THE
CONTROLLER December 2008
Journal of Air Traffic Control
INTER-
TION OF AIR TRAFF ERA IC C FED
LLERS’ ASSNS. TRO ON
NATIO NAL
4 Environment and ATC
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Contents
THE
December 2008 4th quarter 2008 Volume 47 ISSN 0010-8073
CONTROLLER THE
CONTROLLER December 2008
Journal of Air Traffic Control
4 Environment and ATC
INTER-
LLERS’ ASSNS. TRO ON
NATIO NAL
Cover photo: TION OF AIR TRAFF ERA IC C FED
Aircraft overflying a green landscape Photo credit: LFV Sweden
PUBLISHER IFATCA, International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations. EXECUTIVE BOARD OF IFATCA Marc Baumgartner President and Chief Executive Officer Alexis Brathwaite Deputy President Alex Figuereo Executive Vice-President Americas Henry Nkondokaya Executive Vice-President Africa/ Middle East John Wagstaff Executive Vice-President Asia/Pacific Patrik Peters Executive Vice-President Europe Dale Wright Executive Vice-President Finance Scott Shallies Executive Vice-President Professional Vacant Executive Vice-President Technical Jack van Delft Secretary/Conference Executive EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Philippe Domogala Editorial address: Westerwaldstrasse 9 D 56337 ARZBACH, Germany Tel: +492603 8682 email: ed@ifatca.org
In this issue:
Foreword by Marc Baumgartner ...……………….….…………......... Editorial by Philippe Domogala ………………………….…………...... Environment The ATC Environmental Challenge by Carlos Terenas … Environmental Issues in ATM by Willem Zuidfeld .……… Book review A “green method” against bird strikes ………….…….......... Environment Airport Environmental Solutions by Alan Melrose …………... Contrails – a Double Sided Sword by Dr. David Duda .……... Contrails and Controllers: Can We Fight Global Warming by David Guerin ………….……………….……………….…….. The Point-Merge Approach Solution by Terje Dahlseng Eide .………….……………….…………….. Green Flights in Sweden by Helena Sjöström ……………….. The USA: Denial or Realism by Philip Marien ……….............. The aviation biofuel controversy by Philip Marien …………... The Greenpeace view by Philippe Domogala ………….......... Spotlight Spotlight on Corporate Members by Kevin Salter………….………….. Africa News RVSM implementation in Africa by Keziah Ogutu …………………. Malta Malta ATC by Philippe Domogala ………….……………………….………. European News European regional meeting by Philippe Domogala ………..... Safety seminar ………….……………………….……………...... The need for standardized CISM in an international environment by Patrik Peters ………….………………………... Asia Pacific News ATC environmental strategies in the Asia/Pacific Area by Phil Parker ………….……………………….…………… African News ASECNA in the news again by Henry Nkondokaya ........... Philip Marien Feature The Flying Boats of Foynes (Ireland) and the origin of Irish Coffee by Philip Marien ........ Environment Environmental news & briefs ………….………………. Charlie’s Column ………….……………………….…………………
4 5 6 8 9 10 12 13 15 16 18 20 21 22 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 34 35
Residence: 24 Rue Hector Berlioz F 17100 LES GONDS, France CORPORATE AFFAIRS Kevin Salter (Germany/UK) WEB SITE AND EDITOR ASSISTANT Philip Marien (EGATS) REGIONAL EDITORS Africa-middle East: Vacant Americas: Vacant Phil Parker (Hong Kong) Patrik Peters (Europe) COPY EDITORS Paul Robinson, Helena Sjöström, Stephen Broadbent and Brent Cash PRINTING-LAYOUT LITHO ART GmbH & Co. Druckvorlagen KG Friesenheimer Straße 6a D 68169 MANNHEIM, Germany Tel: +49 3 22 59 10 email: info@lithoart-ma.de
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this magazine are those of the International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations (IFATCA) only when so indicated. Other views will be those of individual members or contributors concerned and will not necessarily be those of IFATCA, except where indicated. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that the information contained in this publication is correct, IFATCA makes no warranty, express or implied, as to the nature or accuracy of the information. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or used in any form or by any means, without the specific prior written permission of IFATCA.
VISIT THE IFATCA WEB SITES:
www.ifatca.org and www.the-controller.net
Foreword
Foreword Marc Baumgartner ^ by President and CEO IFATCA
In the name of the future lost islands Air traffic controllers need to become experts in environmental issues influencing their operational work. Recently I came across a piece of art which intrigued me very much „Atlas of the lost islands1“. A young Swiss artist has created an Atlas showing all the islands around the world which will have disappeared by 2017. The book is very voluminous. As some call it, climatic change is the way humanity will disappear but, with a ride through hell in six steps (or degrees2). As citizens we are all challenged and as politicians (such as Al Gore3) rightly pointed the way, we have to give a chance to the coming generation of humans by curtailing the current frenetic emissions which is one of the causes of global warming. If we cannot reduce the CO2 emission and the green house gases, the average temperature on earth could increase by 6 degree Celsius by 2100 according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This sense of urgency from a climatic point of view is welcomed and should be supported by all means, but what are the challenges for professionals such as Air Traffic Controllers when it comes to the GREEN issue? Noise abatement procedures, which are political compromises instead of 1 2 3
Marie Velardi, The lost islands Mark Lynas, Six steps to hell Al Gore, An Inconvienent truth
Aviation has only a very small part to play. Nevertheless it is important that ATCOs play their part.
failsafe, lead to an increase in complexity of the ATC environment around the airports and sometimes to accidents and/or incidents. Continuous Descent Approach (CDA) increases the flight efficiency of one flight to be offset by the overall capacity. Environmental is becoming the prime concern over safety and airlines using the environment to try to lower their fuel bill without really addressing the load factor issues. For us the air traffic controller environmental “conscious” ATM procedures is yet another layer of complexity added to our daily job and therefore it is important that we do understand the impact of the environment to our daily work. As controllers we can moan, look away and or negate the environmental push which has been created by the politicians and the media and airlines. Having once again accused ATM of its myriad of inefficiencies (In Europe ATM inefficiencies are alleged to produce 73 million tons of extra CO2 emissions), it becomes urgent that IFATCA and it’s members can explain the fabulous contribution to environmental improvements in the passed 30 years, while maintaining the required level of safety with a doubling of traffic. The handling of the current traffic (double the numbers in 15 years) as efficient as it is done from a controller’s point of view is a big achievement. Becoming a champion in being able to explain the contribution to the reduction of emission should be the aim of any air traffic controller. This will help us to limit the potential distortion by political bodies such as the European Commission and others, using Environmental protection only to widen their negotiation power with the US and the emerging economic markets such as
Photo credit: Tatiana Mironenko/ Dreamstime
China and India and not at all to address the real problem. Or the airlines wanting quick wins from the infrastructure such as ATM without taking into account the already tremendous achievement in some parts of the world. On the 25th of September the AFI region has joined the RVSM airspace club – saving the airlines again billions of tons of fuel over a year and CDAs are in place everywhere. IFATCA has presented some revised policies on Environment and this is only a start – ATM is starting to discover that the environmental pressure on daily operations is really a political pressure (before it was more a local problem and mainly a noise abatement problem) and we see that the Air Navigation Service providers have started to realize to various degree that they might have to accept the pressure and start to pro-actively address (for political reasons) the challenge. Will we see yet another form of regulation such as Emission trading scheme (ETS) hitting ATM? Some of the ANSPs have already started to have performance goals of 0% emission/waste declared in order to avoid on a longer run a politically motivated ETS. Though aviation counts currently only for 3% of the global CO2 (forecasted to be 8% because of the expected growth) emission we can not look away from the societal challenges we are faced with. Delaying the disappearance or saving some of the endangered island needs societal efforts of other dimension where aviation has only a very small part to play. Nevertheless it is important that ATCOs play their part of operational expertise when it comes to the inevitable trade-offs imposed on ATM in the future motivated by the environmental challenges humanity is faced with. ^
pcx@ifatca.org
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Editorial The “GREEN” Controllers Philippe Domogala ^ by Editor Welcome to our “Green” issue. You will notice that it is printed on recycled paper which will help reduce global warming and use fewer trees. We thought this was appropriate. We decided on this topic because the environment has started to affect our work, and will certainly affect it more in the near future. The airlines and IATA claim that aviation is only responsible for 3% of the world CO2 emissions, as against road transport for instance at 18%. So the emphasis should not be on aviation. They use the same reasoning for the issue of noise. But one should always be careful when using statistics, because if one looks at the fine print of the detailed studies aviation transportation is one of the largest polluters both in emissions and noise. Firstly CO2 delivered at (very) high altitudes has a much stronger impact than emissions delivered on the ground, where they can be absorbed by plants for instance. Aircraft noise is perceived as extremely annoying by residents, and is becoming a major issue around nearly all airports.
So, even if the total emission by aviation is only 3% it is not “insignificant”. And it is not surprising that environmental groups such as Greenpeace (see the article on page 21) are advocating other means of transport than aircraft for distances where alternative modes of transport exist. I think the pressure on aviation will increase as the polar ice cap melts, even if the two are not directly related. In ATC, we should expect more hassle as the airlines, which are largely paying for us, come under pressure to defend their business. We will be asked at one point or another to become more “green” controllers. Most of the environment challenges facing us are described in the numerous articles in this issue. Some even hint at possible solutions, but are they all really feasible? Green is a fashionable color and a fashionable label to be part of at the moment. Be sure it will come your way soon.
As I write this editorial (end of October) we are in the middle of the global financial crisis. How this crisis will affect our profession is not yet completely clear, but you can be sure it will have some direct effects. “Economics” is playing a more and more prominent role in our daily work. For this reason we have decided that our next issue will focus on economics. And before you ask, no we will not print it on banknote paper. Happy reading, and remember to be environment-conscious! ^ Kind regards,
ed@ifatca.org
Earlier this year the German ministry for environment published some figures on CO2 emissions per mode of transport per passenger/kilometre, taking into account the average number of people inside each mode of transport. In this survey, a passenger choosing transportation by aircraft emits more than twice the amount of CO2 as transportation by private car, and 10 times more than by bus (you can find the complete figures on page 34).
4 How a future “green“ controller should be? Photo credit: DP
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Introducing the theme: The ATC Environmental Challenge Carlos Terenas ^ by Portuguese ATCA We are all aware that the Environment is nowadays one of the major challenges for aviation in particular and the entire aeronautical sector in general. In the future, all issues will revolve around the environmental predicament. As partners in this industry and as leading actors of the ATM system, the Air Traffic Controllers will not fail to integrate, support, and participate in the consensual solutions at the legal and technological level which allow us to improve the performance of the system and, consequently, to reduce the overall environmental impact of aviation. Nonetheless, we want to make clear that the Environment and the much publicized „environmental awareness“ cannot and should not be used in an exclusive manner by some of the partners in this industry as a mere justification for less clear and merely cost-effective purposes.
Media campains We are referring to the recent concerted advertising campaigns which have been carried out by the airlines and the associations that represent them in an effort to exert influence on the media.
The image they try to convey to the public is that of the ATM being the only one responsible for the environmental damages caused by aviation and, on the other hand, that the airlines are the great defenders of the environmental cause. This speech which only tries to put the blame on the ATM is a combined effort to exert pressure on the European political institutions, making them take steps towards a restructure, fragmentation, and deregulation which allow the airlines to reduce costs and thus increase the profits. How can one be indifferent to the recent campaigns from the airlines, advertised in all on-board magazines, where in a perfect landscape a sweet little cow rests on a green mountain? This is obviously an image inspired by the environmental speech at the same time moralistic and critical of the ATM for the delays and waiting time and indirectly for the increase of CO2 emissions.
ATC efficiency in question There are no coincidences. Right at the same time, the heads of the two major low-cost airlines make sure that no pains are spared against the European ATM, using the “environmental cloak” as protection: first of all, the executive president of EasyJet portrays the European control system as being medieval since it forces the flights to take indirect routes which strongly castigates the airlines and the environment. Also, the heads of Ryanair launch a fierce
and completely disrespectful attack against the Irish controllers. The airlines are willing to go out of their way to win this battle. They join efforts in a concerted way to exert pressure on the European politicians and technocrats. In this way, the airlines gain power over their decisions and push them towards the adoption of cost-effective solutions which promote cost reduction and deregulation. This, of course, always in the name of a socalled “environmental awareness”. The recent appointment of the former executive of WWF as IATA’s Director for Aviation and the Environment shows evidence that the hostilities have only just begun.
Room for improvement? We know that the ATM system is not perfect and can and should be improved. An analysis of what happened after the catastrophic year of 1999, as far as delays are concerned, is an indication of the efforts we have been making towards modernization. The system was regenerated and enhanced, allowing for the surprising fitting in of very high growing traffic rates. We are also aware that the system is reaching its limits and that, from now on, the delays will become more frequent even though in the last eight years their number has been considerably reduced. Thus, in order to be able to hold the growth rates that are expected for the forthcoming years there is still a lot to be done. The process of change has begun
Photo credit: Stefan Fierros / dreamstime
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4 Aircraft emissions Photo credit: Ruud De Vries
with SES and SESAR, two projects that are taking off this year with the Single European Sky and the publication, in June, of the so long awaited “SES II package” and the publishing of the last documents (D5 and D6) of SESAR’s final stage of definition.
