States should be Made to Pay
On 09/12/2011, in Viewpoint, by cleo
When I read about the Paris-Toulouse flight conducted by Air France to show how much CO2 emission they can save by optimized air traffic management including continuous descent approaches, my immediate reaction was not happiness about saving the planet. No sir, my reaction was: here is the best source of funds to pay ATM developments with, including aircraft equipment.
For decades, airlines were (and still are by the way) obliged to fly uneconomical routes, circumnavigate military areas, stay on sub-optimal levels because of outdated letters of agreements between control centers, fly obsolete departure routes… the list is endless. Politicians have paid lip service to wanting to improve ATM but did little to actually implement really effective improvements. Just look at EATCHIP, ATM2000+ and the political statements associated with them and compare to what had actually been done. Hell, the first wave of SESAR “improvements” are little more than what should have been accomplished by ATM2000+ years ago.
By inaction and omission, European States have caused billions of extra costs to the airlines and by proxy to their customers, the passengers. If anyone had any doubts that it could have been done much better, just look at the improvements that are suddenly appearing in air traffic management, driven by environmental considerations but still using much the same ATC equipment that was there also 10 years ago!
Click here to read the full article
Commission Report Puts the Lie to Claims that ATM is in Great Shape
On 26/11/2011, in SESAR's Palace, by cleo
Regular readers of Roger-Wilco know that we have been sounding alarm bells over the European ATM situation and the even brighter future that some reports would make us believe is just around the corner. We did not make many friends with this kind of reporting… of course. It is much nicer to believe that all is well even when the plane is crashing. But we were not reporting unfounded facts. Our sources are better than most…
And now a press release from the European Commission finally brings to light just how bad the situation really is.
The “traffic light” assessments published today by the Commission – based on two progress reports – highlight serious cause for concern in relation to two major elements which go to the heart of the Single European Sky project: the performance scheme and the functional airspace blocks.
Only 5 out of 27 Member States (Belgium, Denmark, Lithuania, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) get a “green light” and are on track to meet both targets (for cost and capacity/delays) for the period 2012–14. The Commission has issued recommendations asking Member States to revise these targets. If necessary the Commission could adopt a binding decision requesting the Member State(s) concerned to implement specific corrective measures, although a short time remains available for the targets to be met without recourse to this action.
Existing plans by Member States would fail to meet the EU-wide capacity target of 0.5 minute delay per flight in 2014. If this target were achieved, some €920 million would be saved over 2012–14 due to fewer and shorter delays.
In addition, national performance plans would miss the EU-wide target for ATM cost efficiency by 2.4% in 2014. This would have a a major impact, both on airspace users and on the credibility of the Single European Sky. To meet the target, additional measures are needed to achieve a €250 million saving over the entire three-year reference period (2012–14).
Well, this is not exactly the bright picture that States and ANSPs would want the industry to see. Keep in mind also that all this is happening after the failure of EATCHIP and ATM2000+. I hope you are not going to say now that SESAR will be different. SESAR may be but the rest of the environment is not….
But there is more.
The great Functional Airspace Block fiasco.
Click here to read the full article
Airbus to support FAA Greener Skies Initiative with ATM expertise
On 25/11/2011, in Environment - Without hot air, by steve
Airbus has been selected to provide Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Performance Based Navigation (PBN) expertise for the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Greener Skies Initiative. As part of Boeing’s FAA System Engineering 2020 (SE-2020) team, Airbus will identify procedures which fully utilize aircraft precision navigation capabilities to reduce fuel burn, lower emissions and decrease noise.
The Greener Skies initiative seeks to improve ATM efficiency and to minimize the environmental impact on the ground and in the air through the expanded use of PBN including Required Navigation Performance (RNP), area navigation (RNAV), and Optimized Profile Descents (OPD).
The industry consortium includes Adacel, Airbus, Boeing, Cessna and Honeywell, and is tasked with establishing methods for the full implementation of PBN by utilizing advanced flight deck and Air Traffic Control (ATC) capabilities while analyzing new policies and procedures. Airbus subsidiary Quovadis will provide PBN consultancy and implementation expertise for the initiative. Seattle will be used as a key site to enable these initial advanced operational capabilities to be introduced into the US National Airspace System (NAS). Click here to read the full article
NextGen and SESAR – is this a race???
On 16/11/2011, in NextGen, by steve
For the past several years news from the US repeatedly mentioned how the FAA was teetering on the brink of running out of money while Congress was debating the so-called FAA reauthorization bill. At one point the Agency actually shut down for a few days while extra funds were made available for them.
Of course this unholy situation was anything but helpful for NextGen, the FAA’s flagship project aiming to modernize the ATM system in the US. However, after all this wrangling, there is light at the end of the tunnel… and it is not the train that is coming!
A bill that would finally settle the funding issue will probably be on the President’s desk by Christmas. This was announced recently on the occasion of the opening of the renovated NextGen Test Bed at the Daytona Beach International Airport in Florida. This airport is famous among others for being the home-base of the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
The bill in question will provide a four-year blueprint for the development of NextGen and will eliminate any reauthorization issues for the FAA during this time. Congressman John Mica, when talking about the bill, highlighted the fact that it includes deadlines, incentives to attract private money into the project and also a streamlining of the FAA processes used to certify new technology.
FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said that “NextGen will be more convenient, more dependable and it will improve safety and efficiency all at the same time.”
More surprisingly, it seems that there is a belief in some US circles that if the US gets NextGen up and running before Europe’s SESAR is ready, the US stands to reap important economic benefits. They believe that whoever sets the protocols and standards will also win he world market. The same people indicated that in their view, the US is ahead of Europe in this “race”.
Click here to read the full article
Outdated Mentality Slows ATM Progress
On 07/11/2011, in Viewpoint, by steve
I am sure Jane’s Airport Review will forgive me for picking the title of one of their articles but it was so stunning, I could not resist the temptation.
It looks like October was a month of bad news from the world of ATM and I am starting to get a terrible feeling of déjà vu… again.
Back in the times of EATCHIP and ATM2000+ meeting after meeting we were banging the tables, telling anyone who would listen that air traffic management modernization was not rocket science, the technology aspect was almost a no-brainer compared to the kind of cultural change that was necessary on the part of all stakeholders but from ANSPs and airlines most of all, if we were to get anywhere.
When EATCHIP was faltering, ATM2000+ came along and this latter was even signed off by the ECAC Ministers of Transport and what happened? Nothing… or anyway very little compared to the lofty aims defined originally. After a few horrible summers, it was 9/11 and the ensuing economic slump that saved the day. The ATM system would have collapsed had the 5 % year on year traffic demand increase actually materialize.
