SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE SKIES FRIENDLIER
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has awarded a $9 million dollar contract to Honeywell International, Inc. and Aviation Communications & Surveillance Systems to test and install satellite-based ADS-B (Automated Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) systems to help improve runway safety. Considering airports are are still using the radar systems developed during World War II, government encouragement to improve technology could not have come soon enough.
With present-day radar, pilots rely on air traffic controllers and a see-and-avoid strategey that literally entails looking out the window to avoid wandering in the way of - or colliding with - other aircraft on the runways. By constrast, ADS-B provides a full-color, topographical map on a computer screen and shows where the pilot's plane is, where other planes are, and the weather systems around them. ADS-B essentially gives the pilot "an extra set of eyes" according to Terry von Thaden, a professor in the Institute of Aviation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
ADS-B's ability to update in real-time is especially important on runways where there are many planes in close proximity. Commercial airline traffic is expected to top one billion passengers anually by 2016 (compared with 769 million in 2007); this increase will result in more aircraft than ever taxiing, taking off and landing on airport runways, so improved technology to help out our pilots will be more important than ever.
Alaska tested out ADS-B technology in a 1999 to 2006 joint venture between industry and the FAA. Accidents decreased by a whopping 47%. Not only does ADS-B improve safety, but it is also expected to increase airline eficiency and help the environment by enabling more tightly spaced landings and reducing time spent in holding patterns (which can save between 40 and 70 gallons of fuel per landing).
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And not only do we get an extra hour of sleep, but a newly published