What is the real environmental impact The environmental impact of aviation can be divided into two major topics. On the one hand we have the noise pollution and the negative effects it has on the areas and populations surrounding the airports. On the other hand, there is the question of CO2 emissions and their disastrous consequences for the planet, adding to the greenhouse effect and the climatic changes. New procedures have been published in which the main concern, right after the safety factor, is the environmental aspect. Adding to this, new projects have been being developed throughout Europe. However, I would like to point out the “continuous descent approach”, a project with a very positive impact on the areas where it was put into practice. This process of continuous approach, with no accelerations or decelerations, makes it possible to economise up to 15% of fuel, and consequently decrease emissions, and to reduce up to 30% of noise.
delays is due to the airlines themselves and to problems with the capacity of ground infrastructures. These delays are responsible for more emissions since, in an attempt to keep the schedule, the airlines overlook the environmental question. As we can see, there are more factors to take into account when we talk about the environmental issue, the majority of them related to the airlines (delays, ground logistics, flight efficiency, and obsolete fleets) and to the airports (environmental limitations to the necessary growth).
environmental speech of the other partners. We cannot tolerate that, under pretence of an environmental attitude and awareness, they search to achieve goals which are merely economic and aiming for cost reduction and liberalization instead of promoting safety, the essence of all of the theoretical and practical constructions ever to be made in this industry.
The EU response Bearing all of this in mind, the European Commission finally yielded and placed the airport capacity as the 4th pillar of the “SES II package”. But what does the EC intend to do about the airlines? Will they continue to give in to the enormous economic pressures? It is up to us to question and intervene in all this complex chain of interests and decisions. In this day and age, we are much more aware that the paradigm of disproportionate growth which defined the last years may not be a reality in the medium or long term. Questions such as limitations in the airports’ capacity, the rising of oil prices, international politics, and geostrategic concerns might overpower all the plans of development and growth predicted for the future.
The existing system is the corollary of 30 years of continuous evolution during which we have shown evidence of our capacity for adaptation and engagement with the constant challenges that we had to face. We are instructed and aware of our role and responsibilities, among which the one towards the environment. Yet, our priority will continue to be the main reason for our existence, that is, the people and, particularly in our case, the Air Traffic Controllers. ^
carlosterenas@netcabo.pt
Emissions The emissions issue will also be of major importance in the years to come since aviation will be automatically integrated in the global plan of emissions reduction that has been outlined for the entire Industry. So, it is plain to see that the ATM will have to contribute with its fair share to the execution of these goals. In that case, how can the system take in more traffic and still moderate the emissions? The management of the numerous variables can only be accomplished with the improvement of the performance of the system, something which is already in progress. Currently, almost the entire totality of actual
One of the goals of the upcoming ATM is to contribute in part to the aviation plan of emission reduction with less 10% of emissions until 2020. The new projects now in progress will allow for a reduction of up to 2 km in the extent of each route and, as a result, a decrease in the time of the flight.
Honesty Taking all of this into account, we can say that much has been effectively done and will continue to be done on our behalf to actually contribute to the reduction of the environmental impact. Therefore, we have all the right to demand more honesty in the
Under pretence of an environmental attitude and awareness, [the] goals are merely economic and aiming for cost reduction and liberalization instead of promoting safety.
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Environmental Issues in ATM Willem Zuidveld ^ by IFATCA Technical and Operational Committee Noise and Emissions Since the second part of the last century, preserving the environment is an important issue to human existence. There are several environmental issues within Air Traffic Management. Aircraft noise and aircraft emissions are issues that have the greatest environmental impact. Therefore noise abatement and improving Local Air Quality (LAQ) has the highest priority on the environmental agenda of ICAO. For this reason these two issues, and their impact on Air Traffic Control have been addressed by the IFATCA Technical and Operations Committee (TOC) earlier this year. The objective was to provide a clear, impartial and comprehensive information paper containing all relevant information about current environmental issues in ATM. Although there
Aircraft noise is the second largest (after roadway noise) source of environmental noise.
is some disagreement on global warming and the assumed effects for climate change, we tried to provide an objective presentation of all known facts.
Global warming Aviation contributes to global warming in a number of ways; the most significant is the emission of greenhouse gases by combustion of kerosene in flight. The principal greenhouse gas emission from aircraft in flight is carbon dioxide (CO2), but other emissions include nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide, water vapour and particulates. Despite the question if and by what degree man is responsible for global warming, which causes climate to change, reduction of manmade emissions of greenhouse gases is absolutely required. Beyond the need for reduction of manmade emissions there is the absolute fact that mankind is running out of fuel. Especially this last fact is of the highest importance to aviation. A large percentage of commercial aviation currently uses kerosene as fuel, currently no alternative has been identified.
Saving fuel Modern aircraft are significantly more fuel efficient (and thus emit less CO2 in particular) than 30 years ago. Moreover, manufacturers have forecasted and are committed to achieving reductions in both CO2 and NOx emissions with each new generation of design of aircraft and engine. The accelerated introduction of more modern aircraft therefore represents a major opportunity to reduce emissions per passenger kilometre flown. Other opportunities arise from the
optimisation of airline timetables, route networks and flight frequencies to increase load factors, together with the optimisation of airspace. Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) and projects like Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) are examples of initiatives in this perspective. The Eurocontrol Performance Review Commission (PRC) has calculated that current en route emissions per flight could be reduced by 6% by optimising flight efficiency. Single European Sky (SES), 4D Trajectory Concepts and SESAR are initiatives that could provide an improved ATM system. In the long-term, potential radical new airspace management techniques could allow aircraft to be routed to avoid climate sensitive parts of the sky, where contrails would be produced. However, this remains a complex area with many uncertainties, and would not eliminate CO2.
Noise Beside the effect of aviation on global warming the aspect of aircraft noise is as important an environmental issue. Aircraft noise is defined as sound produced by any aircraft on run-up, taxiing, take off, over-flying or landing. Aircraft noise is a significant concern for approximately 100 square kilometres surrounding most major airports. Aircraft noise is the second largest (after roadway noise) source of environmental noise. Take-off of aircraft may lead to a sound level of more than 100 decibels at the ground, with approach and landing creating lower levels. The annoying effects of aircraft noise are widely recognized. Studies in the U.S.A.
4 Aircraft noise. Photo credit: Terje DE
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4 Environment have concluded that aircraft noise is also responsible for a significant amount of hearing loss as well as a contributor to a number of diseases. Research has indicated that aircraft noise contributes to heart diseases, immune deficiencies, asthma and other stress related diseases. ICAO has addressed this problem extensively in the past by setting certification standards and providing States with guidance material to reduce aircraft noise. ICAO is continuously adjusting policy, requirements and guidance material in this matter. It is up to the contracting States to determine the way how they implement the guidance material in national aviation, this now results in many different standards all over the world. Civil aviation authorities are however responsible to ensure that the required ICAO certification standards and safety levels are met.
Our policy IFATCA strongly supports efforts to protect the environment and measures that will limit the negative effects of aviation regarding the living standards of people as well as animals. However, IFATCA opposes any adjustments that will decrease the existing level of safety. It is the opinion of IFATCA that any environmental improvement and benefit achieved by measures on behalf of safety will be statistically demolished conclusively. Furthermore IFATCA stresses that aviation in general is putting up the maximum effort to reduce fuel consumption, which will automatically decrease the level of emissions by aircraft. It is a fact that the level of emission of greenhouse gasses by aircraft is in percentage much lower compared to other industries (i.e. agriculture and steel), conver-
sely the economical and social benefits of aviation are crucial in today’s world. IFATCA Policy is in the operation, maintenance and development of the ATM system: When balancing the requirements of safety, efficiency and the environment, the level of safety shall always be maintained or improved and the measurement of performance shall reflect the impact of environmental constraints. ^
ed@ifatca.org
Photo credit: P. Peters
Book review Photo credit: Aena
A “green method” against bird strikes. Philippe Domogala, ^ by Editor Have a bird problem at your airport? Want to use a good, efficient and above all “green” environment-friendly method of removing them? Then this book is for you. It describes in great detail the bird presence and threat around airports, the behaviour of various birds, and how falcons can be used as a deterrent. But most importantly it describes the various types of procedures available and how to select the best for your airport. Spain has been a pioneer in this field with the first falcons being used in Madrid-Torrejon in 1968, which were later in the 70’s extended
to all major Spanish airports. In 2008 the falcons are present at 28 civil airports in Spain (all operated by Aena, the ANSP) and at a few military airbases. The “falcon service” can be tailored to be used against any bird species that may affect air traffic. The book is well illustrated in color and has numerous references. Birds at airports: The use of Falconry By Manuel Zugasti Enrique 144 pages in English ISBN 978-84-96456-88-4 37 Euros
To order, contact: Libros-aena@aena.es or tel: +34 91 321 3061 Or visit: www.aena.es/publicationes
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Airport Environmental Solutions Alan Melrose ^ by EUROCONTROL Environment Unit Challenges It is around airports where aviation’s economic contribution benefits are felt most directly by the public and it is also around airports where these benefits are made more fragile by adverse environmental concerns such as noise and air quality. Other airport related impacts such as climate change, fuel stock depletion, odour, third party risk, visual intrusion and ‘tranquillity’1. These are all rising rapidly up the political agenda. We can see the ‘significance’ ranges of some of the key aircraft related impacts from the following diagram.
The majority of larger airports now have voluntary and/or imposed environmental rules and restrictions. Whilst the mitigation regimes at some airports are very effective, this is not always the case. This latter can be due to lack of understanding, insufficient assessment capability, poor information availability or ineffective relations with the local communities. Inappropriate environmental rules can also result from less than perfect collaboration between operational stakeholders in dealing with this shared challenge The traditional industry (and regulatory) response has been to reduce impact through new aircraft technologies. Over the past few decades engines have become 30% more fuel efficient and maximum noise levels have reduced by over 50%. However each improvement typically offers
Explanatory notes: Darker shading = increasing significance; Noise2; Air Quality3 1
Opportunities EUROCONTROL is now helping airport operational stakeholders to improve airport-ATM environmental performance through a suite of mitigation initiatives that are aligned with the SESAR <2013 period or ‘IP1’ period.
CDA Presently Europe defines CDA as: “Continuous Descent Approach is an aircraft operating technique in which an arriving aircraft descends from an optimal position with minimum thrust and avoids level flight to the extent permitted by the safe operation of the aircraft and compliance with published procedures and ATC instructions.” NB The term ‚level flight’ required to fulfil this definition should be locally determined for performance monitoring. The avoidance of level flight is a crucial to noise abatement because noise impact reduces exponentially as height increases. Minimum thrust is essential for noise, fuel use and emissions reduction (a triple win) and a clean airframe help to reduce noise. Naturally there are trade-offs between the need to decelerate and the need
Photo credit: European community 2001
Several recent airspace change proposals have been thrown out because of tranquillity issues. 2 The noise issue locally depends on the size of the airport, type of aircraft and location of population. 3 Where local ambient air qua lity is very good, then whilst being of increasing importance, it may not yet be critical for some airports. 4 EUROCONTROL is developing a ‘level’ flight assessment tool to performance statistical analysis on radar enriched flight plans.
a smaller and more expensive improvement than the last, no longer keeping pace with growth in demand. The political focus is therefore now fully on ATM to deliver its share. The SESAR target is for ATM is to reduce Environmental Impact by 10% per flight by 2020. With total European ATM system inefficiency estimated only at between 7% and 12% however, this target is very challenging.
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4 Environment Photo credit: Phil Parker
for a clean airframe. Collaboration is essential to ensure the best local fit for often competing performance aims. CDA can be facilitated by a variety of means including flow control to reduce holding and in less busy airspace/airport combinations, by the simple provision of a DME to allow the pilot to optimise the descent profile, coupled with no vectoring. In most situations however, at present CDA will be facilitated by the provision of timely and accurate distanceto-go information to the pilot; either implicitly in published arrival procedures or explicitly by the approach controller. A combination of these techniques to suit different traffic scenarios (e.g. busy and quiet periods) usually offers maximum CDA performance. In the future accurate time based flight, sequencing tools and live aircraftaircraft weather feeds will all help to develop more advanced ways to facilitate CDA. EUROCONTROL’s guidance on CDA is available at www.eurocontrol.int/environment and a small team is helping airport stakeholders to implement CDA. It is supporting ICAO to develop a global CDA concept, definition and implementation guidance. EUROCONTROL has a target for up to 100 airports and at least 50 airports to have implemented CDA by the end of 2013. 20 airports now claim to undertake CDA and one early estimate4 puts the total of ECAC flights performing CDA below 10,000ft at over 30%. During 2008 a further 25 airports have agreed to consider CDA and so far around 15 of these are now planning to adopt CDA, with more expected to follow soon. A 30% increase in the number of CDA compliant flights could cut fuel costs by 100 Million Euros and reduce Carbon Dioxide by 500kTonnes per annum. CDA should not be seen as anti-capacity! CDA should be seen as ‘the art of the possible’ and as an evolutionary initiative to be started now. That is, within capacity and other operational constraints we should be facilitating as much CDA as possible now with plans to build on this foundation as capabilities evolve. Anyone wanting to consider CDA implementation can contact the CDA team (e-mail below)
Collaborative Environmental Management Successful delivery of aircraft related environmental improvements around airports (such as CDA) require effective collaboration. The EUROCONTROL Collaborative Environmental Management (CEM) concept is also adopted by SESAR as a > 2013 requirement. CEM is a harmonised strategic process by which airport operational stakeholders (ANSP, Aircraft Operators and Airport Operators) can agree and deliver a common and
Photo credit: Terje DE
jointly prioritised environmental vision an airport taking into account local impacts, plans and pressures. In early 2008 EUROCONTROL published a draft CEM guidance document for consultation with a view to rolling CEM out to at least 50 airports by the end of 2013. Four CEM levels are envisaged at present: CEM Level1 – Understanding Where a common environmental vision and priorities/options are jointly proposed by the operational stakeholders and agreed following external consultation. CEM Level 2 – Information Where operational stakeholders capture and share information relevant to the common vision, and use this to refine the plan and to establish performance management parameters and processes. CEM Level 3 – Consultation and Planning Where operational stakeholders consult each other before taking individual actions relevant to the vision and plan roles and responsibilities for joint action. CEM Level 4 – Collaborative Action Where operational stakeholders work together to implement the plan and jointly review progress and revisit lower levels in the light of events. In addition to the CEM guidance itself, other support resources such as specimen documentation, simple assessment tools, airport specific environmental performance information and case studies are being developed. For CEM airports, EUROCONTROL will also facilitate the sharing of experience and advice ‘peer to peer’. The CEM guidance will be published in early 2009. For advice please us (e-mail below)
industrialised over the coming months. • During 2009 the development of classroom and e-learning training packages to cover CDA and CEM to augment the present general environmental e-learning facility (www.eurocontrol.int/environment) and one-week ATM and environment taught course held at our training institute in Luxembourg (www.eurocontrol.int/ians) • Subject to stakeholder support, a web-based repository of recommended environmental guidance for airports, including secure benchmarking facilities, discussion forums and case studies etc, and a project to optimise emerging ATM technological capabilities to implement advanced noise footprint management at ECAC airports.