Then NextGen in the US and the Single European Sky and SESAR in Europe came along. This time it was going to be different… We are well into those programs and here is what we have learned in this black October of the year 2011.
As reported in Aviation Week, the FAA’s En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) is turning into a major embarrassment. It is four years late and may in fact slip by another two years while the cost is already 330 million bucks over the original budget and it may go to 500 million… ERAM is an essential step in getting NextGen operational, even if ERAM itself is not a NextGen element as such.
Click here to read the full article
Technologists vs. Economists
On 21/10/2011, in Managers' corner, by steve
It is not a secret that some people considered Boeing’s decision to forego the New Small Aircraft and follow Airbus’ lead in re-engining their existing product a poor one and something that will delay the appearance of a really novel aircraft by a decade if not more. I must confess that I am one of those who would have loved to see the two airframers rush to bring the single-aisle of the future to market.
Commenting on the same subject in a recent issue of Aviation Week, Richard Aboulafia , VP for analysis at the Teal Group, while approving the Boeing decision, divided the world in two groups of people. There are the Technologists and the Economists.
For Technologists, “aviation is a technology driven business, with new equipment stimulating demand and therefore creating its own market”. Economists on the other hand “view technology as a means to an end: profit”. He also points out that most airlines and aircraft companies are run by Economists.
Reading this very interesting article, I stopped to do some soul searching. Which camp did I really belong to?
Some years ago, still as an assistant director infrastructure at IATA, I was called to hold afternoon-length sessions for ATC supervisors at EUROCONTROL’s school in Luxemburg with the aim of outlining to them what the airline industry wanted from air traffic management in the future. I usually started out shocking them by the statement: airlines were just a business and air traffic management must behave in a way that facilitates that business. By proxy, ATC was just a part of a complicated business environment.
I have also often argued for having a business case for just about everything… New channel spacing? Business case. Air/ground digital link services? Business case. Mode S Enhanced Surveillance? No, I did not want that even if there was a business case (there never has been, not a credible one anyway).
Click here to read the full article
Alternate Position, Navigation and Timing (APNT) – What is this?
On 19/09/2011, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
In any conversation about satellite navigation and the use of enablers like GPS, talk inevitably shifts to the risks and the ease with which GPS for instance can be jammed. It is easy to sketch doomsday scenarios with a full-scale GPS outage once NextGen and SESAR are operational, making the industry essentially dependent on signals from space. The response is alternating between brushing away the risk or suggestions that satellite navigation is perhaps not the best path for the future of air traffic management.
The fact of the matter is, there have been cases where the GPS signal was effectively unusable in certain parts of the US, with the duration of the incidents varying between 1 hour and 72 hours. The incidents were all traceable to temporary adverse conditions but it is only a matter of time before malicious intent will join the list of causes. There is certainly no shortage of cheap but effective jammer devices, some of which fit inside a cigarette box.
Adverse conditions may arise for example as a result of meteorological or space-based phenomena or trucks passing near the location of an antenna situated in a crammed environment. Portable jammers may be activated anywhere…
One of the main attractions of the move to a space based ATM paradigm is the potential cost saving offered by the chance to eliminate the ground navigation infrastructure. The vulnerabilities of the space based system at the same time require that measures be introduced that cost-effectively mitigate the risks posed by those vulnerabilities.
Air navigation service providers the world over are obliged to set up a system that enables them to continue providing the services required even in the case of various contingencies. No-break power supplies, robust, redundant communications lines, contingency control rooms and the ability to transfer control to neighboring centers in case of a full scale failure or natural catastrophe are just a few examples of routine measures in place to soften the impact of contingencies.
In the past, the failure of a VOR/DME serving a busy intersection, failure of an ILS serving a busy runway or total equipment failure on board a single aircraft were serious events and made both controllers and pilots sweat but it was hardly the end of the world.
Click here to read the full article
Air Traffic Control – Your Safety in the Air? Or something more…
On 13/09/2011, in ATC world, by steve
Back in the early 70s I was the vice-president of the Hungarian Air Traffic Controllers’ Association (HATCA) and we were busy searching for a good slogan for the association. In the end, we decided to use an adapted version of the slogan put out by the Canadians: “Air Traffic Control means you will have a safe flight”. The HATCA version became: “Air Traffic Control – Your safety in the air”.
Many many years later, when I was working in the airline Project Coordination Platform supporting the SESAR definition phase I introduced the idea of the “business trajectory”. This term referred to the trajectory defined by an airline, the one they wanted to fly and which best expressed their business intentions in relation to the flight concerned.
While the airlines really liked the idea, there was an immediate outcry from the controllers involved in the definition phase. How could I mention the term “business” in the same sentence with trajectory and air traffic control! ATC was there to ensure safety and business had nothing to do with it.
Recalling my time as HATCA president, I did not blame them. After all, when we were looking for the logo, we too highlighted safety as the aim of ATC and the word “business” did not cross our minds. We did this in spite of the fact that ICAO has been saying right from the start that the aim of air traffic services was to maintain a safe and efficient flow of air traffic.
Of course a lot has changed since then and while the importance of safety has not diminished, the relative importance of efficiency has grown tremendously. It is not an exaggeration to say that safety and efficiency are equally important if this industry is to survive. Concentrating mainly on safety is not enough by far… Our thinking must change so that the terms “safety” and “business” may coexist peacefully in our minds.
While the awareness to maintain safety is generally high in the ATM world, the business aspect still tends to be considered a necessary evil, even an affront to people anointed, after all, to uphold safety.
Click here to read the full article
It is not easy to work with the airlines – Why the SJU should be careful
On 07/09/2011, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
Having airspace users on board in SESAR is an important development by anyone’s measure. Thinking that having individual airlines involved is the same as having the industry involved is a grave mistake that can cost dearly to all concerned.
The signs of trouble are already there. What do you think about there being a hard-won agreement from the airspace users at one or two pretty high level meetings and then the same users withdrawing their agreement just a few weeks later? The result is frustration on the part of the other partners (ANSPs in this case), confusion about where things were going and, worst of all, loss of credibility of the airlines.
It would be easy to wave this away by just saying that the airline people in the meeting were not up to speed with the subjects being discussed and so they agreed to something they did not fully understand. This would be a rather unfortunate situation and no excuse at all but the actual reality is even worse.
The problem is not new and it is called the industry voice, or rather, the lack of it.
Until about a decade ago, IATA had been recognized by its members as the industry voice on all technical aspects of air traffic management. One of the most important, and difficult, tasks of IATA’s experts had been to forge this common voice, bringing together the widely differing interests and business models of the member airlines so that to the outside world only consolidated, well defined requirements were communicated. This was vital because otherwise the ATM and avionics industries would have been totally confused and at a loss as to what they should develop to meet the airlines’ diverse requirements.
