1 Manchester Airport’s Electronic Flight Progress Strip systems were upgraded with Departure Plan- ning Information software earlier this year. Other UK regional airports are following suit. Manchester Airport 2 Time Based Separation was introduced at London Heathrow in March. NATS estimates the technology could save 80,000 minutes of delays per year at the hub. Airops1/AirTeamImages AI .08.15 97 AI .08.15 96 controllers’ screens with what NATS calls “dynamic wind indicators”, but there is no modification to arrivals procedures. Flights continue to be radar-vectored on to final approach with the same speeds. Real Time Information NATS isn’t the only organisation to introduce new ATM technology in the UK. Transport Systems Catapult, the UK Government- backed transport innovation centre, is leading a project called Departure Planning Information (DPI) working alongside NATS, airports and the regulator. Using software developed by Nav Canada, DPI provides real time information about a flight’s status on the ground just prior to departure. It enables air traffic controllers in the airport towers to send departure information messages with accurate take-off time predictions to the European Network Manager. The system issues real-time progress updates from when an aircraft is cleared for pushback to when it’s taxiing and when it has taken off. Crucially, the information is then sent to the air traffic network managers, giving them a more accurate picture of departure times. The Transport Systems Catapult acted as a broker to secure funding from the Department for Transport to introduce the software at a number of UK airports. ccording to Civil Aviation Authority figures, 2.1 million flights travel through UK controlled airspace annually. That number is predicted to grow to three million per year by 2030, which means there’s greater attention on how to move flights through the country’s air traffic network efficiently. As the UK’s aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is at the heart of this process with its Future Airspace Strategy (FAS) to introduce more direct routings, optimise runway operations and use advanced air traffic management (ATM) technology. The CAA believes this will yield fuel, emissions and time savings for airlines and release more airspace for other users. The FAS is being developed and deployed in line with the European Commission’s Single European Sky project, which seeks to simplify and harmonise air traffic control throughout Europe. Work currently under way to achieve the goals of the FAS was highlighted during the Imagine Festival in Milton Keynes in June. During a presentation Phil Roberts, the CAA’s Head of Airspace, Air Traffic Management and Aerodromes, said: “What we’ve tried to do with FAS is get the airports, airlines and air traffic services providers to align their individual investment plans, so the air traffic control system has got the ability to use new technology to the best effect.” Arrivals Management NATS, the UK’s air navigation services provider (ANSP), is naturally playing a significant role in this process (see Clever Control, November 2014 p64-69). Its initiatives include iFACTS, a software tool that enables air traffic controllers to calculate flight path trajectories more accurately, continuous descent operations for more efficient routings, and the Cross Border Arrival Management System (XMAN) for London Heathrow XMAN uses open data exchange technology to improve information transfer between NATS and adjacent European ANSPs. Sharing data regarding delays in the holding stacks at Heathrow means flights approaching UK airspace can absorb any delays while still cruising, with the result that they hold in the stack for less time and save fuel and emissions. Time Based Separation NATS’ latest technology initiative is Time Based Separation (TBS), introduced at Heathrow in March. Airports usually use fixed-distance separations for arrivals. But when headwinds increase, an aircraft’s ground speed reduces, which lowers the landing rate and lengthens holding times – a major issue at Heathrow, which runs at 98% capacity. TBS, developed by NATS in conjunction with Lockheed Martin, uses real-time data downlinked from the radar aboard arriving aircraft to calculate the wind speed on final approach. This data provides updates to controllers and generates a time separation equivalent to the distance separation in a 5-7kts (9-12km/h) headwind. Fundamental to the system’s development was a five-year study at Heathrow that used LIDAR (light detection and ranging) remote sensing equipment into how wake vortices on final approach disperse. The research showed a vortex decays faster if headwinds increase, and enabled Lockheed Martin and NATS to develop new rules for separation minima that account for both headwinds and an aircraft’s wake vortex category. Time Based Separation reduces the separation between arrivals if the headwind strengthens and increases it when there is a tailwind or little wind. Separations are therefore managed ‘dynamically’; either increased or reduced as conditions dictate, to best optimise arrivals. The separations are visualised on TECHNOLOGY UK AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL UK AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL TECHNOLOGY New technologies to boost air traffic efficiency are being introduced in the UK, as Mark Broadbent reports 1 2