CDA should be seen as ‘the art of the possible’ and as an evolutionary initiative to be started now.
Other Initiatives
Conclusion
In addition to the above EUROCONTROL are work on the following airport and environmental initiatives: • A Secure airport environmental data services via the PAGODA web portal is being developed. This will offer stakeholders airport specific data including tail number-engine number look-up facility together with taxi-time, emissions, fuel use and fuel cost data for an airport’s Landing and Take-Off cycle below 3,000ft (LTO). This could be developed to offer noise index or noise load related information. PAGODA is available on the web now and the first airport related functionality is expected in early 2009. A prototype has already been developed that has been used to estimate fuel and emissions benefits from taxi-time savings due to Collaborative Decision Making at one airport (more than 1 million Euro per annum) • Two emissions and one noise and emissions assessment tools presently available from the EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre will be
The days of the airport operator being seen as the public apologist for the other operational stakeholders are past – a united presence in now required, if runways and terminals are to be delivered. Airport operational stakeholders should be seen to be proactively delivering the best possible environmental performance through shared ownership of the challenge. A coherent open and no-blame culture both within the operational community and with the external world is essential if due recognition for this is to be won. ^
alan.melrose@eurocontrol.int
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4 Contrails today / Louis Nguyen, NASA Langley Research Center
Contrails: a Double Sided Sword? Dr. David Duda ^ by National Institute of Aerospace How contrails form Contrails are clouds that form in the wake of aircraft. Contrails have been noticed in skies since the 1920s when aircraft first began reaching altitudes cold enough for contrail formation. Although contrails can form under a variety of conditions, nearly all contrails that are seen in the sky are the result of the mixing of the hot, moist exhaust gases of jet aircraft with the cold ambient air. (Like contrails, the cloud that forms on your breath during a cold day is a mixing cloud.) One remarkable characteristic about mixing clouds is that neither the cold environmental air nor the warm air from the exhaust must be saturated to make a cloud. Thus, contrails can occur in otherwise clear skies. This property has made contrails of interest both to scientists and the military. During World War II, formation flying sometimes produced banks of contrails. Not only did the contrails allow the enemy to spot aircraft easily, reports exist of planes being unable to see targets, and even colliding with other aircraft because of contrails.
Contrails, like all clouds [â&#x20AC;Ś], affect the radiative balance in the atmosphere. How long they stay Even though many contrails are short-lived, when the atmosphere is moist enough, the contrails will continue to grow and become persistent contrails. Scientists are
most interested in persistent contrails because they form long-lasting and sometimes extensive clouds that would not normally have formed in the atmosphere. Persistent contrails can last for several hours and spread over thousands of square kilometres, becoming indistinguishable from naturally occurring cirrus clouds.
Photo credit: Wikipedia
Contribution to climate chance Clouds are the largest variable controlling Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s atmospheric temperature and climate. Any change in global cloud cover may contribute to long-term changes in Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s climate. Contrails, like all clouds and unlike greenhouse gases, affect the radiative balance in the atmosphere both positively and negatively. They reflect some sunlight and can cool the surface slightly during the day, and they also emit thermal infrared radiation that can warm the surface. Overall, for contrails the thermal infrared effect dominates and line-shaped contrails add slightly (a bit less than 1%) to the total man-made radiative heating. Because predicted increases in air-traffic could result in a continued increase in cloud cover, knowledge of when and where contrails form is important for determining their contribution to cirrus cloud cover and their effect on climate. Besides contrails, global aviation is expected to produce other effects on climate. Aircraft produce a number of radiatively important gases when they burn fuel, including carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). At present, global aviation accounts for approximately 2% of the man-made CO2 emissions (and thus approximately 2% of the man-made CO2 radiative warming). The NOx interact chemically with other gases in the atmosphere to produce ozone (adding to the warming) and to remove some methane (decreasing the radiative warming). Aircraft also emit other gases such as sulphates and water vapour, but their effect on the radiative balance is expected to be much smaller than CO2.
Radiative effects Adding all of the factors together (including contrails), the total radiative forcing from global aviation is expected to be on the order of 3%
4 Propeller contrails during World War II of the total radiative forcing derived from all anthropogenic-based sources. The uncertainty in present estimates is large, and thus aviation forcing may range from 2 to 8 percent of manmade forcing. Also, as global air travel increases, these radiative effects should increase as well. These estimates are based on observations of the direct climatic effect of the line-shaped contrails we can see in satellite imagery. Additional uncertainties arise when we try to estimate the coverage of cirrus clouds that are produced or modified by persistent contrails under certain atmospheric conditions. Another potentially important unknown is the impact of aircraft-produced soot particles that could act as ice nuclei in the air traffic corridors. Ice nuclei are often uncommon at these altitudes, so that soot particles could have a large impact on the coverage and nature of cirrus clouds.
Solutions? In principle, it may be possible to selectively minimize the creation of late afternoon contrailinduced cloudiness that will persist during the night, when they would have a net warming effect, while intentionally increasing the formation of contrails early in the day, generating a daytime cooling. Current research is focused on accurately predicting the times and locations at which contrails are likely to persist for long periods of time and spread over wide areas as contrail-induced cirrus. Such information could help mitigate the negative effects of aviation on regional and global climate by incorporating it into operational air traffic control and routing systems. ^
David.P.Duda@nasa.gov
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Contrails and Controllers: Can We Fight Global Warming? David Guerin ^ by Civilair, Australia 4 An artist impression of a I would like to expand on Dr. Dudas article on contrails with a discussion on how the environmental effects of contrails could affect ATC and if we could change the Earth’s climate. There are many impacts that aviation has on our planet and its inhabitants. Greenhouse gas emissions are the best known and probably have the largest effect on our climate. Contrails, short for condensations trails, are considered by some to be graffiti only on a much larger scale. And perhaps more controversial is the suspected effect that contrails produced by aircraft have on the Earth’s climate. Few dispute the need for a reduction of human-made (anthropogenic) emissions of greenhouse gases and that aviation climate impacts are potentially the most serious long term issues facing the sector. All players acknowledge the need for focused research efforts to develop the best strategy to mitigate these climatic impacts as there are enormous uncertainties and gaps in our understanding of these complex atmospheric models. In 1953, a scientist by the name of H. Appleman published a chart that was used to determine when jet aircraft would produce contrails. A halfcentury later and contrail research is becoming vastly more important; especially on how contrail induced cirrus cloud could influence Global Warming. I will use the term contrail-cirrus for these anthropogenic clouds. An important point here is that contrails can occur in otherwise clear skies; so cloud cover can be engineered. Opposing this was the need to suppress contrails for air force and navy aircraft making them less obvious; an early step toward stealth technology. Incidentally, the ice particles in contrails are one five-thousandth to two five-thousandths of an inch in diameter and research showed that hygroscopic (water-attracting) powder released into the exhaust produced particles smaller than
a wavelength of light making it non-reflective and shrinking the contrail. Later improvements made the trail completely invisible. ICAO concludes that: “A specific area of uncertainty was in the area of contrail and cirrus cloud formation. These phenomena had only a moderate affect on global warming by day because of their radiation reflecting characteristics, but were more instrumental in causing warming at night. The atmospheric layers involved were very thin and could be avoided and less traffic by night would help alleviate the problem. A potentially positive aspect was the environmental monitoring that aircraft could undertake.” The February 2007 Workshop on the Impacts of Aviation on Climate Change (IPCC) summarises with: “The climatic impacts of aviation emissions include the direct climate effects from carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapour emissions, the indirect forcing on climate resulting from changes in the distributions and concentrations of ozone and methane as a consequence of aircraft nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions, the direct effects (and indirect effects on clouds) from emitted aerosols and aerosol precursors, and the climate effects associated with contrails and cirrus cloud formation.” The Fourth Assessment Report by IPCC’s Work Group 1 also noted a low level of scientific understanding of contrails/cirrus. Contrail-cirrus is cloud formed when water vapour (some from the exhaust and some from the air around the plane) condenses and freezes around small particles (aerosols) from aircraft exhaust. The air must be extremely cold – less than -40°C – and is usually between 26,000 and 66,000 feet. Based on the differences in contrail “life spans”, there are three differing types: short lived, persistent non-spreading, and persistent spreading. The latter is central to us here, as these are most likely to affect climate – they
sweeping aircraft cleaning the contrails in the early morning over a Swiss National park Photo credit: By permission www.plonkreplonk.ch
[contrails are like] graffiti only on a much larger scale cover a larger area and last longer. They are defined as contrail remnants viewed as wider than one finger held at arm’s length after the plane has disappeared. These are “persistent spreading” as the winds at high altitudes are usually very strong – spreading the contrail away from the area where they originated. The challenge would be to identify where the contrails are forming (the contrail formation zones) and predict their future positions. This would require accurate real time 3Dimensional data on humidity, atmospheric temperatures and winds. Accuracy would come from combining data from a variety of sources, including real time satellite information, ground based observations and on-board instrumentation; all to be matched up with traffic data and aircraft observations. So we are certain there is an environmental impact from contrail-
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Some studies suggest that reducing or eliminating airline flights at night and in winter could help.
4 Contrails over the North sea
4 Lake superior (USA) contrails
Photo credits: Nasa cirrus but we don’t know to what extent and therefore whether we should attempt to focus traffic in contrail formation zones or avoid them altogether. Low, thick clouds (such as Stratocumulus) primarily reflect incoming solar radiation, whereas high, thin clouds (such as Cirrus) tend to transmit it to the surface but then trap outgoing infrared radiation, contributing to the greenhouse effect. Picture a green house (with its glass roof panels being the Greenhouse Gases) then build an open sided barn over it. Its solid roof will shade the green house during the day and provide some insulation during the night. This example is similar to the dimming effect known as Global Dimming and this phenomenon may be shading the true increase in Global Warming. The biggest opportunity to verify the effect of contrails on regional temperatures arose because of the three-day grounding of aircraft in the U.S. after the September 11 terrorist attacks. There was much less contrailcirrus and that produced by the occasional military flights was easily studied. An unusual increase in the average differences between the daytime maximum and night-time minimum temperature range (diurnal tem-
perature range or DTR) occurred. This DTR averaged 1° C or 1.8° F warmer and was even larger for regions normally abundant with contrail coverage. It is argued that the absence of contrails was responsible for these conditions and this reduced the reflection of incoming infrared radiation causing a sudden lessoning in the amount of Global Dimming. Some studies suggest that reducing or eliminating airline flights at night and in winter could help increase Global Dimming and slow Global Warming. It is supposed that night flights contribute to a large percentage of aviation Global Warming however only account for a small amount of daily traffic. Similar research claims that winter flights contribute substantially more to the annual warming effect. Solutions proffered include rescheduling night flights for the daytime and avoiding contrail formation zones (often hoped to be only 1500 feet thick!) by fitting sensors on aircraft that could inform pilots where this zone is. Could radical new airspace management techniques and meteorological/atmospheric knowledge facilitate routeing aircraft clear of sensitive parts of the sky? I don’t want to cloud the issue however let’s assume the optical properties and radiative effects on climate have been defined for persistent spreading contrail-cirrus and the different impacts between day and night operations is know. Let’s also assume that a well flown city pair is 200NMs apart and that the jet stream blows across this route. Each airline could fly the upwind contrail route and the downwind contrail route (displaced 30NMs either side of the direct track) above F300, every so often, to maintain the cirrus cover and therefore dim the surrounding 12000 square NMs. By doing this the airline could obtain carbon credits to off-
set future flights. Could controllers cover whole countries in contrails and increase Global Dimming therefore reducing Global Warming?