Click here to read the full article
When is a FAB not a FAB?
On 09/08/2011, in FAB News, by cleo
We have written quite a lot about the Functional Airspace Blocks (FAB), their dangers and their impact on SESAR.
Although these days most everything is claimed to be happening in the context of the various FABs, the picture is far from ideal. It is not unusual to hear in meetings or in discussions with various ANSP reps that this or that subject is very “sensitive” in their FAB and one should be careful mentioning it. Of course it would have been naïve to think that States who were less than exemplary in working together under the EUROCONTROL umbrella would suddenly turn into sheep and cooperate smoothly within the FAB concept. Parochial thinking and the protection of their own turf remain in place and it will take long and hard work to overcome the old reflexes.
But the FAB concept seems to be evolving in a way its inventors probably never intended. You will have noticed in the news the announcement of various co-operation agreements between Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) being created apparently in parallel with the FABs they are participating in. In spite of the nice words of these new alliances, they begged the question right from the start: why? If the FAB is such a great thing and they are already in it, why form an alliance on top of it.
Now we may have the answer…
Click here to read the full article
Airbus Acquires Metron Aviation
On 27/07/2011, in Just to let you know..., by steve
Airbus has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Metron Aviation, a leading provider of advanced Air Traffic Management (ATM) products and services for the global aviation industry. This acquisition strengthens Airbus’ strategy to accelerate and support ATM programs that will dramatically improve global air transportation capacity, efficiency and environmental sustainability.
The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals, and the acquisition is expected to be completed later this year. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Earlier this year, Airbus launched subsidiary Airbus ProSky, dedicated to supporting the FAA’s Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen), Europe’s Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) and other global ATM modernisation programs.
Click here to read the full article
Enhanced Surveillance of Aircraft and Vehicles – 2011 (ESAV ’11)
On 11/07/2011, in Events, by steve
Island of Capri, Italy 12-14 September 2011
Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems and airport systems are rapidly evolving to meet increased efficiency, safety, security, environmental and business demands. A deep evolution with radical changes of the current Air Traffic Management System is going on both in Europe, with the SESAR program, and in the USA (Nex Gen program). New architectures are needed for modern control and traffic management systems in air and in ground operations, as well as for service vehicles on the airport surface. The related Communications, Navigation and Surveillance (CNS) infrastructures permit enhanced positioning and identification means such as Multilateration (MLAT) and Wide Area MLAT (WAM), automatic dependent surveillance (ADS-B) and automatic vehicles location and management. Radar techniques, including the novel Passive Coherent Location, and Multistatic techniques, still pre-operational or in research phase, permit detection and location of non-cooperating aircraft. Most of these enhanced surveillance means are both spatially and logically distributed.
In this frame, new system architectures and new algorithms for integrity monitoring and for multi-sensor data fusion are required. Security and defense systems use similar algorithms for passive location of targets based on measurements of Time, Doppler frequency, angle/direction.
Following the successful Symposia ESAVS 2007 in Bonn/Germany, ESAV’08 in Capri/Italy and ESAVS 2010 in Berlin/Germany, ESAV’11 is dedicated to provide up-to-date information to researchers, operational experts and decision makers in the world of sensors and systems development, tracking, sensor data fusion, avionics and airport operations as well as of the pertaining air traffic control procedures.
You can find the ESAV web-site here. Click here to get the printable announcement.
Pioneering and progressing: Assessing the progress of SESAR with Florian Guillermet
On 06/07/2011, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
The SESAR programme was launched on 3 June 2009. Now almost two years since its launch, It’s a good time to take stock of the status of the programme’s 300 projects, assess progress in the execution of the first SESAR release and the first project deliverables. In a short interview, Florian Guillermet, SESAR JU Chief Programme Officer, gives his evaluation of the programme and the first release, and looks at some of the challenges facing SESAR in the second half of 2011..
At mid 2011, what is the situation of the SESAR programme in general?
It’s almost time to celebrate the second anniversary of SESAR’s launch, and after two years of hard work we’ve made great progress: the ramp-up phase of the programme is complete and 85% of projects are now in full execution mode; the first concrete deliverables are arriving; all the programme management processes are now in place; and the programme delivery approach through SESAR Releases has been implemented. In addition, we are now fully integrating airspace users into the programme and they will directly participate in the execution of projects. Overall, we are on track…
Click here to read the full article
The significance of services in TITAN
On 17/06/2011, in TITAN, by steve
As you may have heard, TITAN is an EU 7Th Framework project working on improving the predictability and efficiency of the aircraft turnaround. Its name says it all: turnaround integration in trajectory and network. Building on the baseline to be provided by Airport CDM (A-CDM), TITAN will make the details of the turnaround process more visible on a scale much wider than anything in the past. By providing context sensitive information to the various stakeholders enabling them to anticipate problems and take remedial action not only on a timely basis but also commensurate with the problem to be solved.
You can find more information on TITAN here. This article is about a very important characteristic of TITAN, namely its service oriented architecture (SOA). You can read more about SOA here, but to recap briefly, let me say that in this approach the business aspects and the IT aspects of a system are decoupled from each other, with the business aspects driving the IT aspects and not the other way round. This is a major step in the right direction already as in the past the blessings of modern IT were often negated by the limitations they placed on what the business side was able to achieve. The S in SOA stands for “service” and these are traditionally defined for the IT part of course but even more importantly, the business level also gets its set of services. Where do we get those business services from? Usually they are puzzled out from process models but this can result in an unmanageably complex result. By using domain models to deduce a “what do we actually do” model, things are much simplified and the result is actually usable.
But what does this all have to do with TITAN?
Click here to read the full article
The misunderstanding of the decade or sloppy terminology?
On 15/06/2011, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
Buzzwords are powerful things. They can be dropped in speeches and writing almost at random and the casual audience or reader will be suitably impressed. Luckily they seldom bother to ask the author for an explanation of his favorite buzzwords… Our little air traffic management world of to-day has lots of buzzwords but my all time favorite is “performance based”.
Just about everything is performance based these days but I have yet to see a truly convincing definition of what this really means in the ATM context. Mind you, Performance Based Navigation (PBN) is something else again and it does actually have a meaning.
In the SESAR definition phase already we had things like the performance partnership and the performance framework being put forward as the basis of the improved ATM system even if it was still hard to get a good explanation of what was meant by it all…
More recently however buzzworditis mutated into a new and rather disturbing variety while elevating itself to the highest level of the SESAR implementation plan.
Reading the corresponding text we learn that SESASR is progressing from time based operations to trajectory based operations to, eureka, performance based operations!
So what is wrong with this picture?
