-216.qxd 31/05/06 10:42 Page 192 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://icasc.co/sites/faa/uploads/documents/resources/14th_int_flight_inspection_symposium/The_Future_of_the_Flight_Inspection_World.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