4 Persistant contrail coverage Photo credit: Springer-Verlag
This may be “pie-in the-sky” but let’s not keep our head in the-clouds! We need to keep abreast of the progress made in this arena; it could impact on how we manage our airspace and control our traffic. It is feasible that we may not have as many available flight levels or that airspace closures may eventuate; and these events could be fluid: like a frontal storm moving back and forth through your airspace. A problem that contrail-cirrus creates that I haven’t mentioned yet is that of visual pollution; a gossamer sky extending to gloomy as the jets overcast an otherwise perfect blue sky. It reminds me of the Bing Crosby song: Ø“Blue skies smilin‘ at me Nothin‘ but blue skies do I see…”Ø ^
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The Point-Merge Approach Solution ^
4 Francois Vergne of Eurocontrol Bretigny
by Terje Dahlseng Eide Norwegian ATCA
Point Merge is a new method of approach control that EUROCONTROL estimates would save substantial amounts of fuel, and consequently, CO2-emissions. Based on experiences made from the fast time simulation phase and the real time simulations so far, one expects the ”green effects” of this method to be up to 100 kilos of fuel saved per aircraft per approach. ”Point Merge enables, in particular, continuous descent approach even under high traffic load, with a potential average fuel saving of 100 kilos per aircraft in the TMA”, operational expert Francois Vergne of the EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre (EEC) in Bretigny, France, confirms.
The Concept The Point Merge concept is developed by the EEC in France. Originally the idea was to utilize existing P-RNAV technology for airborne spacing in an ACC enviroment. When applied to the approach segment, the EEC experts discovered that Point Merge would make a very efficient system for managing arrival flows. And talking about efficiency: Fuel saved equals money saved for the airlines. Reduced fuel consumption results in lower amounts of CO2-emmisions, undoubtedly extremely positive side effects in a world where high oil prices have caused fuel prices to raise sky high and where the global economy is in the midst of a major crisis. Not to mention the increasing focus on the environmental impact of air traffic and man made climate changes. ”The green effect is a big bonus”, Hans Jacob Hofgaard admits. Hofgaard is one of the leaders of the Oslo ASAP – Oslo Advanced Sectorisation and Automation Project. During first quarter of 2011 the project aims to complete its work when the Norwegian ANSP Avinor implements a new and restructured airspace and traffic mangement system in the Oslo region.
step of simulations (TMA+ACC+AMAN) will be made in Bretigny. ”So far the results from the simulations are very convincing. Point Merge increases the capacity quite vastly”, Hofgaard says.Oslo ASAP project manager Geir Gillebo adds: Within the Oslo TMA, the use of Point Merge together with associated working methods and tools would enable a capacity increase of up to 30 per cent. It would also allow the use of continuous descent approaches (CDA) and continuous climb departures (CCD).” The overall objective of ASAP, a project which started in 2006, is to ensure sufficient capacity for the future of the Oslo area, including Oslo and Farris TMAs and the adjacent ACC sectors. Beside introducing a greater degree of predictability for the pilots, Point Merge could imply a reduction of radio transmissions up to 40 per cent compared to the conventional upwind/ downwind system of today, with its many heading and/or speed instructions and use of intermediate levels. ”In addition to these short-term benefits, Point Merge is also a key building block for longer-term developments in the context of SESAR, such as 4D trajectory management”, Francois Vergne underlines.
More airports will use it In addition to Oslo, Rome and Dublin also plan to make good use of the Point Merge system. There have been a workshop with the three parties to exchange views on the system. A safety workshop will be held during the fall and the full safety report should be completed by end December.
4 Geir Gillebo and Jacob Hofgaard of OSLO APP Photos credits: Terje DE
Rome has completed phase one with TMA evaluation conducted at Rome ACC, while the report on first simulation for Dublin will be available shortly, the EEC operational expert informs. Point Merge has also been presented to other ANSPs but no further studies have been made yet. ^
Point Merge has the potential to save 100 kg of fuel per aircraft in the TMAs.
”We have conducted small scale sessions (air & ground) to evaluate full CDA, even along the legs under high traffic load on a generic environment”, Francois Vergne reveals.
The Norwegian experience A part of this project is the introduction of the Point Merge system in combination with an arrival manager (AMAN) from Barco. Oslo ATCC manages the air traffic into Oslo airport Gardermoen, Norway´s largest airport located 50 km outside it´s capital. During the fall the next
4 APP display Photo credit: Eurocontrol EEC.
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Green Flights in Sweden Helena Sjöström ^ by Sweden ATCA Air travel is considered by the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), as responsible for around 3,5 % of man’s total influence on the climate. The rest of the transport sector today is responsible for 24 % of all emissions but the expected increase in air traffic of circa 5 % annually in the next 20 years, means that the environmental issues are and will be of key importance. This can be seen for example with Eurocontrol, which states that among its objectives are contributing to making European aviation safer, more secure and more environmentally friendly.
tem, DMAN, have been made at Arlanda and implementation is planned for 2009.
Free Route Airspace Sweden – FRAS Making it possible for traffic over-flying Sweden above certain levels, to flight plan direct routes thru Swedish airspace. Flights are already today often cleared via direct routes but still have to flight plan via published ATS routes, which means that they have to carry more fuel and therefore are heavier, burn more fuel and produce more emissions.
EcoFly 4 The green pasture overflown by “green” aircraft Photo credit: LFV
ATC and the environment One of the more progressive projects in Swedish ATC is LFV´s Green Flights project. The target is to develop and implement methods and procedures, which will lower the effects of air traffic on the environment, both on short and long term. The focus lies on reducing CO2 emissions during all phases of flight.
The rule in air traffic control has been: “first come – first served”. One of the Green Flights project leaders, Fredrik Lindblom, says that in the future when flights will be carefully planned into a time sequence far in advance, he thinks it is more likely to be: “best on time – best served”. The Green Flights project consists of four parts:
Green Approach Changing the methods of approach to an environmentally optimal flight path in relation to noise and emissions of CO2.
Green Departure Minimizing the line of aircraft waiting for departure on the taxiway by introducing new systems for pre-planning and time sequencing and thru this reducing emissions and noise. Trials using a Departure Manager Sys-
Green Approach graphic made by Hans Bergström, LFV.
The project has also been looking at measures to, on a shorter horizon and with existing systems and methods, improve waiting times on ground, reducing speed en-route to avoid holding etc. The Green Flights project has set as targets for 2012 that 80% of all approaches in Sweden shall be “Green” and 80% of all overflights shall use a direct route thru Swedish airspace. This will include all airports and one must bear in mind that many of the airports are small and never have anything but low to medium traffic and therefore a continuous descent approach is rather easy to execute. In complex and high-density airspace however, this is not the case.
“Green” controlling The question for us controllers is now – How does this affect my job? The answer is that it affects us in many ways, some of which are very difficult to foresee at this time. One major change is the descent profiles. In a Green Flight the descent is long and continuous. Where we earlier could count on IFR arrivals being in level flight at around 2500 feet for some 10-20 miles before picking up the glide path, this is no longer so. At small to medium size airports, who have a lot of school flights mixed with scheduled IFR traffic, this drastically changes the methods for the ATCO. You used to be able to give a school flight, making full-procedure approaches, clearance to join the racetrack at 3500 feet, descend an arrival to 2500 feet, keep radar separation between the two until
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4 Environment the arrival was below the school flight and after the arrival had turned inbound and you knew you would have radar separation, descend the school flight in the racetrack as number two after the arrival. This does not work with Green Approaches. In a Green Approach the aircraft is often around 4000 feet descending in the last turn onto the centerline, at distance 8-10 miles. You basically have to keep the whole area around the approach sector below 5000 feet clean from other traffic. At large airports this is not a problem, since the traffic load already is too high to be able to accommodate school, military, VFR and other flights than strictly IFR instrument arrivals and departures. But the impact of Green Flights is even greater at large airports. At Stockholm-Arlanda new STAR CDAs have been created for the off-peak runways 01L, 19R and 26 and were published as an AIP SUP on May 8th 2008.
Experiences from Stockholm For the Stockholm ACC controllers, the development with Green Approaches following STAR CDA is not very much different from before. Aircraft making Green Approaches from top of descent leave their altitudes at about the same distance as the “normal flights”. The EcoFly has however turned out to be a bit more difficult, says Christopher Vozmediano, watch supervisor. In EcoFly the pilots fly the aircraft at lower speed to save fuel. This has sometimes come as a surprise to the controllers and has, in medium to high traffic when sequencing starts early, caused some problems. Work is now in progress to implement new phraseology for EcoFly. The largest effects are of course seen in the TMA. Lars Rappich, ATC Specialist and also
“CDA or Continuous Descent Approach, is an aircraft operating technique in which an arriving aircraft descends from an optimal position with minimum thrust and avoids level flight to the extent permitted by the safe operation of the aircraft and compliance with published procedures and ATC instructions.”
on 50 % of his time, an active controller at Arlanda approach, has worked with the implementation of Green Approaches at Arlanda. At present, around 5 % of the approaches to Arlanda are Green Approaches. We have set a goal for 2009 to increase this figure to 10%. It works quite well in low to medium traffic but when the traffic increases, it is not easy to combine fixed STARs with other radar-vectored traffic. We see that when we offer an aircraft to make a Green Approach in higher traffic, we quite often have to cancel the clearance at a later stage and revert to radar vectoring. This is of course not so nice for the controller and there is a certain hesitancy to interrupt a Green Approach, but it is frequently necessary. We have also had difficulties with aircraft not complying with speed- and altitude restrictions. The speed restrictions are due to fairly sharp turns onto final and are in accordance with PANS–OPS. When some aircraft do not comply, it of course creates difficulties with separation in the approach sequence. The uncertainty in aircraft performance is a problem. We have written several incident reports on this, says Lars Rappich.
es have been made at Arlanda. For the airlines, a key factor is predictability, to know exactly when the aircraft will be at the gate, which is also improved by the Green Approaches. The airlines are pleased with the results so far and have reported that the fuel saved has been between 50 and 150 kg for each approach made. This of course means financial savings as well as beneficial effects for the environment thru lowered emissions and noise levels. Next in implementing STAR CDA will be GöteborgLandvetter, Malmö and Umeå airports. The long-term vision is that all Swedish airports will be offering Green Approaches. ^
helena.sjostrom@lfv.se
Benefits Although there are some issues, which still have to be resolved, the over all benefits are already substantial. Since the first trials started in 2006, more than 2000 Green Approach-
4 Aircraft in line on taxiway at Arlanda Photo credit: Tommy Säfström, LFV
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There is no better motivator for efficiency in this industry than the price of fuel.
The USA: Denial or Realism by Philip Marien ^ Compiled Assistant Editor It’s clear that the US government sees human impact on our climate somewhat different from the rest of the world. The Bush administration has shown to be less than keen to even acknowledge that there is an impact and even more so, to commit to make changes. This is reflected within the Federal Aviation Administration, where the issue of climate change and what to do about it, doesn’t appear to be much of a priority.
Although the FAA has a Policy, Planning & Environment department, a quick browse of their website shows the main focus appears to be on noise and noise abatement around airports. Hints on what the views on other environmental issues are, come from presentations in the past year or so, but little or nothing seems to have been translated into policy at the moment.
Don’t Panic According to the former deputy administrator Daniel Elwell of the department mentioned above, there is a disconnect growing between perception and performance when it comes to aviation emissions, especially in Europe. Rather than blindly following this path of panic, he believes the American aviation industries’ efforts in the past 40 years
are an example for others, including Europe. Their data shows that aircraft fuel efficiency has improved 70% over the last 40 years and it is only getting better. On a per passenger mile basis, Boeing claims its new 787 will be much more fuel efficient than any compact car available today.
Phot o Arm credit: in Ro se/d rea
We know that worldwide, aviation represents about 3% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Between 2000 and 2006, aviation emissions in the U.S. declined by about 4%, while in the same period in Europe, emissions increased by around 30%! mstim
e
No regulation This was achieved without one single government imposed emission standard for aviation. Still according to Daniel Elwell, there is no better motivator for efficiency in this industry than the price of fuel. And with fuel now representing 25-30% of U.S. airline costs, the motivation has never been stronger for both manufacturers and operators.
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4 Environment The FAA is working alongside industry to improve the emission efficiency of air transport in the United States. Some efforts, like the introduction of Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum, have been very successful, saving about 3 million tons of CO2 annually. Other efforts, like the redesign of the Northeast airspace, are more difficult to put in place, but no less important to our overall goal of increasing capacity while minimizing emissions.
Tough to improve When starting from an exceptional track record, setting a goal to improve this is extremely hard. Rather than committing at this point in time, Mr. Elwell proposes to look at whether carbon neutral growth is feasible. For instance, if U.S. aviation miles flown increase 4% then they would need to find a combination of measures that provides a 4% improvement in fuel burn. In order to achieve this in a commercially viable manner, five areas need particular attention:
More Research Needed The impact from emissions other than CO2– especially at altitude – is not yet fully understood. The impact of potentially harmful emissions must be fully understood and technology or procedures to mitigate or eliminate their effects have to be developed. The recently launched Aviation Climate Change Research Initiative in partnership with NASA and other agencies- as an integral part of the Next Generation Air Transportation System – will help to quantify the full impact and to inform policy decisions in this area.
Efficient ATM Air traffic management needs to improve and become more efficient to reduce fuel burn. Improving energy efficiency has the dual benefit of improving both environmental and financial performance of the aviation sector. Millions of tons of carbon emissions have been saved by implementing RVSM. Accelerated implementation of RNAV, RNP and other procedures will further improve the fuel efficiency of the system. The Atlantic Interoperability Initiative to Reduce Emissions (AIRE) will advance the use of environmentally friendly procedures across the Atlantic. This is done in close cooperation with the FAA’s European counterparts.