Click here to read the full article
Functional Airspace Blocks (FAB) – the EC’s biggest blunder?
On 30/04/2011, in FAB News, by pbn
That the EC meant well when they originally came up with the idea of Functional Airspace Blocks (FAB) is not in question. That they did not anticipate the monster they were creating can be put down to the engaging naivety of someone venturing into the jungle of European air traffic management for the first time. That IATA was blind enough to support the FAB concept shows how desperate they were for a solution, any solution, to the continued ills of ATM.
As we head towards a summer promising to be vary bad in terms of delays and in the midst of the general euphoria about FABs and ANSP alliances, it should be interesting to look into the history of the FAB idea and its present reality. If for no other reason then to learn why it will not bring the improvements the industry craves.
Those amongst you with the longest memory will recall EATCHIP and ATM2000+ the two European flagship air traffic management projects which dragged on for years and in spite of Ministers of Transport signatures on the ATM2000+ documents, they delivered very little. We suffered through meeting after meeting, all kinds of new groups were created but in the end, when it came to implementation the deadlines always seemed to slip to a date comfortably in the future. Comfortably for the service providers and frustratingly for the airspace users. Europe was treading water and the industry did not drawn but this was in spite of ATM2000+ rather than because of it.
The European Commission was taking an increasing interest in the problems of air traffic management and seeing that it was not possible to create a truly European project, they decided to take a pragmatic approach when they finally intervened. Enter the Functional Airspace Block or FAB. If you cannot get the whole of Europe to work on a harmonized system, have at least a few groups of ANSPs work together… A nice idea which unfortunately ignored the fundamental problems and realities of European ATM.
The FAB concept was met with a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm. Working together, giving up even a small bit of their independence was anathema to the ANSPs and any idea coming from the EC was suspect to begin with. The first round of the Single European Sky regulations was struggling to take off at about the same time and was kept firmly on the ground for the very same reason…
Then SESAR came along. This was a truly European undertaking working to define a truly European air traffic management system. SESAR’s definition phase was hard going but on that particular battle field it was no longer possible to go against the pan-European solution, so instead the proposed new paradigms and solutions were attacked with the usual gusto.
Click here to read the full article
Aircraft turnaround made visible from a TBO/SOA perspective
On 29/04/2011, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) are two concepts rather new to air traffic management (ATM) and apparently they continue to cause some head scratching when it comes to agreeing what TBO really means or how to define services in the ATM context. In this article I will attempt to explain a few relevant aspects of those concepts and will also try to visualize the concepts using the aircraft turnaround as an example.
Why the aircraft turnaround? Because we see that in spite of the original SESAR Concept of Operations having made clear that the trajectories of flights performed by the same aircraft are in fact always connected via the given airframe, some experts are now laboring to show that this is so and are trying to bring in new constructs to account for this “connection”. The trajectory does go through important metamorphoses during the turnaround and so using that phase of the operation gives us the opportunity to examine TBO and SOA in all their glory.
But first a few basics.
The concept of services.
“Service” is a word that can mean different things depending upon the context in which it is being used. In general, the context is based upon a consumer/supplier relationship. Further, a hierarchy of services can exist with, for example, a high-level service being made up of a number of lower level sub-categories of services. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that the nature, scope and detailed characteristics associated with each service are clear and unambiguous each time it is used, including defining who is supplying what to whom.
Services may be defined from a business perspective or an IT perspective.
Click here to read the full article
Headache
On 06/04/2011, in Perspectives, by steve
Every so often I wake with a splitting headache which is bad enough as it tends to persist the whole day… Even worse however is the rather somber view I have at times like that of our beloved aviation world.
When I think of airports, I see not the runways and the aircraft parked at the gates… I see expensive supermarkets where finding your gate is difficult not because there are so many of them but because you have to wade through shops selling stuff at “tax-free prices” that are still double of what you would pay on Main Street and because the airport will not post the bloody gate numbers until the last minute to keep you in the shopping area that much longer. Very naughty because passengers sometimes forget that they are there to travel and not to make the airport richer with the consequence that they will be late at the gate and possibly delay the flight (or have their baggage unloaded and be left behind). With more and more of their revenue coming from the concessions, who could blame the airports for often concentrating more on selling to the passengers while giving only the minimum they can get away with to their supposedly main customers, the airlines. It is remarkable that one of the main achievements of SESAR will be the full integration of airports into the air traffic management system. I could have sworn aircraft departed from and arrived on runways at airports for decades and that this integration had taken place many years ago. No Sir, that was not the case. Airport operating companies are profit oriented and very competitive and until recently they very successfully kept out of the ATM fold lest their peculiar ideas about operating aircraft be corrupted by “outside” influences. The ideal airline for an airport would be one with no aircraft… The passengers would come to the airport, shop and dine and shop some more and then go home… Aircraft are such a pain in the six o’clock. They are noisy, need a lot of space and their operators are in constant financial stress so the prices the airport can charge is limited. Walking through some airports these days I get the feeling these guys are transforming the facility into a shopping mall and the flying bit is becoming almost incidental.
A few years ago I was crossing the plaza in front of Amsterdam Airport and a guy with a big suitcase approached me with desperation in his eyes: Sir, he asked, where is the airport here? Where indeed!
Click here to read the full article
Can I do CDM alone?
On 01/04/2011, in CDM, by steve
At a recent informal meeting somebody posed an important, and very relevant, question: Is it possible to do collaborative decision making (CDM) alone? The question may sound like a contradiction in terms at first but it is not. And the answer is both yes and no.
First of all, we must remember the First and Second Rules of CDM: “Never make decisions in isolation” and “Always share your decisions”.
Making a decision alone or in isolation are two very different things of course. Not making decisions in isolation does not imply that you must make the decision while interacting with others in real time. In actual fact at a small airport or for a small aircraft operator the CDM environment may be nothing more complicated than having easy access to standard procedures being applied at his own or at remote locations, preparing a list of acceptable options to be selected from in given situations and so on. Armed with such “support” the person making the decision may be alone but still not working in isolation.
Click here to read the full article
Federal Airways Manual of Operations 1941 – Chapter C, Airway Traffic Control Section
On 28/03/2011, in Bookshelf, by steve
The Manual...
I do not know about you but I love old books. If nothing else, thinking about the many people and many hands that have owned and touched such an old volume feels like a travel back in time. But reading some of them and comparing the style and content to our contemporary reality is also an exercise worth undertaking.
It is a pity that so few professional books that were not sold in general bookstores remain. FAA forerunner CAA and other such organizations had many manuals and other interesting publications right from the start but it is rare indeed to find one these days that you can also obtain for your own collection.
