APAS

European Commission Directorate-General For Mobility And Transport

Description

Air transport: Assessment of the impact of MLS implementation on Cat. II/III runways' capacity in low visibility conditions
Air and space transport
Research policy and organisation

Informations

• Publié par: EUROPEAN-COMMISSION-DIRECTORATE-GENERAL-FOR-MOBILITY-AND-TRANSPORT
• Nombre de lectures: 11
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

EUROPEAN
COMMISSION
DIRECTORATE-
GENERAL
TRANSPORT TRANSPORT RESEARCH
AIR TRANSPORT
Assessment of the impact of MLS
implementation on Cat. Il/lll runways'
capacity in low visibility conditions
D. Gleave and S. Jolley
Roke Manor Research Limited
United Kingdom The information contained in this publication does not necessarily reflect either the
position or the views of the European Commission
Cataloguing data can be found at the end of this publication
Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1996
ISBN 92-827-5837-0
© ECSC-EC-EAEC, Brussels · Luxembourg, 1996
Printed in the United Kingdom GENERAL CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5
FINAL REPORT — VOLUME I 31
FINAL REPORT — VOLUME II — APPENDICES 127 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SUMMARY
A precision approach and landing system is used to guide aircraft towards the runway in low
visibility conditions, with sufficient accuracy that a successful landing can be achieved.
Currently, the precision approach and landing guidance standard is the Instrument Landing
System (ILS), which suffers a number of well documented problems. The two main problems
are beam distortion caused by multipath and localiser signal interference.
The Microwave Landing System (MLS) was developed as a replacement for ILS and the
decision was made in 1978 by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to adopt
MLS as the precision approach and landing standard. Since making this decision, an alternative
satellite based system was proposed which necessitated a review of the proposed ILS/MLS
transition plan. The review occurred at the ICAO COM/OPS Divisional Meeting in March 1995
and left the choice of precision approach and landing standard to individual member states.
This document is the executive summary for a study that was undertaken to establish the
benefits of European implementation of the MLS. It compares the improvement in runway
utilisation rates which would result from the use of the MLS during Air Traffic Control ( ATC)
Low Visibility Procedures (LVPs) for five major European airports, with various runway
operating modes. The main objective of this study was to enable the benefits of the MLS to be
presented by national air traffic control authorities to their governments and to ICAO.
The results of the study indicated that higher runway utilisation rates could be achieved if the
ILS was replaced by the MLS, except in the case of departure only runway operations where
no operational benefits were found.
The constraints which limit the MLS runway utilisation rates vary depending upon the type of
runway operation. In higher visibility single mode arrivals only operations, the constraint is
the LVP wake vortex separation requirement, which was assumed to be the normal wake
vortex separation plus l.Onm. In mixed mode operations and low visibility single mode
arrivals only operations, the constraints are the protection of the aerodrome safeguarding
zones, the point of landing clearance delivery and the types of approach spacing rules used. In
addition, mixed mode operations require certain departing aircraft to overfly the azimuth
antenna, before a landing clearance can be given to a following aircraft.
Various methods of further improving the projected MLS runway utilisation rates were
identified during the study. An evaluation of the improvements determined that the main benefit
would arise from enhancing the ability to vacate the runway quickly. This would enable mixed
mode runways to operate at or near their declared capacity levels, and arrivals only runways at
the limit imposed by the LVP wake vortex separation requirements. CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION 10
2. OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE1
3. TECHNICAL APPROACH2
3.1 Identification of ILS Runway Utilisation Constraints 1
3.2n of MLS Runwayns3
3.3 Calculation of MLS Runway Utilisation Rates
3.4 Identification of Additional Methods of Constraint Alleviation 14
3.5 Calculation of the Benefits of Methods oftn
4. DEFINITION OF RUNWAY UTILISATION CONSTRAINTS 15
4.1 Signal Protection and Aerodrome Safeguarding Requirements
4.2 ATC Operating Restrictions 16
4.3 Human Factors Constraints
4.4 Limiting Constraints7
5. MLS RUNWAY UTILISATION RATE RESULTS8
5.1 London Heathrow Airport
5.2 Frankfurt Main Airport 1
5.3 Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport
5.4 Amsterdam Schiphol Airport9
5.5 Milan Linate Airport
6. PROPOSAL AND EVALUATION OF FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS 20
6.1 MLS Signal Protection Evaluation 2
6.2 Aerodrome Safeguarding Requirements Evaluation1
6.3 Wake Vortex Separation Requirementn
6.4 Minimum Radar Separation Evaluation
6.5 Pilot Assistance in Determining Distance to Runway Exit 2
6.6 Runway Tum-Off Identification, Location and Design2
6.7 Automatic Runway Vacation 2
6.8 Landing Clearance Delivery Time3
6.9 Ground Movement Controller Workload
6.10 Approach Controller Aids
6.11 Combination One
6.12n Two4
6.13 Combination Three 2