Technology Thirdly, the vast majority of improvements in environmental performance over the last three decades came from enhancements in engine and airframe design. It would make sense therefore to hasten the development of promising environmental improvements in aircraft technology. US Congress is expected
4 Contrails over the USA Photo credit: NASA
to endorse a research consortium, called CLEEN, which will focus on accelerating development of lower energy, emissions and noise technology for aircraft.
Alternative Fuel Fourth: alternative fuels for aviation – fuels that improve emissions performance at both the local and global level – need to be further explored and developed. It will not only improve environmental performance but also energy security. Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuel Initiative, or CAAFI, include a cross-section of airlines, manufacturers, airports, petroleum firms, federal agencies, including the FAA, and international players. Since 2006, for the first time in history, fuel has become the single largest component of U.S. airline operating costs. While commercial aviation consumes less than 3 percent of U.S. total energy use, it drives about 6 percent of the U.S. gross economic output and just under 9 percent of national employment. Secure and sustainable fuel sources are essential for its continued prosperity. The first trials making limited use of coal-to-liquid fuels and bio-fuel for aviation are already underway.
Regulation Lastly, it is recognised that some forms of regulation, tax incentives, emissions trading or carbon offsets may offer assistance in managing aviation emissions growth. The key is to ensure the measures are cost-beneficial and that the prerogative of States to develop and implement measures they believe are appropriate, are respected: a “one size fits all” approach on the international community is unlikely to work.
NextGen While the points made by Mr. Elwell suggest the FAA has at least considered the is-
sue, little if anything seems to have yet been transposed into policy. The FAA appears to put a lot of their eggs in the NextGen basket when it comes to controlling the impact of aviation on the environment. The improvement in efficiency and cost reduction are expected to eventually result in a decreased impact on the environment. This includes less noise around airports, better local air quality and reducing emissions. But it also implies that if NextGen is not fully successful, the benefits for the environment will also lag behind. If, as some experts believe, we only get one shot, it may be too little, too late … ^ Sources: • www.greenaironline.com • www.faa.gov/airports_airtraffic/environmental_issues/media/managing_challenge.pdf
pmarien@gmail.com
The FAA appears to put a lot of their eggs in the NextGen basket when it comes to controlling the impact of aviation on the environment.
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Friends of the Earth stated that biofuels were a major distraction in the fight against climate change. so keen to strongly support the contested expansion.
Bio Kiwis
The Aviation Biofuel Controversy ^ by Philip Marien
Air New Zealand is planning to operate a test flight using second-generation biofuel, sourced from the jatropha curcas plant, in the last quarter of 2008. The fuel comes from seeds grown on environmentally sustainable plantations in South Africa and India. Jatropha is a plant that has high water efficiency, and produces seed that contain inedible lipid oil. Each seed produces between 30 and 40 percent of its mass in oil. By 2013, Air New Zealand expects to use at least one million barrels of environmentally sustainable fuel annually, meeting at least 10% of its total annual needs.
Uncle Sam Aviation is one of the fastest growing contributors to carbon emissions, producing about 3 per cent of all EU CO2 emissions. At the current growth, forecasts indicate that airlines will account for 5 per cent of global warming gases by 2050. As the aviation industry will soon be included in the European Emissions Trading Scheme, the heat is on to find cleaner alternatives for good old kerosene.
Virgin Flight Early 2008, Virgin Atlantic flew a B747 (G-VWOW) from
London to Amsterdam to demonstrate that using biofuel was possible on commercial aircraft. Using a combination of coconut oil and babassu nut oil, both from sustainable cultivated crops, one of the B747’s four engines operated on a 20% biofuel/80% kerosene blend. Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson said the “historic“ flight was the first step towards using biofuels on commercial flights. They expect to see a significant contribution from second generation biofuels, made from truly sustainable second generation feed stocks such as algae or using waste biomass like woodchips, towards aviation’s fuel needs in the next decade or so.
Hogwash? But environmental campaigners were quick to point out that carbon savings from biofuels, often made from organic materials such as wheat, sugarcane and palm oil, were “negligible“. Friends of the Earth stated that biofuels were a major distraction in the fight against climate change.
4 Seeds of the Jatropha Curcas plant Photo credit: Frank Vincentz Wikipedia 4 Jatropha Curcas plant: the seeds contain up to 40% oil. Photo credit: Frank Vincentz Wikipedia
Recent scientific studies have shown how the cultivation of biofuels can cause severe damage to the climate, due to “indirect effects“ such as the displacement of traditional crops onto newly deforested land. In addition, they also questioned the timing of the ‘stunt’, which coincided with the Heathrow third runway consultation ending the same week. If Virgin was really concerned about the environment, perhaps they shouldn’t be
Slightly surprising is that the biggest push for alternative jet fuel doesn’t come from commercial airlines, but from the US Air Force: they are very keen to be less dependant on dodgy governments that could cut off oil supplies without warning. In close cooperation with Boeing, they are converting their long range aircraft to use domestically-supplied fuel, extracted from anything but crude oil. Currently, this includes fossil sources – such as coal and natural gas – but Boeing envisages many different, probably non-food biofuel sources, all producing interchangeable fuel to a common standard. Fuel made from nonfood sources like algae using new processes might very reduce carbon emissions significantly. As long as this doesn’t require unfeasibly large amounts of cropland, it would not negatively affect food prices. As with the whole environmental situation, there appear to be as many argument for as against biofuel. Needless to say that a lot of money is at stake, both for the oil industry as for suppliers of the raw material to make biofuels. Political lobbying has already resulted in a strong push towards corn ethanol in the US. If they really wanted to, large companies like Boeing or Virgin, not to mention the US Air Force, could have a big influence if they really wanted to. While there are several technological difficulties to overcome, it’ll take more commitment than the current efforts which seem more PR-oriented than anything else. ^
pmarien@gmail.com
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Philippe Domogala ^ by Editor Greenpeace UK has released some interesting figures and statements on aviation.
Their views: • The aviation industry often claims that aviation is only responsible for 2% of emissions. This figure applies only to CO2 emissions and refers to 1992 data. According to the European Federation for Transport and Environment, in the year 2000 air transport actually accounted for between 4% and 9% of the climate change impact of human activities. • Aviation emissions do more damage to the climate because they are released at altitude. Scientists multiply aviation emissions by between 2 and 3 to calculate their increased impact on climate – a phenomenon known as ‘radiative forcing’. • Including aviation in the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) will not solve the problem. According to a report from Ernst and Young, even in the toughest ETS scenario, emissions from the aviation sector would grow by 83% by 2020 – as opposed to 86% without the ETS. • Per person, Britons emit more from flying than any other people on the planet – 603kg per person per year, compared to 434kg for the Irish and 275 kg for Americans. Aviation accounts for 13% of the country’s entire climate impact– a figure that is growing. Train travel is up to ten times less damaging to the climate than flying. • Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on all airport expansion; a cap on flights at current levels, meaning any efficiency gains would have a positive impact by reducing overall emissions; and the billions channelled to aviation in tax breaks to instead be ploughed into the UK’s railway network, to increase capacity and make trains cheaper and more accessible, reducing demand for domestic and short-haul flights. • Aviation currently receives £9bn per year in tax subsidies. This money could be spent on the rail network to help deliver a cheaper, reliable, and environmentally sound transport solution.
• Small increases in the efficiency of planes will be overwhelmed by an unrestrained growth in flights. The UK Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution found that the industry’s targets are ‘clearly aspirations rather than projections’. There are some basic technological restraints that make major improvements impossible to imagine. However, if the Government caps the total number of flights at current levels, these efficiency gains could have a positive impact in reducing the industry’s emissions. Greenpeace also had a campaign against the building of a 3rd runway in London Heathrow. Last February they displayed a banner across a British Airways A320 that read ‘CLIMATE EMERGENCY – NO 3rd RUNWAY‘. They were protesting against the UK government’s plans to build a third runway and a sixth terminal at Heathrow. One of the protesters, Anna Jones, said: „Climate change can be beaten, but not by almost doubling the size of the world‘s biggest international airport. That‘s why we occupied the top of BA’s Manchester to London flight. A huge number of planes leave Heathrow every day destined for cities easily reachable by train. If we invested in high-speed rail instead of climate-wrecking runways, we could begin to reduce the environmental impact of Heathrow instead of increasing it.“
ally. 100,000 flights a year go between Heathrow and cities within 500 kilometres of the airport – destinations easily reachable by train. The number one destination from Heathrow is Paris. The fourth most popular destination is Manchester. Transferring those 100,000 short-haul flights from Heathrow to the rail network would take capacity back to 1990 levels, significantly reducing the airport’s Co2 emissions and largely negating the push for a third runway “. ^
ed@ifatca.org
The most popular destination from Heathrow is Paris, with sixty flights back and forth every day. Flights between Heathrow and locations easily accessible by train – such as Paris, Brussels, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds/ Bradford and Durham – total over 100,000 flights a year. Flying is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK, doubling in the 1990s. According to the government, flights from and within the UK account for 13% of the UK‘s climate impact because greenhouse gases create more global warming when emitted at altitude. The Tyndall climate research centre calculates that if aviation expands as projected, Britain will have to totally decarbonise the rest of its economy by 2050 to effectively tackle climate change. Greenpeace said that “We don’t need to expand aviation in order to travel internation-
4 Occupied BA’s Airbus banner. Photo credit: greenpeace
Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on all airport expansion [and] a cap on flights at current levels.
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SPOTLIGHT
Spotlight on Corporate Members Kevin Salter ^ by Contributing Editor, Corporate Affairs Ke v
in Salter
Welcome to Spotlight. The focus in this issue is on a company that are expert in the field of conflict prediction and detection. Our Spotlight corporate partner for the final issue of 2008 is:
Before you start to read the article, I would especially like to thank Antonio Lo Brutto, Vice President and General Manager, Sensis Corporation Air Traffic Systems, for taking the time to compile the information on his company and by doing so, support this special feature.
Sensis Corporation Sensis Corporation provides surface, terminal and en-route surveillance technologies that feed our automation systems comprised of multi-sensor data fusion, and advanced conflict prediction and alerting. These systems provide an integrated surveillance picture for air traffic controllers. More than 700 employees, which include former civil and military air traffic controllers from around the world, work at Sensis to provide the air traffic control industry with the innovative, reliable, accurate and proven solutions. This article focuses on our approach to Advanced – Surface Movement Guidance and Control Systems (A-SMGCS), of which Sensis is deploying more than 40 around the world. It address the technological developments driving today’s A-SMGCS deployments and provides a view into emerging applications that will further support air traffic controllers in ensuring safe air travel.
Advances in Surface Surveillance
A-SMGCS Components Surveillance
With the increasing demand for higher levels of aircraft movements, pressure is growing for airport systems that can support controllers in safely handling greater capacity while simultaneously reducing congestion and taxi time. The proven system that enables controllers to increase capacity, reduce taxi time and improve safety is the deployment of advanced surface surveillance such as A-SMGCS. By fusing multiple sensors, A-SMGCS provides a highly accurate, highly reliable, timely view of aircraft and vehicles on the airport surface. A-SMGCS also provides immediate identification of aircraft and vehicles equipped with GPS receivers. Today, controllers are using A-SMGCS systems at primary airports in India, Australia, and Hong Kong, while at 14 major airports in the U.S., controllers are using a comparable system called Airport Surface Detection Equipment, Model X, or ASDE-X. Another 25 US sites are slated to receive ASDE-X by 2011.
The key to a well-performing A-SMGCS is the addition of accurate cooperative surveillance to the surface. For decades, controllers have had to rely on non-cooperative Surface Movement Radar (SMR) to manage the airport surface and arrival/departure process; however, because they are susceptible to false targets in inclement weather as well as multipath, SMRs provide only a limited picture of the surface for less-than-optimal situational awareness. SMRs, by their nature of being deployed at a single location, are easily susceptible to produce blind spots or degraded reception due to multipath, especially as the surrounding airport infrastructure grows.
In addition to providing significant improvements in safety, there are many new functions being integrated into A-SMGCS. And in many cases, A-SMGCS is the backbone of future technologies that will assist controllers in providing even safer management of runways and taxiways. But first, some background on A-SMGCS...
y Lo Brutto Ton
With the advent of Mode S transponder multilateration surveillance a little more than fifteen years ago, a second surveillance source – with decided advantages over existing radars – became available. Sensis Corporation integrates this surveillance source into its A-SMGCS to overcome the inherent weaknesses of traditional SMR radar. A cooperative surveillance source, multilateration uses small, non-rotating sensors around the airport surface to triangulate an aircraft’s position. As a result of the triangulation – and the multiple location inputs each sensor provides – multilateration is not affected by rain, snow or other inclement weather conditions. Additionally, due to their light weight and small size, multilateration sensors can easily be added to an airport to accommodate airport growth and adapt to changes in airport layout. Further, multilateration sensors receive ADS-B so as ADS-B adoption comes to fruition, A-SMGCS will be ready to support this future surveillance option. Sensis A-SMGCS uses a multi-sensor data processor to fuse the cooperative and non-cooperative surveillance sources into a single track. This multi-sensor data processor enables the strength of each individ-
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SPOTLIGHT seasoned controllers, the working stations provide situational awareness in an intuitive manner. Additionally, controllers have several options to customize the high-contrast, high-brightness screens to their own preferences.
Optimization
ual sensor to overcome the limitations of other sensors for the most accurate location of all targets.