It is for this reason that I was so happy when Virginia Volk kindly agreed to share with Roger-Wilco and the readers of our Bookshelf section a real and unique gem, the 1941 edition of the Federal Airways Manual of Operations. You can download the Manual here.
If you are familiar with the ICAO provisions applicable to-day and in particular ICAO DOC 4444, PANS-ATM you will no doubt find this Airways Manual of Operations familiar. This book dates from 1941 and the first edition of ICAO DOC 4444 (at the time called PANS-ATC) saw the light of day in 1946. One of the main inputs had been the material already used extensively in the USA and which you can now add to your treasured relics and ATC mementos.
Click here to read the full article
SWIM – One size does not fit all?
On 24/03/2011, in SWIM, by steve
Whatever the context, this is a very true statement. And I hate it from the bottom of my heart.
Why?
Because in the area closest to my heart, air traffic management, it has been used over the years as the (rather lame) excuse for not harmonizing things, be it implementation dates, system functionality or the working position user interface. The results were inevitably increased costs, missed project deadlines, unachieved goals or goals achieved that were different from what the ATM community needed.
When the concept of a Single European Sky first surfaced, even its name was refreshing as it suggested a departure from the old buzzword and a bright new future where things would finally work to the same gauge everywhere. What a naïve thought…
At the ATM Global conference in Amsterdam recently, the top guy of DSNA, the French air navigation service provider, talking about the Functional Airspace Blocks (FAB), informed his audience that no single FAB would fit all and that FABs were bringing European diversity to SESAR.
It was rather disappointing to hear him use this well worn excuse for Europe’s inability once again to set up a truly single sky! One would have hoped for a more modern (digital?) excuse but that was probably expecting too much…
I got another jolt last night when the SWIM thread on LinkedIn directed my attention to new information on SWIM posted on the SESAR web site. There I found another echo of this hated claim.
Click here to read the full article
FAB brings European diversity into SESAR – the one thing we were all waiting for?
On 12/03/2011, in FAB News, by cleo
The latest issue of ATC Global Insight was nothing if not extremely entertaining. In a previous article Steve described why the reported claim of DSNA’s boss about SESAR having been built on FABs is total nonsense.
But it seems there was more… Insight tells us that Mr. Georges assured his audience that “FAB will bring European diversity” into SESAR. Oh boy!!!!
I hope somebody has misunderstood something here. I know that it is very fashionable to say that Europe’s strength is in its diversity (cultural, language, outlook, temperament and so on) but diversity in air traffic management is not so much a strength as a huge failure.
Click here to read the full article
Interesting people, unusual flight plans…
On 11/03/2011, in Interesting people, by steve
David Allen – Raised in an aviation family in an aviation town
Dave was Chief Engineer, Crew Information Systems at Boeing
What were you dreaming of becoming when you were a kid?
I was raised in an aviation family in an aviation town. I was born and raised for 16 years in Wichita, Kansas. My father was an Industrial Engineer for Boeing, one uncle was a factory manager for Boeing in Philadelphia (previously a P-40 pilot during WWII), another uncle was a Boeing purchasing agent, and another uncle was a B-25 mechanic during WWI. So, I was raised listening to how airplanes were built at the dinner table. I remember going to the Wichita airport when I was around 10 to see my dad off on a trip to Seattle. I got to meet Bill Allen in the airport. So I have always been around aviation whilst growing up. We moved to Seattle for 10 months while my father worked on the TFX program (became the F-111, which Boeing lost). In 1968, we moved to Seattle where he became Director of Industrial Engineering for the new 737.
I digress some here. As I was growing up, my mother always brought up a complaint about one trip my father took right after my little sister was born. He was sent to Seattle for one week. That turned into two weeks, and slowing turned into 6 weeks. I listened to this many times over the years. A couple of years ago, after my mother brought it up again, my Dad asked me if I knew what he did during that time. He was sent up to do an analysis of the Renton plant to figure out how they would build the 737. After a week, he told the VP that there was not enough factory floor space to build the 737. That caused a great panic and he brought some other folks from Wichita. They figured out how to build the fuselage in Wichita and send it by train to Renton. They developed the complete plan and gained approval in that six weeks. Pretty amazing.
However, like most kids, I had no real career plans other than going to college.
If it was not aviation, what moved you to become part of the aviation family?
Click here to read the full article
SWIM in SESAR
On 07/03/2011, in SWIM, by steve
The importance of System Wide Information Management for the future ATM system is undisputed now and luckily it seems that the voices wanting to eliminate the venerable abbreviation SWIM have also lost power.
Within the SESAR Program, 2 work-packages are entrusted with the development of SWIM, WP8 (“Information Management”) and WP14 (SWIM Technical Architecture”), with involvement from EUROCONTROL in both. SWIM is one of the core technical developments in the SESAR Program. It enables data sharing between ATM services across the whole European ATM system. The goal is to improve collaborative decision making and common situational awareness through the provision of quality information to the right people at the right time.
It is foreseen that SWIM will put in place several elements facilitating this improved exchange of information. The first of which -the ATM Information Reference Model (AIRM)- is to be released soon. The dedicated SWIM web pages will provide more details on this and future developments. Furthermore the SWIM LinkedIn Subgroup provides a discussion-forum for all stakeholders who wish to get involved and share their ideas.
Of course this does not mean that SWIM development and implementation will now be smooth sailing. For one, there are still different interpretations of the concept and its scope and some experts even worry that the available network technologies will not be up to the requirements that will be imposed by full scale SWIM implementation. Sadly it is rather quiet on the SWIM Linkedin Subgroup but this does not mean that there is that little to discuss. If nothing else, just read Roger-Wilco’s many articles about SWIM and I am sure you will have plenty to talk about.
Do you really understand – Trajectory based operations (TBO)?
On 04/02/2011, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
There is a misconception in some air traffic management circles that trajectory based operations is simply business as usual except that the current, notoriously imprecise ground generated trajectories are replaced by more accurate, 4 D trajectories and that is all there is to it. Some will add that parts of this 4D trajectory might be sourced from the FMS or an airspace user ground system… While there is truth in all this, TBO is much more. Much much more and significantly, if the other aspects of TBO are not considered, the potential for benefits inherent in TBO is reduced significantly.
So, what is trajectory based operations?
First and foremost we must look at the basis of the existing operation. Air traffic management has grown historically along an airspace based paradigm. Airspace as such was a given so it stood to reason that early ATM experts set out to define airspace volumes which they thought would best fit the traffic they expected and established air traffic control units to fit the task foreseen in those volumes. When aircraft arrived, they were obliged to fly within the confines of the defined airspace and if their needs differed from that envisaged, the aircraft trajectory was bent to fit the picture. Of course this is a bit of an oversimplification but to this day, ATM is being done on this basis.
