WAAS for Australia – you heard it here first!
 

I know this is a rumour network, however here is something based on fact.

I understand the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Warren Truss, is up to speed and a supporter of Australia moving towards the installation of a Wide Area Augmentation System (“WAAS”). It appears that after the European installation costs are coming way down – estimated at only about $50 million which is less than 1.2% of the cost of the original estimated cost of the NBN at $42 billion - and I understand it’s not just for aviation. There are advantages in having WAAS for the farming community, for building roads, for marine applications, geology and lots of other activities.

Of course, the greatest advantage is the aviation safety improvement by preventing CFIT accidents – the most common cause of fatalities by professional pilots. We could see movement on this very soon after the election if the Coalition gets in. After all, John Howard supported the Alice to Darwin railway, which is a typical nation-building project which obviously doesn’t enjoy a short-term economic return but most people would consider is well worthwhile for our future security.

Personally, I will be concentrating my aviation efforts for the next two years on getting a positive decision on this. It seems ridiculous to me that we buy the latest aviation equipment – even an iPhone - and it’s all WAAS equipped but we can’t use it here.

If anyone supports me on this I would like to read your posts here.

Fully support you Dick! I'll be 'commissioning' a GTN750/G3X very soon, it'll be the ducks nuts to use them with WAAS :ok: :D

That's good news.

Guess they'll install WAAS Ground Stations near each capital city?

Will we just send signals up to existing satellites or Australia getting it's own satellites?

Well Carlyle Group who purchased it for 330 million when it cost over a billion of tax payer money to build thought it well worthwhile.

Both Haliburton and Carlyle did very well out of this 'nation building project'.

Not sure Howard would want you associating him with such a diaster.

Hopefully WAAS has better future.....

If this turns out to be true, it is a great and overdue decision. All power to the politicians that get it done.
A lot of discussion in this thread

http://www.pprune.org/pacific-genera...australia.html

It has advantages for many industries.
John

I don't want to dilute this thread, but while we are lobbying, what about adopting a Universal Access Transceiver (UAT) system (978 MHz) for traffic in parallel with the 1090 squiter system?
Thwt way affordsble equipment available and much faster adoption of 2 way Traffic system by GA.

It's about time politicians realised that "regional Australia" is more than 10 miles from the east coast.

I think this is an excellent idea, and for the price seems an absolute bargain. :D

I'd like to know this.

Would we only need 1 satellite to cover the country?

On the basis that this thread was moved from Airline and RPT Rumours & News in Australia, enZed and the Pacific, I guess that airlines in Oz will not be using it and have no interest in it WAAS

At least two satellites for redundancy.. the US currently has 3 for WAAS.

This is great news. Keep onto them Dick and keep us posted.

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Hopefully this will make NDB approaches obsolete and no longer required.

A totally useless system for the international airline industry as the standard adapted internationally is GBAS. This looks like Australian DME revisited.




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Dick, you have an ally here!:ok:

404, stick a GTN750 in your airbus then you'll be able to divert into MIA :ok:

Anything that gives us better more accurate navigation in the bush is good. The further you get from a city the worse maintaince becomes on the old ailing infrastructure to the point that some NDB's the signal is battling to get to the top of the tower let alone transmit.

As new pilots become more reliant on GPS and loose the basic navigation skills(just doesn't seem to be taught nowadays) the truth is more pilots are now getting lost than ever before. RAIMS outages and aircraft fitted with only one GPS, mostly old and outdated and combined with city oriented pilots going bush trying to use phone, IPad as a secondary navagation it really is a disaster waiting to happen. Swiss cheese theory, can see the holes lining up!

So long as it is accurate, reliable, has outage contingencies in place so we are not left without a signal Australia wide, I say bring it on.

Would that be the NDB flown by the autopilot from the database in VNAV and LNAV? ;)

Qantas doesn't need it as it already does RNP-ARs.

Hopefully the system and training requirements for LPVs aren't as onerous...

Do the standard LNAV minimums come down a bit with WAAS?

Jack Ranga

The problem with WAAS is that it is area specific because it is terrestrial based where as GBAS because the correction is space based will be available everywhere. I will give my left nut if WAAS will be available outside Australian capital cities because of the extremely short sightedness of the regulator and successive federal governments. So I doubt very much WAAS will be any use to you and me going into MIA where as GBAS would allow ILS type approaches into places like MIA and most bush strips if they are properly surveyed and also LVP/LVO approaches and auto landings at properly equipped airports. It is also worth noting no Boeing or Airbus is equipped with WAAS including the A350. B787, B747-8, A350 and A380 are though fitted with GBAS. The main driving force behind WAAS worldwide appears to be the business jet community who have little use for ILS type approaches into bush strips. Finally GBAS is far cheaper to introduce because it is all space based requiring far less infrastructure than WAAS for a far greater return on investment.

It's been a while since I've been reading WAAS material, I was under the impression that only one or two ground stations would be required Australia wide?