Conflict Prediction and Alerting One of the most significant developments in A-SMGCS technology is the addition of conflict prediction and alerting (sometimes referred to as conflict detection and alerting). This capability enhances safety by providing the controller with an audible and visual alert when there is the potential for an unsafe condition to occur in the immediate future. Sensis Corporation identifies its conflict prediction and alerting technology as “Safety Logic.”
A key factor in the operation of an A-SMGCS is the optimization of the system to meet the unique requirements of each airport. When an A-SMGCS is deployed, Sensis works to ensure that the hardware and software programs are working together, and that the multilateration sensors and SMR are placed to create the most accurate system possible. The A-SMGCS optimization starts with configuring the system specific to the layout of the airport. The system has many advanced features and functions that enable the automatic removal of false tracks while maintaining a high update rate for real tracks. Given that each airport operation is different, the Sensis A-SMGCS provides many adjustable parameters that enable the system to be configured to the needs of the controllers. Changes to the airport surface, such as new buildings, or runways, may result in a need to re-optimize the system for the best performance.
Expanding On An A-SMGCS Sensis Safety Logic uses the highly accurate output of the multi-sensor data processor – drawing from both cooperative and non-cooperative surveillance sources – to provide the most reliable visual and audible alert functions available today. Safety Logic can be customized to match the unique requirements of each airport and each controller has the ability to further customize the alerting function to his or her preferences, including the data shown on the screen.
There are a number of safety functions that can be integrated into the A-SMGCS to further increase safety, capacity and efficiency.
Taxi Route Conformance Monitoring Taxi route conformance monitoring provides controllers with the ability to assign departing and arriving aircraft to a specific taxi route. With taxi route conformance monitoring, the A-SMGCS automatically
monitors the aircraft’s controller-determined route. If the aircraft deviates from its assigned route, an alert is generated, giving the controller additional time to communicate with the pilot to take corrective action. Airports such as Indira Gandhi International Airport are currently using this functionality.
Airfield Safety Lighting An A-SMGCS can also control airfield safety lighting applications. These runway safety lighting applications, called runway status lights, stop bar controls, runway entrance lights, or takeoff hold lights, provide an additional layer of runway safety. The lights, often integrated into the entrance points of runways and taxiways, give the pilot a visual reference if a runway is active or not. The A-SMGCS is configured to automatically turn the light on or off, depending on a variety of preprogrammed factors. It also alerts the controller when an aircraft crosses a threshold that is active. Pilots still need clearance from the controller to move forward, but now have an added level of safety by visually seeing active and inactive runways and taxiways.
Electronic Flight Strips Electronic flight strips (EFS) replace paper strips, allowing controllers to manage electronic flight data electronically, reducing manual functions and enabling a greater focus on safety. EFS can be integrated into an A-SMGCS by sharing key operational, safety and clearance data electronically. This can reduce the need for verbal communication and eliminates paper from the air traffic management process, potentially helping to ease controllers’ workloads.
Vehicle Tracking Being able to know the location and identity of vehicles on the surface provides control-
Through use by air traffic controllers around the world, Safety Logic has been proven to function in an operational environment for more than 40 alert situations with minimal false alerting. With this advance, automated warning of potential incursions, controllers can save valuable seconds in the alerting process.
Controller Working Positions With Sensis A-SMGCS, the comprehensive surveillance picture is presented to controllers on a specialized controller working position that supports event recording and playback. Based on testing, human factors engineering and, most importantly, input from a working group of
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SPOTLIGHT
lers with an even greater level of situational awareness. By equipping vehicles, such as tugs, rescue equipment and snow removal vehicles, with tracking units that function like an aircraft transponder or ADS-B transmitter, controllers can automatically identify vehicles on the airport surface on the A-SMGCS display. Advanced vehicle transmitters have the added functionality of only emitting transmissions when on the airport surface, minimizing RF interference with aircraft transmissions.
Enhanced Terminal Area Surveillance By augmenting an A-SMGCS with addition-
al multilateration sensors, controllers can receive the level of surveillance accuracy needed to support Precision Runway Monitoring and terminal surveillance applications. The high accuracy and update rate of these multilateration deployments meets the ICAO standards for a sensor to be used to allow the simultaneous approaches to closely spaced parallel runways. For those airports that do not have parallel runway configurations, added capacity can be obtained by using multilateration for terminal area surveillance. The once-a-second update rate and accurate position reports support closer tolerance minimum spacing and improved turn rates onto final approach. Airports such as Sydney (Australia), Detroit Metro (U.S.), and Innsbruck (Austria), are successfully using multilateration for these enhanced terminal surveillance applications.
In Summary With growing capabilities and advanced technologies, A-SMGCS provides controllers with a tool to simultaneously increase safety, efficiency and capacity. And the introduction of A-SMGCS at an airport not only provides these benefits on day one, but also provides the fundamental building blocks for further improvement as the airport grows.
This concludes `Spotlight´ for 2008. Thanks once more, Antonio, for supporting the article and I would also like to thank Beth Larson, Director of Communications and Rob Conrad, Sr. Public Relations Specialist from Sensis for their assistance in providing support and in ensuring that all deadlines were met. ^
Until next year and as usual, if any CM would like their company to be featured in `Spotlight´ in 2009, and likewise to any reader, who would like further information on any topic that was covered, please do not hesitate to contact me using the following address: Kevin Salter IFATCA Contributing Editor Corporate Affairs Flugsicherungsakademie Am DFS-Campus 4 D-63225 Langen Tel: + 49 (0)6103 707 5202 Fax: + 49 (0)6103 707 5177 E-Mail: kevin-john.salter@dfs.de
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4 Africa News
RVSM implementation in Africa Keziah Ogutu ^ by IFATCA AFM Regional Support Group ‘Finally, it is here’ was the sigh from many a controller, pilot, air operator and Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) in the Africa- Indian Ocean (AFI) region on 25th September 2008. It had been a long wait, approximately 6 years of intensive work and consultation.
pilots and air traffic controllers training, and States to meet the requirements of the NSP. The AFI Regional Monitoring Agency (ARMA) was set up in Johannesburg, South Africa to collect data which would be used in developing a Pre-Implementation Safety Case (PISC).
The relief was due to the implementation of the 1000 feet Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) with effect from 25th September 2008 The implementation was within the airspace contained between 29 and 41,000 feet over the entire African Airspace and part of the Oceanic areas, 53 States in total. This implementation increased the available airspace by introducing six extra flight levels. The AFI RVSM airspace does not have Transition airspaces however it is unique in that NON-RVSM approved aircraft capable of climbing above the RVSM airspace are allowed to transit through the airspace as long as it is done continuously without leveling off.
By November 17th 2003 at the 2nd TF meeting it was clear that much more needed to be done before implementation; the target date was pushed to January 2005 to concede with the CAR/SAM region implementation of RVSM. At the GO/NO-GO meeting on 24th September 2004 it was realized that once again this was not to be. ARMA had difficulties collecting data from States to enable a proper PISC to be done. The date was again shifted to 27th November 2006 however at the TF10 meeting in November 2006 the TF concluded that a Target date would only be set once the CRA indicated an acceptable level, work continued and it was not until the TF12 meeting in May 2007 that it became clear that the date of 25th September 2008 was feasible.
The concept to implement RVSM in the AFI region was realized by the AFI Planning and Implementation Regional Group (APIRG) as early as 2001.
14 TF meetings and 12 PMT (the Project Management Team made up of a few experts earlier formed within the TF to assist ARMA) meetings later the dream was finally realized. Not only did the AFI region implement RVSM but it did so in one stage between FL290 and FL410. The PMT which included IATA, IFALPA and IFATCA worked tirelessly in the final stages of the implementation program, holding weekly telecom meetings to review progress. The work the team did not only resulted in the implementation of the AFI RVSM airspace but made a great in-road in the improvement of CNS/ATM system in the African airspace.
The ICAO Air Navigation Commission, on receiving the request from the AFI region recommended that prior to determining a target date for implementation, the region should make an Implementation Strategy available to the Commission for approval. To achieve this, the Region at its 14th APIRG meeting swiftly swung into action. Borrowing from the other regions, various Task Forces (TF) met to map out a work plan to see the implementation of the AFI RVSM. Initially the TF had concluded that the region would implement RVSM in two stages, between FL350 to FL390 by November 2003 and extend it to cover the airspace between FL290 and FL410 by end of 2005. The Target Level of Safety (TLS) as part of the Collision Risk Assessment (CRA) was set at 5 x 10¯9, a very ambitious target for this region considered as ‘accident prone’ but still a target in line with ICAO Standards.
On 29th September 2008 at 1000UTC the AFI RVSM Quick Response team finally stepped down, the switch over from the conventional 2000feet vertical separation to the reduced 1000feet vertical separation had been done successfully, no serious post implementation issues recorded.
There was a lot of work to be done in the short period, guidance material to be developed,
This project can be said to have been the largest CNS/ATM implementation project
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4 RVSM poster Photo credit: eurocontrol the region has ever realized and it took dedication from many people and organizations from within and outside the region assisting to ensure the safe implementation. Many controllers put aside their problems which included some of industrial nature and operational difficulties to ensure the safe implementation. The PMT continues to monitor development in the airspace and intends to work towards ensuring further improvement in the CNS/ATM system in the region. ^
kezogutu@yahoo.com
Many controllers put aside their problems which included some of industrial nature and operational difficulties to ensure the safe implementation.
4 RVSM in Africa Photo credit: DP
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4 Malta
Malta ATC ^
by Philippe Domogala Editor
History Malta is the smallest country in the European Union, joining in 2004. It is an archipelago of 3 islands located about 100 kilometres south of Sicily. It is quite small with only 400,000 inhabitants and an area of 316 square kilometres, but it has a very large FIR from Tunisia to Greece and from Italy to Libya. Until 1979, the UK Royal Air Force ran the Tower and Approach whilst IAL (now SERCO) ran the ACC. When the British left in 1979, they handed ATC over to the Maltese military authorities. In 1998 ATC become civilian and part of the Malta International Airport (MIA), a
Photo credits: DP
It has a very large FIR from Tunisia to Greece and from Italy to Libya. government enterprise, and all of the military controllers joined the new company. In 2002 MIA was privatised, but the Government wanted to keep ATC under its wing so it created Malta ATS, the enterprise now running ATC in Malta.
ATC training There are currently 50 controllers, most of whom are triplerated (TWR, APP, and ACC).
4 Malta TWR and
4 Malta ACC controllers
ACC building
They are about 10% short of staff, the deficit being resolved by voluntary overtime. Training is currently done in Shannon, Ireland but with a fixed hierarchy – first a controller will operate in Tower, and then as vacancies arise s/he will move over to APP, and later to ACC. This means that the average age of the ACC controllers is quite high.
Control tower The airport has about 150 commercial movements a day, plus some general aviation movements in varying numbers. As Malta has only one airport (LMML), everyone is based there. There are flying schools with Cessna 152s and 172s, plus 20 or so private microlights, including a pendular micro-light. However all these have to carry a transponder, so the traffic is well controlled. The airport has a main runway able to accommodate all aircraft types with a secondary runway which can handle up to Code C aircraft. Lufthansa Technik is building three new large hangars on the airport to be able to do the heavy maintenance on its Airbus A340s there. (Incidentally the number of Philippines mechanics employed by them there is perhaps an indication of the times to come for all of us … I have been told that these are students as LH is also opening a facility in the Philippine Islands).
Area control centre The ACC is co-located with the Tower at the airport. It has only one en-route and one approach sector, with about 300 movements per day. Their system is about 10 years old, built by SELEX, and features electronic strips. The airspace is completely radar-controlled, from Malta’s two long-range radars with radar information from Greek radar for the eastern part of their FIR.