The end-to-end trajectory played almost no role in this game. To illustrate the point, juts consider that until recently the Central Flow Management Unit calculated expected sector loads on the basis of a trajectory the vertical dimension of which was famously inaccurate while ground ATC systems generated their own trajectories for their own airspace and these often did not tie up with the trajectory dreamed up by the neighboring unit. All this time however scores of experts everywhere worked furiously on airspace design and organization… Only a blind person could fail to see that this legacy, airspace based paradigm had to go if the volume and efficiency demands of increasing traffic were to be met.
Things were not helped at all by the fact that controllers were handing flights as if they were born just outside their sector boundary and went into the big blue yonder when they exited their sector. In other words, they only ever looked at a small part of the trajectory with little regard to what was or was not happening further downstream. Conflict free handover was the almost the only aim.
Because of the way airspace was used in the past, popular ATM wisdom came up with the notion that airspace was a scarce resource and it had to be organized better to save the day. This notion was a dangerous one because for a long time it did divert attention and effort from looking at the real problem. Trajectories…
Click here to read the full article
ICNS 2011 – May 10-12, Herndon, VA., USA
On 02/02/2011, in Events, by steve
Renovating the Global Air Transportation System
The 2011 Integrated Communications Navigation and Surveillance (ICNS) Conference addresses long term research and development as well as early implementation of integrated CNS technologies needed to enable NextGen and SESAR.
The Conference is focused on providing an understanding of CNS programs, longer term plans, standards development, research, and ICNS technologies. As we launch the second decade of the ICNS Conference, we focus on the renovation of the communications, navigation, surveillance, and information technology infrastructure underpinning the migration to a true next generation global air transportation system.
Each day begins with a plenary session.
Click here to read the full article
Airbus now also an air traffic management company
On 05/01/2011, in Shop floor talk, by steve
Several years ago, Boeing was so worried about the sad state of air traffic management in the US and Europe that they actually thought it would adversely impact their customers to the point where they would end up buying fewer aircraft… This was the stated reason for the establishment of Boeing ATM, a new division that was supposed to bring the needed medicine for air traffic management world wide. The initiative was never the success story it could have been, in no small part because of the industry crisis that followed the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Now it seems that Airbus has decided that there was money to be earned in air traffic management and they launched a new subsidiary company, called “Airbus ProSky”, dedicated to the development and support of modern air traffic management (ATM) systems. Airbus ProSky will become the channel through which Airbus will interact and develop ATM programs such as “Single European Sky ATM Research” (SESAR) in Europe, as well as NextGen in the US. In particular, for these two ATM programs, the new company will help accelerate and support the process of their implementation, and link them together by capitalizing on the technological, operational and commercial synergies.
Airbus ProSky will also contribute Airbus’ aviation expertise further afield for other nations by working with their Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs), airworthiness authorities and airlines. This will help them achieve the common goal of transforming their ATM systems with the latest technologies and procedures, to achieve the highest operational efficiencies with more direct routings resulting in around 10 percent less aircraft fuel consumption, and significant reductions in CO2 and noise emissions.
Click here to read the full article
Incentives for Early Airborne CPDLC Equipage
On 13/12/2010, in Shop floor talk, by steve
The LINK 2000+ programme has been working on the definition of incentives schemes for early airborne equipage since 2005. Various creative schemes were explored with stakeholders, such as reduced route charges for those that equip early. However, it proved impossible to get stakeholders to commit to such schemes even though the principles of the route charge system were modified to accommodate them.
Following an economic analysis by the industry consultation body for the Single European Sky, several short-term projects were recommended for funding to accelerate early ATM benefits and to provide the launch pad for SESAR.
Click here to read the full article
Shorter night routes in FABEC – is this an achievement?
On 03/12/2010, in FAB News, by cleo
Working in air traffic management on occasion one gets the impression that a lot of people have very short memories. Take for instance the proud announcement from FABEC (Functional Airspace Block Europe Central) to the effect that as part of the harmonization of European airspace, shorter night routes are being offered on 115 cross-border connections. FABEC as you may know is one of the elements in the new style European airspace fragmentation called FAB. Belgium, France, Germany, Luxemburg, the Netherlands and Switzerland are working together to bring improvements in their “joint” airspace.
The announcement includes the usual claims about the airlines being able to save 800 thousand nautical miles per year translating to 4800 tonnes of fuel saved and 16000 tonnes less CO2 emissions. Nice… but what is wrong with this picture?
Click here to read the full article
Why is the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SJU) wary of consultants?
On 30/11/2010, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
OK, you may say that consultants have made a bad name for themselves and you would be partially right. In some industries some of them have and we all suffer the consequences to some degree. But on the other hand, many companies have found considerable cost savings in the use of consultants who will perform tasks that would otherwise cost a fortune… and this is true even if consultants are not cheap themselves.
But why is the SJU so diametrically opposed to the use of consultants that they have told everyone, the airlines and their associations included, right at the beginning and have repeated it many times since, that they may not use consultants to represent them in the SESAR tasks?
You may say the following is conjecture but it is logical and the only reasonable explanation of a totally unreasonable attitude on the part of the SJU.
When the airline industry first faced what was to become a series of financial crises, including the effects of 9/11, they responded by cutting costs across the board. This translated also into reducing their staff engaged in attending to activities like air traffic management. All of a sudden airline representatives all but disappeared from EUROCONTROL meetings and the airspace user influence on ATM developments was automatically reduced to fire fighting and some shouting on the policy level… with predictably meager results.
When SESAR came along, the airline industry was suddenly faced with the opportunity of a lifetime to improve things… except that they lacked the knowledgeable manpower to represent them on an H24 basis. There were of course excellent airline experts still around and those were promptly brought onto the firing line but almost none of them were all-round experts who were at home equally in airline and ATM operations.
Click here to read the full article
FF-ICE – Flight and Flow Information for a Collaborative Environment
On 05/11/2010, in SWIM, by steve
A great document from unexpected quarters
Before anyone misunderstands, I would like to stress that receiving a great document from the Air Traffic Management and Performance Panel (ATMRPP) is not what is unexpected. It is more the scope of the document that was surprising, given its relatively humble beginnings. That the document is also visionary and uses the correct terminology throughout is just icing on the cake.
So what is this doc that has moved this arch-critic of the more common, poorly structured, inconsistent products using poor terminology to such words of praise?
When I was sent a copy of “Flight and Flow Information for a Collaborative Environment – A Concept”, produced by the ATMRPP, my interest was picked immediately. A few years ago when this document was in its infancy, I had the honor of being able to advise EUROCONTROL on how to interpret the advanced flight planning vision we wrote into the SESAR Concept of Operations. I recalled clearly how different experts had different views on the subject and it looked like achieving consensus would be all but impossible. So, if for nothing else, I was curious to see what the result was in the end.
