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New navigation systems for MDY, ORD
Have to cut & paste from the Chicago Tribune as it was available to
subscribers only :-( ======== Midway's landings may straighten out Navigation system would eliminate circle approaches By Jon Hilkevitch Tribune transportation reporter Published September 15, 2003 A navigation system so precise it enables aircraft to surgically glide through dangerously narrow passages and fjords to landing strips in Alaska is being evaluated to get more use out of the runways at Midway Airport. The new technology would give air-traffic controllers the tools to direct more takeoffs and landings at Midway, especially in poor weather, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation. And it would eliminate the dizzying circling patterns jets sometimes fly into Midway. "It's an important safety improvement that would also help reduce delays by easing the conflict between Midway and O'Hare, which share the same departure airspace," said Kevin Rojek, president of the air-traffic controllers union at Midway. Planes on certain paths to the Southwest Side airport must fly circling approaches--giving some passengers butterflies--because Sears Tower interferes with radar signals that guide airplanes to the ground. The pinpoint nature of the improved performance would permit pilots to fly efficient curved approaches, instead of circling down until the runway is in sight, and give controllers the necessary safety margins to funnel planes more closely together than before. "The circling approach is not real comfortable for passengers because you are banking the airplane towards the runway a little more than in a nice gradual approach," said Dave Lindskoog, vice president of flight operations at ATA Airlines, which is seeking federal approval of the advanced procedure at Midway. In addition to reducing delays and passenger inconvenience in bad weather, the navigational improvement could help add years of viability at the landlocked airport that is in the final stage of adding terminal space and aircraft gates, but cannot expand the airfield without encroaching on homes and businesses. The navigation system, which provides unprecedented accuracy vertically and laterally in guiding airplanes, is also slated for use at O'Hare International Airport as early as 2005 or 2006, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Flight departures from O'Hare are constrained by the busy approach path to Midway, resulting in delays at O'Hare. The curved approaches planned for Midway would ease the conflict between the two airports, officials said. The FAA is reviewing proposals to use the navigation program, called Required Navigation Performance (RNP), in the Chicago area. "We are greatly interested in this new procedure because it gives more flexibility to pilots and controllers in how they land aircraft," said Kitty Freidheim, the city's managing deputy aviation commissioner for planning and development. ATA and Southwest Airlines, the largest carriers at Midway, submitted the application to the FAA to use the navigation system to simplify the special approach paths. Alaska Airlines at Juneau International Airport and five rural Alaskan airports received FAA approval for limited use of the procedure in 1996. The FAA is implementing a plan to establish widespread use of RNP through 2020, and Chicago officials and the two airlines want to be first. Freidheim estimated that could occur as quickly as three years at Midway. The technology would allow airspace designers to create a highly efficient corridor leading to a northeast-to-southwest runway at Midway that today is used by only 15 percent of flights at the airport, according to the city Department of Aviation. The runway, known by its 220-degree compass heading as 22 Left, is used sparingly in part because Sears Tower interferes with instrument-landing radar signals that guide planes along the proper slope leading to the tip of the runway. Pilots directed to land on Runway 22 Left must now execute a complicated "circle-to-land" maneuver that the airlines hope to eliminate. Under Midway's circle-to-land rules, pilots line up their approach as if they are actually planning to land on a different runway, called 31 Center, which has an instrument-landing system that is not obstructed by Sears Tower. Upon descending low enough for the pilots to spot the threshold of 22 Left, the pilots break off their approach to 31 Center about 5 to 8 miles from the airport and circle to the right for a landing on 22 Left. The maneuver, while not unsafe, is more complex and equivalent to a big detour. It slows the flow of planes by adding minutes to each landing and requires air-traffic controllers to keep other planes far away from the airspace used for the circling pattern. "The circle approach is no fun for pilots and it makes the controller's job more complex because of the unpredictable nature of pilots circling at different rates," said Ray Gibbons, a veteran controller at the FAA facility in Elgin that handles aircraft arriving at and departing Chicago-area airports. "As busy as Midway is getting, this plan is certainly worth pursuing." The RNP procedure, working in combination with sophisticated navigational equipment already onboard commercial aircraft and the satellite Global Positioning System, would allow pilots to fly a direct approach to 22 Left, significantly increasing the use of the runway. The airport's ground-based instrument landing signals, which Sears Tower partially obstructs, would no longer be needed, eliminating the cumbersome and uncomfortable circling approaches. The RNP corridor would start near Chicago Heights in the south suburbs, take aircraft over Lake Michigan to a point over Northerly Island, then over downtown on a gentle curve that straightens out for an approach to Runway 22 Left, officials said. The new RNP routing creates the highly defined path over the ground for aircraft. Avionics in the cockpit constantly refine the path by correcting for winds and other factors. That's why RNP has been used so successfully in guiding planes over mountaintops to remote Alaskan airports, even if those airports are socked in with low visibility. In Juneau, Alaska Airlines formerly diverted about 150 flights each year because of bad weather. Diversions dropped to about 10 annually after RNP was introduced. The technology is also expected to boost efforts in steering airplanes away from noise-sensitive residential areas near airports. Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune |
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