The future Talking to the Association (Union) Secretary, I learned that relations with their management are reasonably good. They have just signed a contract valid until 2012 which will bring some stability. The major problem is their current staff shortage – 6 controllers have recently left Malta, 3 to work in the Middle East, 1 to Ireland, 1 to Brussels and 1 to become a pilot. This means that overtime has to be performed to maintain their roster. While their contract states 33 hours per week, with overtime this can stretch out to 40-44 hours per week. What is also worrying the Association is the total lack of information regarding BLUEMED, the Functional Airspace Block (FAB) that Malta decided to join. They have not been kept in the loop as they were initially promised. The introduction of RVSM in Africa took place on 25th September, and affected them directly as most of the Europe/South Africa traffic passes through Malta to/from Libya. Unfortunately at time there were no visits, or letter of agreement, with Tripoli to regulate the operation. However the controllers have reported that the RVSM in Tripoli is working well. Another problem is a bad VHF interface on the eastern part of their FIR. Their rest facilities, including kitchen and sleeping arrangements for the night, have recently been upgraded to a very good standard. Finally Robert Sant, a former executive of the Association and well-known IFATCA representative, has recently been appointed as the new Chief of Operations, so the relationship between management and controllers will certainly benefit from this appointment. ^
ed@ifatca.org
4 Malta Tower controllers
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4 European News
European regional meeting:
4 Marc Baumgartner Photo credits: DP
Focus on Safety and Environment
4 Head table
Philippe Domogala ^ by Editor IFATCA held its 25th Regional meeting in Lisbon (Portugal) in late October, where 180 controllers from 40 European countries met to discuss their future. Patrik Peters, IFATCA EVP Europe very ably chaired the meeting that was opened by the president of the Portuguese CAA, Mr De Almeida. Presentations were made by various organizations. Staff shortages and the effects of the economic and financial crisis was of course at the top of the controllers agenda, but the environment, and its effects was also one of the main subjects debated. IATA sent its Director of Safety, OPS & Infrastructure Europe, Gunter Martis, to explain to us the current constraints the airline industry is facing. He said “in 1997, fuel was below 10% of operating costs, today it is up to 40%. Today’s financial crisis is hurting our revenue: freight/cargo flight has for the first time reduced by 10% and some of the aircraft we ordered new are remaining in the hangars of the manufacturers or are being parked in the desert. We have now excessive capacity, as demand is decreasing and our losses are expected to reach 5 billions USD in 2008 and 4 billions in 2009 “. The Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) will also mean that extra CO2 emissions will have to be paid for, reducing revenue even further. IATA is asking ATM to help them reduce their fuel and CO2 emissions costs by reducing the time they spend in the air on a given flight. Gunter very convincingly presented the airlines case. Some of the solutions he asked for are in fact already (but very slowly) implemented – airspace redesign enabling shorter routes, CDAs in the TMAs and airport collaborative decision making are some examples. However some of his requests were more controversial. Like non-restrictive clean airspeed departures, Pilot’s own discretion descents and elimination of the 250 Knots below 10.000ft rule generated an interesting debate afterwards. Joe Sultana from Eurocontrol who made a special presentation on a new initiative called
“Flight Efficiency Plan“, stated that the airline industry is being financially squeezed three ways at the moment – the financial crisis is reducing their load factors and their revenue, the price of oil is now up to 40% of operating costs and the CO2 trade emission scheme means they will have to pay extra again. Joe told us that the airlines consider that part of these extra costs are due to the European ATM system in general that forces them to fly longer routes. The forecast for 2009 is for a decrease in traffic as airlines cancel nonprofitable routes and concentrate on high revenue flights. For us controllers it will mean less overall traffic, but higher peaks. Higher peaks will mean capacity constraints and more delays. For this Eurocontrol is looking at many possibilities to see how they can help the airlines get through these difficult times. The plan is to put a much bigger emphasis on fuel savings and environment. As he said: It is not just “ safe and expeditious flow of traffic “ but it must be cost effective as well. The aim is to restructure the airspace, routes and sectors to see how we can shorten the flight profiles between selected city pairs and ensure that airlines can make use of all available airspace so that they can fly their optimized flight plan. For 2009 they expect to enforce 140 route changes and implement 40 re-sectorisation projects. Marc Baumgartner (President and CEO IFATCA) made a fairy tale presentation involving flying horses, dwarfs, magic magnetic fountain keepers, and a beautiful princess. These were supposed to represent aircraft, pilots, controllers and the European Union Commission. He had everyone’s attention, and his point was that programs like SESAR and NEXTGEN would remain fairy tales if the working controllers were not involved more directly in their definition and implementation plans. Paul Neering, Liaison Officer to the EU, explained in a nutshell the latest developments regarding the Single European Sky (SES) which has now been renamed SES 2. Somewhat
like a Hollywood movie in that to SES2 a 5th so called “pillar” has been added to the 4 previous ones (Legislation, EASA, Technical/SESAR and Airports). What this all really means is still unclear. Paul highlighted the main shortcomings of the plan according to IFATCA: Things like airspace restructure not being in accordance with ICAO, or the fact that Just Culture is not favored, are just two examples. The notion of “sustainable ATM “is also unclear and IFATCA has asked for a clear definition of “sustainable“. Regarding staff shortages, the European situation can best be described by a remark made by POLATCA, the Polish association: Catastrophe! The meeting was extremely well organized by Paulo En-
The forecast for 2009 is for a decrease in traffic but higher peaks. Higher peaks will mean capacity constraints and more delays. carnacao, the President of the Portuguese association and his team, who also provided beautiful facilities and superb social events. The next European regional meeting will be held in the Greek island of KOS, from 23 to 25 October 2009. ^
ed@ifatca.org
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4 European News 4 View of the Seminar room Photo credit: APCTA
Safety seminar
Human error is not the cause of 70% of accidents as human errors or mistakes are consequences, not causes.
Philippe Domogala ^ by Editor Before the Regional meeting a one day Seminar on Safety was organized by Patrik Peters. 80 controllers participated and listened to a few presentations from selected Organisations. Marc Baumgartner, opened the seminar by setting the scene. He explained in detail what safety really is and how it should be understood by us, the controllers. For him, human errors as such do not exist. Human error is not the cause of 70% of accidents as human errors or mistakes are consequences, not causes. No one wakes up in the morning thinking: “today I will provoke an accident”. For him, ATM related accidents are not caused by individuals, but almost always by the failure of the ATS system. He explained the importance of safety management, and how automation should not be used to try to eliminate the human out of the system. He advocated that humans are an asset without which the proper functioning of a modern technological system would be impossible. He said every controller should know (and be able to
explain if asked) what are things like Hazard Analysis, Risk Assessment or Risk Mitigation.
Crisis guide Marc also explained IFATCA recently published a CRISIS GUIDE, on how to react after an incident. This guide is freely available from IFATCA secretariat (office@ifatca.org) or downloadable from the IFATCA web site.
EASA Jussi Myllarniemi of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) explained what they are doing and planning to do in the future. EASA as an EU agency prepares all safety related implementing rules and standards. The latter ones are issued by the Agency but the binding rules by the European Commission. The basic regulation establishing EASA’s extension to ATM/ANS has to be adopted in co-decision by the European Parliament and the Council. Standardization inspections are the basic means to ensure uniform implementation of common rules by national competent authorities and are therefore a key issue for safety. He said the aviation system behaves as a network and therefore a total system approach is needed to cover all fields of aviation and ensuring that no safety gaps or unnecessary overlaps will be created. A set of common rules should and will apply, but implementing those new rules will probably take several years.
rule in the EASA system (i.e to keep local expertise in place) and build on continuation and existing regulations (like ESARRs). However, with future FABs, if real pan-European units are created, EASA might be asked to oversee and certify them, if it is seen as the most effective way and ensuring full transparency. As far as EASA taking over tasks from Eurocontrol, Jussi said that mainly the SRU (Eurocontrol Safety Regulatory unit) tasks will be transferred to EASA, and that could affect only a handful of persons in the whole EUROCONTROL organisation. Eurocontrol and EASA will be complementing each other, not competing for each others business. Marc Baumgartner then explained Just Culture, why it was set up and the importance of having it in place. “Just Culture is the most important thing you can implement“ he said. “But Just Culture only applies to incidents. As soon as an accident occurs, a different set of rules applies. Any controller association, when implementing Just Culture should first look for an agreement with their ANSP on a clear definition of what is an honest mistake and who will be drawing the line between what is acceptable and what is not. A small film by Sidney Dekker and the DFS (downloadable on U-tube free of charge on http://de.youtube. com/watch?v=t81sDiYjKUk) will assist in doing that. ^
EASA will normally not directly certify or oversee ATS units as decentralization is the
ed@ifatca.org
Staff shortage in the European region. From the 36 controller associations present in Lisbon, a quick survey was made to have a snapshot of the current staff shortage as seen by the controllers; The number of active controllers currently working in those 36 states (excluding Russia) is around 18.500 and the reported staff shortage is ca. 2400, or roughly 13.5%. But those numbers generally vary from 5% to 35% for most states. However one state, Turkey, has currently only have half the controllers needed to run their system and they need 700 controllers more.
4 Safety seminar poster Photo credit: P. Peters
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4 European News
Need for standardized CISM Patrik Peters ^ by European editor/EVP-EUR On September 27th, the ICISF European Office organized its 1st Conference to discuss and spread opinions, experiences, best practice and interventions in Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM). CISM has become an integral part in safety management systems of many professions. It has been recognized that the well-being of staff and the caretaking of their mental health is an asset to any business. With the intention to spread this information and to link different professions and tie them to a common standard, we invited members of the ATM industry, emergency personnel, medical staff and safety managers to this oneday conference in Langen/Germany.
Leave a legacy Tom Mc Sherry, President ICISF, opened the conference by stating that everybody shall leave a legacy behind. His legacy would be the support work for CISM and he encouraged the participants to join him in finding their goals.
CISM needs a network Jörg Leonhardt, Director ICISF European Office, explained that the European office is consisting of members chosen directly by the foundation, representing different countries as well as ANS professions, airlines, universities and medical units. IFATCA is recognized as an important cooperating partner and is represented by me. I used this opportunity to highlight the need for increased coordination, networking and standardization. Unfortunately proactivity in the implementation of CISM is lacking and we therefore need to continuously promote CISM through education.
Support your peers Jeffrey Mitchell, President Emeritus ICISF and co-founder of the “Mitchell model” (Mitchell & Everly, 1996, 7 phases of Critical Incident Stress Debriefing/CISD), told us that proper training and adherence to CISM standards of practice are essential. Mitchell underlined the importance of peer caretaking: “The failure to provide support and care for the team members jeopardizes unit cohesion and capacity to function under duress. We cannot be touched by others and remain unchanged. Their life lingers in our lives.” He described CISM as a toolbox, consisting of pre-incident education, on scene support, peer support, defusing,
formal CISD, individual support, follow-up services and referral. This led to the development of the principles of crisis intervention as being immediate, close to the area of safety and comfort, brief, innovative, simple, practical and with a positive outcome expectancy. He reported about the close cooperation with the United Nations and the implementation of CISM in different professions. Dr. Marion Gibson, Ireland,presented the relevance of a people centered approach and the importance of adapting to cultural aspects. “A systemic approach to client organizations is a must”, she said.
Safer staff is everyone’s business Mrs. Wai-Yin Hatton, a medical executive from Scotland, explained why safer staff results in safer patients. Stress, be it psychological, emotional or physiological, will harm proper functioning and evidently lead to errors. A well-being culture, consisting of dignity, prevention, help (staff-support) and recovery treatment can prevent this. “Staff are our most valuable asset – safer staff is everyone’s business”, Hatton concluded. Joachim Vogt/DFS, presented a cost benefit analysis of CISM. The impact of critical incidents in a CISM environment was compared to those without a system. Return of investment showed a remarkable figure of 364% and program costs versus gained capacity revealed a ratio of 1:3.
ICISF & IFATCA: a good team 140 participants agreed that only through standardization, training and education, we could bring CISM further. For our ATM world, with the implementation of the European license and increased mobility, a CISM network is essential if we want to reach all nationalities at every ATC facility. CISM is affordable and has an excellent payback record. The ICISF and IFATCA are strong partners, willing to support our members in the implementation of CISM and the creation of a European if not a global CISM network. To use the words of Dr. Gibson: “The ICISF has a lot to give to Europe & Europe has a lot to bring to ICISF. Collaboration through a shared vision!” ^
4 The Cover Poster
ICISF The International Critical Incident Stress Foundation, Inc. (ICISF) is a non-profit, membership foundation dedicated to the prevention and mitigation of disabling stress through the provision of education, training and support services for all Emergency Services professions, and Consultation in the establishment of Crisis and Disaster Response Programs for varied organizations and communities worldwide. The Foundation has approximately 1500 teams worldwide and is present in 29 countries, More information on www.icisf.org
CISM is affordable and has an excellent payback record. 4 Left: Patrik Peters Right: J. Leonhardt Photo credits: PP
evpeur@ifatca.org
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4 Asia Pacific News
ATC environmental strategies in the Asia/Pacific Area Phil Parker ^ by Asia/Pacific Regional Editor In a previous issue of the ‘Controller’, I wrote about controller initiatives being used in our North Asian airspace to save airlines fuel. I stated that “a lack of cooperation and coordination in all aspects of ATC around the world including the Asian area, is costing our customers, the aviation industry, dearly in terms of inefficiencies which are in turn costing time and fuel”. To this statement we can add that it is also having an environmental impact. We all know that aviation accounts for about 2 to 3% of global CO2 emissions. Especially in the Asian area, that share is expected to increase as greater use of air travel and air cargo movement is made.
Photo credits: Phil Parker
The facts In what way can Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSPs) do their part in ensuring reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and that fuel wastage does not increase beyond the present levels, even with a continuing increase in traffic? One report from the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, (IPCC) states that “improvements in air traffic
Our biggest headaches are mostly political. 4 Hong Kong departure making noise.
management and other operational procedures could lower aviation fuel burn by between 8% and 18%”. It goes on to state that 6%-12%, of these reductions could be the result of ATM improvements over the next 10 years. Just how practical is this? If we were all able to start with a clean piece of paper, agree on functional blocks of airspace, agree on standardized equipment and apply the same MINIMUM separation standards in all FIRs, we might get somewhere. This, however, is not the case in the real world. To some extent, even with the huge increase in traffic in the Asian area, we are lucky. With many new and efficient airports built in the last 10 years and modern ATS systems in place, our biggest headaches are mostly political. That is, the airspace structure and separation standards in different adjacent FIRs are what is causing the largest difficulties. This is because airspace is less efficient than it could be, and in turn increases fuel usage and greenhouse gases.
The Pearl River Delta area Close to home, the airspace over the Pearl River Delta area of Mainland China, Macao and Hong Kong, is costing the industry and the environment dearly. CAAC (China), Macao & Hong Kong CAD are working hard to solve these problems, however it’s going to take time to resolve because of the political dimension of who will control the airspace. In the meantime, the working controller, being the interface between the ATS provider and the airline and its pilots are having to take the blame for all of the wasted fuel. This does not mean than improvements have not been made. Air Navigation Service Providers around the world including Asia are trying to shorten routes, reduce delays, improve flow management techniques and
work with airlines to maximize aircraft efficiencies. Letters of Agreement on separation standards, more fuel efficient routes and RVSM, especially in China have all helped. The other advantage we have in Asia at least, has been nothing to do with ATC. The industry has been developing at such a rapid rate over the last few years that most airlines have relatively young and fuel efficient aircraft. To use one local airline as an example, Cathay Pacific is well on the way to phasing out completely their B747 Classic Freighters and even their B747-400s are being replaced by B777-300ERs.