Why did I say that the document, in spite of its lofty title, had humble beginnings? Well, the work that culminated in this beauty had set out originally to create a new ICAO flight plan to replace the current, hopelessly outdated product. In the end, a two step approach was agreed with a new, updated flight plan coming in the near future (read more about that here) to take care of the immediate needs. After this first step, the second aims to implement what they called the FF-ICE, covering the time frame up to 2025. FF-ICE stands for Flight and Flow Information for a Collaborative Environment and the document is in fact the description of the FF-ICE concept.
Setting out to remedy the pretty bad scene around the existing flight plan and its contents, the experts could not fail to realize that a solution that addressed only the flight plan as such would not bring about the much needed improvement. Only a wholesale revamping of the information management environment of which flight plans and their content are a part would ensure that the well-known problems disappear and the whole thing become future proof.
The ATMPRPP created a concept that aligns well with System Wide Information Management (SWIM) as being planned in Europe and the US and it also covers the new ideas on how flight planning should work as described in the SESAR Concept of Operations.
Click here to read the full article
SESAR and SWIM – things are slowly becoming reality
On 03/11/2010, in SESAR's Palace, SWIM, by steve
Good news at long last
Not so long ago, I was asked to make a presentation about System Wide Information Management (SWIM) to the participants of a project we are involved in. While most of the audience noted what I said and asked a few relevant questions, there was also a small minority who expressed the opinion that SWIM as I described it will never happen. This reminded me of arguments I have had years earlier with someone who went so far as even wanting to banish the name “SWIM” for reasons I could never really understand (you can read more about how this name was born here).
It also struck me as strange that if you ask the average person involved in or near SESAR about what is going on in the project in the context of information management generally and SWIM in particular, you are likely to get a list of work packages and companies involved in working on them but little else.
I at Roger-Wilco have written a lot about SWIM but most of the time I was trying to describe the why with an indication of possible “how” options but that was also not the information we crave so much: what is going on with SWIM?
Into this void came finally information from recently published papers (e.g. from the Stakeholder Consultation Group SCG) that describes not only the why and how of SESAR but also the status as it is now with important details about the work that is ongoing.
Having been involved with SWIM right from the day it was born (hell I can claim part of the fatherhood for this baby), I am now especially pleased to see that the terminology being used to describe the SWIM concept and its practicalities is exactly as we have always intended it to be. This is important because over the years there were several attempts to water down the concept, to change its focus or main principles and there was a very real danger that it would end up like so many good initiatives before it, dead before it had a chance to prove itself. But apparently this danger is now past and those involved in the work to-day are developing SWIM along the correct lines.
I will not bore you with a repeated description of what SWIM is. You can read more about that here. Instead, I will focus on the ongoing activities and their significance.
As you will see, there is plenty to talk about.
Click here to read the full article
THALES setting up ATM research center in Australia
On 27/10/2010, in Just to let you know..., by steve
The Australian arm of THALES is busy setting up a brand new research and development center in Melbourne, Australia to work on advanced air traffic management systems. The new center called CASIA (Centre for Advanced Studies in ATM) will concentrate the firm’s work on new air traffic management systems for Australia as well as the rest of the world. It will start cracking early in 2011.
“CASIA is the result of long term investment in our ATM business, which has grown from just a few employees 15 years ago to a global centre of excellence employing 400 people in highly skilled jobs,” said Chris Jenkins, Thales Australia’s CEO. “Thales Australia is ideally placed to offer local, regional and global customers the most innovative ATM solutions in the world today, building on our success with the Eurocat system and enabling effective airspace management in an era of increasing air traffic and technological complexity.”
For several years now we have witnessed how new and advanced ATM systems and technologies were proliferating in that part of the world while Europe was still trying to decide which way to go… In fact, during SESAR’s definition phase, THALES supported the work with an expert who came from Australia and who was the voice of reasoned vision. If he and others like him will take part in CASIA, it will be a very nice place to work at.
This is a very important and forward looking step from THALES but I cannot escape a nagging question.
Why not in Europe…?
Air Traffic Management déjà vu
On 19/10/2010, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
Reading Henning’s article and with my up-close-and-intimate involvement in the SESAR definition phase (and the 20 or so years leading up to it) I could not escape a terrible feeling of déjà vu. This was only strengthened when I read the news about ANSP CEOs rumbling that the performance targets of the EU’s Single Sky Package were unrealistic and airlines rumbling that the costs arising from the proposed ADS-B implementing rule were placing an inordinate share on them compared to the burden to be borne by the ANSPs.
These are signs of a toxic mix well known from the past and they bode ill for ATM developments in Europe.
But there is more.
One of the airline associations is very vocal about the need to get financing support for the airlines as they consider the price of SESAR prohibitively expensive. This is all very well, but apparently little is being done to actually find and organize such financing.
IATA, the one organization that in the past successfully influenced ATM development directions by being present everywhere down to the working level, has now basically drawn back and seems to believe that things in the ATM world can be influenced equally successfully by simply issuing policies. This is a fallacy that will cost the airlines dearly. Policies are fine but in practice they are often ignored or interpreted in ways favorable to interests other than those of the airlines. By the time this is discovered, all kinds of binding agreements and decisions will have been made and airline protests will be met, in most cases, with a shrug. You missed the boat folks…
Click here to read the full article
Is SESAR doing what the airlines intended?
On 14/10/2010, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
Exclusive interview with Dr. Henning Hartmann
Today we bring you an exclusive interview with Dr. Henning Hartmann, who was, during the SESAR Definition Phase with Lufthansa German Airlines and representing the Airspace Users, he was also the person responsible for the development of the SESAR Concept of Operations (ConOps). He will give us his views on what SESAR is to-day as he sees it and explains why there is cause for some concern.
Henning can you give our readers an impression of what you are feeling today when looking at SESAR and the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SJU) as they are now?
In order to understand my arguments concerning today’s situation, I’ll first have a closer look at the situation as it was during the definition phase.
The SESAR Definition Phase was a multi-stakeholder project consisting of 6 milestones which delivered 6 documents each of which was subject to agreement by the stakeholders. The SESAR Concept of Operations was part of deliverable 3, entitled “The ATM Target System”. It was seen as the driving engine of the future system and consequently to some extent the development process of the concept was THE culmination point of the diverging views of the different stakeholders. Obviously, in the end all stakeholders had to compromise to some extent.
Why did these different views come up?
It makes a huge difference “how” a system is operated and since I was representing the Airspace Users, the Airspace Users operational concept vision did not come up just by accident. It was the result of a structured process reflecting all types of Airspace Users.
