if just 10% of the low-altitude maneuvers that are now occurring in the U.S. were eli
Inside Avionics
IN A NEW CONTRACT FROM AIRSERVICES AUSTRALIA
Aviation Week & Space Technology
09/11/2006, page 60
Edited by David Hughes
IN A NEW CONTRACT FROM AIRSERVICES AUSTRALIA, Sensis Corp. will supply multistatic dependent surveillance over Tasmania, with coverage down to the ground at Hobart and Launceston airports. The system initially will provide en route surveillance with multilateration and Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, with accuracy of better than 150 meters (490 ft.). Full-scale operations will begin in 2008, and maintenance will be simplified for the Australians with a Sensis remote control and monitoring system. Multilateration works by timing the arrival of transponder signals at a series of antenna sites and then triangulating the aircraft's position based on time differences in signal arrival. With ADS-B, aircraft broadcast their position to receivers on the ground based on GPS and other sensor data. The Asia-Pacific region is a leader in deploying this new technology. For example, Sensis rival Rannoch Corp. recently completed a similar system over the Taiwan Strait for the Taiwan Civil Aviation Authority (AW&ST Aug. 7, p. 57). And Airservices Australia and SITA are demonstrating an ADS-B system in Indonesia (AW&ST Mar. 13, p. 53).
UPS Pioneers ADS-B
Aviation Week & Space Technology
11/06/2006, page 56
David Hughes
On Board UPS 903
Cargo carrier UPS plans to save fuel and improve runway safety next year
Printed headline: ADS-B PIONEER
Years before ADS-B became a top priority at the FAA, UPS installed the equipment on its flight decks. And the package carrier plans to build on this foundation in 2007 with major advances on its Boeing 757 and 767 fleet.
The FAA is fortunate to have a big U.S. airline pushing ahead aggressively with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast because getting other carriers to buy new avionics will remain a key challenge for the agency. The UPS effort may encourage others to follow suit, once the benefits of such operations are demonstrated.
UPS 767s have a 5.5 X 4.5-in. cathode ray tube to display ADS-B target aircraft. A triangle (lower center of CDTI at left) shows "own-ship" position. The position of other ADS-B-equipped aircraft are also depicted, such as UPS 350 (noted in green at top center of display). Targets are also spotted by the 767's TCAS. Credit: UPS
This Aviation Week & Space Technology pilot recently rode in the jump seat of a UPS 767 freighter from Los Angeles to Louisville, Ky., to observe the existing ADS-B displays in use on the flight deck. And a month later, in Phoenix, I was briefed on new software in development that will enable the major step forward that UPS intends to take next year with ADS-B (see p. 60). Aviation Communication & Surveillance Systems (ACSS), a joint venture of L-3 Communications and Thales, is testing this software at its Arizona laboratory.
The UPS operations room at Los Angeles International Airport is in a cargo warehouse. James F. Haney, a UPS 757/ 767 captain, who would be in the left seat during takeoff, briefed me on what to expect. He said more than a dozen UPS freighters would be taking off from the West Coast just before dark headed for the company's WorldPort hub at Louisville International Airport. These are critical flights for the nightly UPS operations. Since the East Coast time zone is 3 hr. ahead of California, many of the freighters were already en route to Kentucky from the Atlantic seaboard.
But the package-sorting operation at Louisville would not be finished until the West Coast airplanes arrived. Only then could the final loading of 100 or more freighters on the ground be completed so they could be dispatched to cities all over the U.S.
This is an environment where delays of just a few minutes are significant. So I began to see why UPS is forging ahead with improved ADS-B capability.
UPS's 757s and 767s are already equipped with 5.5 X 4.5-in. CDTI (cockpit display of traffic information) systems originally supplied by a UPS-owned avionics company that's now owned by Garmin (see display, above left). But UPS plans to retrofit this entire fleet of aircraft with Class 3 electronic flight bags with displays to the left of the pilot and to the right of the first officer.
The current setup provides closure rate and distance to other UPS aircraft in the West Coast stream that have the same ADS-B equipment. These aircraft broadcast their GPS-derived positions continuously via 1090 MHz. on the extended squitter function of a Mode-S transponder. We were able to receive the information via line of sight, up to about 150-200 naut. mi. away. This helped us guide our arrival at Louisville as the West Coast stream of freighters lined up for landing.
Haney is a volunteer on the Independent Pilots Assn.'s safety committee and is active in the UPS pilot union's effort to work with the company to implement ADS-B. He maintains an Internet forum where IPA pilots can ask technical questions about ADS-B and receive prompt answers. He believes he can make a contribution to the program based on what he sees as a pilot flying the company's aircraft every day.
Soon, we were in the 767 cockpit. Haney occupied the left seat and Capt. Jack Blake, the right. The CDTI system has a dedicated but small cathode ray tube on the pedestal in front of the throttle quadrants. Haney said it looked like cargo loading was not complete, and we would probably have to depart a few minutes late--an event that would definitely draw the attention of the UPS air operations center in Louisville.
The CDTI system also has a traffic conflict function that monitors all ADS-B transmitting aircraft. This feature would alert us to any conflict by changing the target aircraft color to yellow--but there would be no avoidance maneuvers communicated to the pilot, as is the case with TCAS (which is also installed on the aircraft).