Before going to the different views, it is essential to understand how the vision of the Airspace Users was constructed: we looked 15 years ahead, we did analyse different passenger segmentation forecasts and their needs and preferences and how the airlines could respond (in terms of the operational context) to those passenger needs.
Click here to read the full article
Air-ground voice communications – the vital and often weakest link. New guide from EUROCONTROL for GA pilots
On 11/10/2010, in Bookshelf, by steve
It is a curious fact of life in air traffic management that it is impossible to do ATC without proper communications yet the air-ground voice communications system as we know it to-day is both a hindrance to increasing capacity and a potential source of serious incidents. The former is due to the fact that a controller can only speak to aircraft in a sequential manner and hence he or she will run out of talking time relatively soon when traffic increases beyond a certain level; the latter is due to the relative ease with which the spoken word can be misunderstood, even if it is in a standardized form like the standard radiotelephony prescribed by ICAO. From call-sign confusion to misunderstood clearances resulting in near-misses or runway incursions, communications is a major source of problems.
Of course there are many things the aviation community can do to mitigate the risks inherent in voice communications. Air/ground digital link supporting Controller Pilot Data Link Communications (CPDLC) will enable more capacity while also reducing the possibility of misunderstandings.
Where voice remains, better training and discipline in the application of the relevant procedures can go a long way towards improving the situation.
EUROCONTROL has now published a cute booklet, available in electronic format, entitled “A Guide to Phraseology for General Aviation Pilots in Europe”. As the title says, the book does not cover peculiarities applicable only in the United States or other parts of the world but it is still a useful addition to the library of any GA pilot. Since aircraft operations in Europe are mostly subject to strictly ICAO compliant procedures, this book is also a good reference to check what the ICAO rules say in certain communications related situations.
You can access the guide here.
Why lower delays are a problem for developments in air traffic management – a diabolical reality
On 08/10/2010, in Airline corner, by steve
Aviation is a cyclical business and it is only recently that airlines are managing, to a certain extent, to smooth the worst of the boom and bust swings. In the past, aircraft were ordered at a prodigious rate when business was booming only to see the additional capacity materialize exactly when business started to go down and capacity reduction was the name of the game.
But another cycle is still in the system and it spells trouble for all ATM projects requiring investments from the airlines.
When delays go through the roof, airlines come together to raise their voice, individually and via their associations, demanding improvements and better service. With the proper persuasion, they might even invest in a bit of new technology that promises to improve the delay situation. This can be a protracted process and there are always those who prefer to wait for someone else to save the situation… In any case, projects started during these black periods will still be ongoing when delays usually drop. This may have a variety of reasons, most not even connected with aviation as such, like the general economic situation in key markets impacting people’s propensity to fly.
Click here to read the full article
Are ATM operational concepts the cause of failure?
On 03/09/2010, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
I have known Jean-Marc Garot, the former director of EUROCONTROL’s Experimental Centre in Paris for a long time. A forward thinker and in many ways a visionary, he retired from EUROCONTROL in 2005. He has now published an interesting article in The Controller magazine with the title “What is an ATM concept?”
I think everyone in Europe and in the US who has ever been involved in the development of operational concepts for air traffic management should read this article. Not because it is so good or so full of revelations from which we can learn but to see just how poorly we have communicated our efforts and how completely things have been misunderstood on various levels of the ATM world and at different ATM organizations.
The article starts off with a nice and even funny summing up of how, it is claimed, experts for concept work are/have been selected. There is indeed some truth in the description and it is also true that there have always been people on the concept groups coming from airlines, ANSPs, industry and what have you who could only think in terms of their own particular activities with little regard for anybody else’s. But those were always a minority. Troublesome yes, but hardly determinant for the final product.
The overwhelming majority of experts in concept work knew what they were about and it was quite common to have airline reps with an ATC background as well as the other way round with ATC folks who were flying on the side.
The article correctly points out that some of the documents produced were indeed overly voluminous… It is a pity that in the very next paragraph 4D Trajectory Management, System Wide Information Management (SWIM) and even air/ground digital link are listed as mere hypotheses, ambiguous descriptions that everyone can agree to and which therefore assume the status of certainties, no longer questioned and on which benefit expectations can be built… without much justification.
Click here to read the full article
Roger-Wilco – One year down the road
On 23/07/2010, in Anniversaries, by steve
Back in spring 2009 I knew that a lot of us had a lot to say about air traffic management, its future, present and past. What I was not quite sure of was where to say it. Speakers’ Corner in London was not an option and I suspected the official sites of the big ATM organizations would not be exactly happy with some of the things we would want to say.
When the idea of an ATM blog was first floated inside the company, I was reluctant. A lot of people perceive blogs as the trumpet of disgruntled people where they can air their gripes with relative impunity… But then there are other types of blogs also that deliver quality and useful insights… Weighing the possibilities, the decision was made to go for a blog and to make it into this second kind.
In terms of the actual format we decided early on that we did not want to be a discussion forum (plenty of those around) and we did not want to be a news portal either (lots and lots of those also). I was most attracted to something akin to an electronic magazine with full length, informative articles, news items that would not go stale within a day or so, commentary on actual developments and a section on books (both printed and electronic) that we would recommend. In other words, Roger-Wilco had to be something apart, something that befits the first ATM blog ever.
Click here to read the full article
Three short questions on the SESAR Concept of Operations answered
On 19/07/2010, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
Over the past year we have published several posts dealing with SESAR in general and the SESAR concept of operations in particular. Some of those posts voiced concerns and uncertainties. In an exclusive interview with Michael Standar, SJU Chief Air Traffic Management, published here in May 2010, we attempted to answer the concerns… to some extent anyway. In SESAR Magazine Issue 3, published in July 2010, Michael now answers three short questions on the Concept of Operations. We bring you the full text as it appeared in SESAR Magazine in the hope of making the ConOps picture a bit clearer.
Michael, where are we today with the SESAR Concept of
Operations (ConOps)?
The first thing to remember is that the SESAR ConOps was set out in the SESAR Definition Phase. In the SJU ConOps storyboard it was structured into three steps to realize the paradigm shift necessary to modernize the European ATM system. In step 1, we move from the current day to time-based operations, focused on better use of existing technology and optimizing communication between ground and airborne equipment. Step 2 introduces trajectory based operations through the 4D trajectory. As new technology is involved, international standardization bodies and ICAO will be engaged. The third and final step will be a fully integrated performance based ATM System supported by System Wide Information Management, SWIM – the intranet of the air. These three steps are not sequential but start in parallel, aiming at gaining early benefits for the air transport sector.
Click here to read the full article