Aviation Communication & Surveillance Systems is creating SafeRoute ADS-B software for UPS. In this runway-incursion example, "own ship" (pink triangle) shows that the aircraft has crossed the hold-short line for Runway 29 (outlined in red to warn pilot) where another aircraft is taking off (colored red as a warning). An audio alert sounds.Credit: ACSS
Eventually we pushed back from our parking spot a few minutes behind schedule because of late-arriving packages. But UPS dispatchers always plan for this, and we were carrying a little extra fuel so we could speed up to make up time on the way to Louisville. We could see a few other ADS-B-equipped airline aircraft on the ground on the CDTI display. Haney noted that airlines taking delivery of new aircraft off the production line often receive them equipped to transmit "ADS-B out" data to other aircraft. He also pointed out that the situational awareness provided by ADS-B could be a lifesaver if another aircraft approaches from behind where it can't otherwise be seen.
We were cleared for takeoff on the 12,000-ft.-long Runway 25R, and soon the 767 was airborne headed out over the Pacific Ocean. ATC soon began to turn us back to the east. The aircraft's takeoff weight of about 300,000 lb. included about 35 tons of cargo. It got dark quickly as we pointed the nose away from the setting Sun.
Although we could not see them yet on the ADS-B display, we knew that UPS freighters were also launching about this time from Long Beach, San Diego, Burbank, Sacramento and Oakland, Calif., among other airports along the coast. Soon we spotted UPS 905 about 5,000 ft. above us and traveling about 50 kt. faster. That aircraft had just departed from Long Beach. Haney said we would be following 905 all the way to Louisville. The CDTI system would show closure rates when the aircraft ahead entered into a 40-deg.-wide cone off the nose of our aircraft.
The CDTI display has two symbols, and the bullet-shaped one indicated we were not receiving a "quality" ADS-B signal from the traffic ahead. This could have been caused by poor position data on the target or sporadic reception of the signal. Even so, it's possible to see the aircraft ahead or behind on the display, as well as how far away it is. However, when a "quality" signal is present, a chevron-shaped symbol appears instead. Data next to the chevron shows the target aircraft identification, its altitude relative to "own-ship," and whether it's climbing or descending. And when the pilot selects a chevron to retrieve more data, the other aircraft's flight identification, weight class, ground speed in knots, and range in nautical miles are shown in the lower left of the CDTI display.
In addition to presenting ADS-B aircraft, the CDTI can show TCAS-equipped targets as well. Two different perspectives can be selected for presentation on the CDTI: One is a full compass rose with own-ship represented by a triangle in the middle of the display. On this type of presentation, it's possible to see other freighters behind as well as ahead. The other perspective is the top half of the compass rose showing an enlarged view of the path ahead.
On this night, UPS was not running any trial of its future goal--en route merging and spacing of its freighters so they arrive in the Louisville area single-file and ready to begin continuous-descent approaches in sequence.
"Consistency is one thing that gets you [more] capacity," said Bob Hilb, UPS's advanced flight systems manager. In an earlier discussion, he said the aim is to drive in much closer to the big UPS hub before pulling the throttles to near idle and coming down fairly quickly to touch down within seconds of the expected arrival time.
This tactic avoids the problem of descending to low altitude and being vectored around by ATC as controllers work to line up aircraft with the right spacing for landing. "All of that low-attitude vectoring is pure cost and no benefit at all," Hilb said, adding that if just 10% of the low-altitude maneuvers that are now occurring in the U.S. were eliminated, most airlines would be making a profit.As we arrived near Louisville at around 2 a.m. on a clear night, our aircraft was sequenced into a pattern approach to the airport. We could see lights ahead as other aircraft flew wide downwind and base legs to final. The "good news" was that there was not a lot of low-altitude vectoring, as might have been required during low visibility.
And this revealed another benefit of ADS-B: If visibility had been deteriorating, we would still have been able to see all of the other UPS aircraft on the CDTI display. This might have allowed us to maintain visual-flight-rule type of separation even in instrument conditions. Some of the regulations that would apply to such situations have yet to be ironed out by the FAA, although the agency is working on this issue.
Haney said the CDTI display helped him to plan his approach and the required configuration changes, such as when to extend the gear and flaps. Blake showed me how he used the 5-mi.-range rings to keep better track of how far behind the lead aircraft we were. The aim was to stay about 5 mi. in trail.
We finished the night with a visual approach to Runway 35L at Louisville, and wasted no time taxiing to park near a row of other UPS freighters. Ground handlers scurried around tending to aircraft and loading cargo. We taxied right up to a huge warehouse, and our packages were soon inside being sorted for the outbound leg.
Haney and I walked inside the UPS flight-ops room to check the schedule of outbound flights scrolling by on digital screens. Then we had a post-midnight cup of coffee in the cafeteria, where pilots and flight engineers relax for a few minutes while they wait to launch back into the night for the next leg of their journey.
By next year, the operation should be even more precise and timely, thanks to the pioneering ADS-B efforts of the management and union pilots leading the way at UPS.
So tell me again why we dont have universal use of ADSB?