Noise Another environmental issue is of course, noise. What have ATS providers and controllers been doing about that? Many ANSPs in the Asian area, including Hong Kong, have, or will shortly, have RNAV SIDs and STARS. This enables more accurate track keeping and a more rigid noise contour. Some ATS providers have been even more proactive than others. Airservices Australia‘s ‘Brisbane Green’ project uses precision RNP (Required Navigation Performance) arrival routes to reduce the time and distance to land at Brisbane Airport. Using Qantas 737s, the average RNP approach saved 279 lbs. of fuel (and 887 lbs. of CO2). The project is continuing. These approaches are having the combined effect of reducing environmental noise and fuel burn by optimizing the track and aircraft profile. While I applaud this initiative, as a working controller, I have to wonder what happens when there is more than one aircraft wanting to fly the same profile at the same time. ^
philatcinhk@netvigator.com
4 The most “green “ engines there are: zero emissions on those! (the B747 of ocean airlines with engines removed)
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4 African News
ASECNA in the news again Henry Nkondokaya ^ by IFATCA EVP Africa & Middle East In a statement last September, IFATCA and the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) jointly condemned the actions of the ASECNA authorities to detain, suspend and otherwise harass the air traffic controllers of ASECNA. The industrial action, which has recently taken place (see previous issue of The Controller) led to the suspensions of 14 controllers. The two organizations were particularly concerned at this response since the controllers suspended the strike in its second day after receiving verbal promises from the authorities. We now understand that the Burkina Faso authorities have also decided to dissolve the Federation of ASECNA ATC Association (FAPCAA). This sequence of events is unnecessarily escalating an already difficult situation in the region. The controllers suspended the strike in good faith on the second day and yet have been seriously abused by suspensions and their union threatened with de-recognition. IFATCA and ITF called on the authorities to urgently lift the suspensions and to refrain from further sanctions in order to establish a positive framework in which management and union leaders can come together and begin to discuss the issues and reach a satisfactory way forward for everyone. It should be noted that the ICAO Africa and Indian Ocean (AFI) region, which encompasses the ASECNA States in Africa, had implemented Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) procedures in the region with effect
News on Sierra Leone.
from 25 September 2008. Needless to say, the safe and efficient introduction of RVSM requires the availability of an adequate number of properly qualified and highly motivated workforce of air traffic controllers. IFATCA and ITF believe that ASECNA’s action to continue the suspension and support of detention of a number of controllers to be a very negative development, which threatens to affect the safety of flight operations in the airspace and airports under ASECNA’s control. “It is vital for the controllers but also for the economies and general well-being of the various states in the region, that air traffic control services are placed on a more secure basis which will continue to give confidence to the traveling public. Only an effective return to the negotiating table can achieve this goal” said Marc Baumgartner, President and CEO of IFATCA. Since that press release the following information has been gathered: ASECNA seems to continue its tactics in punishing the ringleaders of the action. A number of controllers are still suspended without pay. Some were sent to re-education centers (a form of detention), and yet others are under the threat of dismissal from their jobs or facing some kind of disciplinary measures, such as relocation to other places of work, demotions or postponement of their due promotions (see insert). Marc Baumgartner had met with the ASECNA Director General during the ICAO Con-
Following the article on the last issue of The Controller, we learned that of the 5 controllers arrested for having let an aircraft land on Christmas day, 2 were released. The remaining 3 were charged in court for “Conspiracy to land an aircraft without overflight/landing permit”. Court hearing was set for Wednesday 8 October 2008.
ference on Economics of Airports and ANS in Montreal last September where he delivered IFATCA’s letter of complaint. Furthermore, the IFATCA representative in the AFI RVSM Team meeting has repeatedly been raising IFATCA’s concern over the ATC situation in ASECNA countries during the Team’s teleconferences. ASECNA controllers will be holding a meeting, together with ITF representatives in Ouagadougou 29 to 31 October 2008 to discuss, among other issues, the fate of ATC trade unions. Despite initial indications of good will, the mediation offer by Albert Taylor, former IFATCA EVP AFM, as reported in the last issue of The Controller, has not been taken up yet by ASECNA. ^
evpafm@ifatca.org
Latest situatin ASECNA controllers Niger: 1 controller back on duty 1 still suspended. Burkina Faso: 3 controllers are still suspended without salary. Till now the Representative of ASECNA in BF didn‘t allow them to work. The President of their Association has been posted to a small airport (300 km from Ouagadougou) as a logistic agent. Another controller will work in Ouagadougou as an agent of logistic too. Cote D‘Ivoire: The Association President is still suspended and demoted to work as an agent with the chief of facilities. An active controller who was in charge of ATC Training in Abidjan has been discharged of its functions (but stays on as a controller) – 5 others controllers have been sent to court but are still working ... Cameroon: 2 months without salary. The President of CATCA has been posted to a small airport at the far end of the country as a billing agent.. another controller was demoted as an AIS agent. Gabon: The Association President was demoted as an agent in administration. Tchad: Two controllers are still suspended.
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Only an effective return to the negotiating table can achieve a secure basis to give confidence to the traveling public.
Photo credit: ASCENA
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4 Philip Marien Feature
The Flying Boats of Foynes (Ireland) and the origin of Irish Coffee.
4 The luxurious Boeing 314 could bring passengers from Europe to the USA non-stop. Photo credits: Foynes Flying Boat Museum
^ by Philip Marien Aviation is a fast moving business. Less than 16 years after the Wright Brothers’ historic flight, the first transatlantic flights were made. The very first one, be it with several stopovers, was in a flying boat, aptly named ‘The Lame Duck’. It was a U.S. Navy Curtiss flying boat NC-4, that flew from Rockaway, New York,
58 minutes. In an era where large, let alone concrete, runways were hard to come by, flying boats allowed aircraft to become larger and heavier, without the need for expensive infrastructure. They use their fuselage to provide the main buoyancy. This distinguishes them from floatplanes, which have floats attached below the fuselage or the wings and the fuselage stays clear of the water.
One of the places Lindbergh recommended was a small town on the southern bank of the Shannon estuary. to Plymouth, England, via Trepassey, Newfoundland, Azores, Lisbon, Portugal, and other intermediate stops, in 53 hours,
During the 20’s, commercial flights started and flying boats were deployed across the globe by companies such as Imperial Airways of London (the origin of ‘Speedbird’) and Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services (better known as Qantas). Mail from Australia was now reaching London in just 16 days – less than half the time taken by sea. Delivering the mail as quickly as possible generated a lot of competition, prompting the design of bigger flying boats. Passenger services were soon to follow. The first serious attempts to ferry passengers across the Atlantic were Zeppelins that could carry about
60 passengers quite comfortably. However, the crossing was still relatively slow, taking several days to make the crossing. Before the large scale operations developed, the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 put an end to transatlantic Zeppelin flights.
Pan Am & BOAC Meanwhile, in 1933, two companies, Pan American Airways and British Overseas Airways Corporation – BOAC –, asked aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh to conduct a survey of places that could accommodate their planned flying boat services. One of the places Lindbergh recommended was a small town on the southern bank of the Shannon estuary, called Foynes. Today, Foynes is a small town with a substantial harbour and about 600 inhabitants. In the late 30’s, it became a major hub for flying boats, which used the river Shannon as their runway, while plans were being drafted to build Shannon Airport, about 20 km to the north-east, on the other side of the river. Con-
4 The Short Mayo Composite: the top aircraft was too heavy to take off on its own. Imagine having to draft a safety case for something like this!
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4 Philip Marien Feature struction of a terminal building in Foynes was started in 1935. The first transatlantic proving flights were operated on July 5, 1937: a Pan Am Sikorsky S-42 from Newfoundland and a BOAC Short Empire from Foynes passed each other mid-Atlantic. The crossing took twelve and fifteen-and-a-quarter hours respectively.
Trial & Error Proving flights continued for the following years. During the summer months, they took a northerly route (via Foynes, Botwood and Newfoundland to New York) and a southerly route (via Lisbon, the Azores, Bermuda to New York). However, getting the commercial services off the water proved quite a challenge. The aircraft were too heavy to take off if they had to carry the fuel required to make it across the Atlantic. Engineers worked on several solutions. One of the more spectacular solutions was the Short Mayo Composite: a Short S.20 Mercury seaplane was put on top of a modified Short S.23 C class flying-boat. Fully loaded with fuel and mail, some 465 kg, the S.20 was too heavy to take off. The S.23 assisted in the take-off, released the top aircraft which continued towards the USA. The launch aircraft then came back to land. Only one combination was built and despite setting several long distance records, the arrival of bigger aircraft and the onset of World War II meant the project was abandoned. Search on YouTube for ‘Short Mayo Composite’. Another experiment was in-flight refuelling of the Short Empire flying boats The flying boat would take off from Foynes, and once airborne, refuel to enable them to make the crossing. A Handley Page H.P.54 Harrow was used as the fuel tanker. Again, this was deemed not very suitable for passenger flights, as the technology was experimental to say the least. Only the very best and most experienced flight crews were assigned flying boat duty. Dead reckoning, timed turns, judging drift from sea current, astral navigation, and radio navigation were all necessary skills. When a harbour was fogged in, pilots sometimes made successful landings out to sea, then taxiing the plane into port.
Boeing 314 Eventually, more powerful flying boats were built, which could carry enough fuel while still being able to take off in the first place. Pan Am and BOAC operated the Boeing 314. It was a long-range flying boat of which 12 were made by the Boeing Airplane Company between 1938 and 1941. It was one of the largest aircraft of the time, using the massive wing of Boeing’s earlier XB-15 bomber prototype. In doing so, it had the necessary range to cross the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Pan
Am sold three of the 12 aircraft to BOAC in 1941 before delivery. As flights often lasted the better part of a day, the B-314 was built for luxury: the seats could be converted into 36 bunks and there were separate dressing rooms for men and women. The aircraft had a lounge and dining area, with five and sixcourse meals prepared by four-star chefs. It was a form of travel for the super-rich, equivalent to modern day Concorde.
War & Coffee Irish neutrality during World War II meant that the services from Foynes continued relatively unhindered. The first non-stop passenger service to New York service flew on June 22, 1942. It took ‘just’ 25 hours 40 minutes. Services to New York, Southampton, Montreal, Poole and Lisbon soon followed, making Foynes a hub between Europe and the USA. In 1942, a restaurant and coffee shop was opened in the Foynes terminal building. Chef Joe Sheridan soon realised that the passengers coming to wait in the terminal were cold and often soaking wet (it’s the west of Ireland remember!). They needed something warm and stronger than coffee. Thus, Irish Coffee was invented. The recipe quickly made it across the world and today, it is one of the best known drinks in history.
End of an era The raging war also meant conventional land-based aircraft were becoming more prominent. Large airports, able to accommodate bombers were popping up everywhere. Long-range airliners, often derived from military aircraft, such as the Lockheed Constellation and Douglas DC-4 made the flying boat all but obsolete. These new aircraft did not require the extensive pilot training programs required for seaplane operations. One of the 314‘s most experienced pilots said, „We were indeed glad to change to DC-4s and I argued daily for eliminating all flying boats. The landplanes were much safer. No one in the operations department... had any idea of the hazards of flying boat operations.“ The Boeing 314 was removed from scheduled service in 1946 and grounded permanently in 1950. Of the 12 airframes built, none survive today.
It was a form of travel for the super-rich, equivalent to modern day Concorde.
had planned to build one cabin of the famous aircraft. After showing their plans to a film set builder, he convinced them to build a full scale replica of the whole aircraft. As it is the only one in the world – the prestigious Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. only has a small scale model – it is well worth the trip. With help of the Irish Aviation Authority, over the past year, the museum has been reconstructing the control tower on the top of their building. When opened to visitors, it’ll be a great addition to an already superb museum. If you’d like to know more, their website has all the information: www.flyingboatmuseum.com ^ 4 The mock-up of the Boeing 314, centrepiece of the Foynes Flying Boat Museum. Photos credit: Ph. Marien
Museum Foynes flying-boat station closed in 1946. After serving as a college for learning Gaelic, it was purchased by the Port Trustees in 1980. The Flying Boat Museum opened their doors in the building 1989. Over the years, the museum has built up an impressive collection of memorabilia from the flying boat era, including the original radio and weather room, along with its equipment. Most impressive is live-size replica of a Boeing 314. The museum 4 Joe Sheridan came up with Irish Coffee in 1943 to warm up flying boat passengers. Photo credit: Ph. Marien
4 The Flying Boat Museum in Foynes is restoring their control tower to its former glory. And yes, that’s blue sky and bright sunshine! Photo credit: Leonora O‘Sullivan – Foynes Flying Boat Museum
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4 Environment
CO2 emission in grams per passenger per kilometer:
Environmental News & Briefs
Means of transportation
Grams of Co2
Load factor used for calculation
Aircraft Private car Train (local) Bus (local) Metro/Subway/Tram Train (long distance) Bus (long distance)
369 gr 144 gr 95 gr 75 gr 72 gr 52 gr 32 gr
73% 1,5 pax/car 21% 21% 20% 44% 60%
Source: uba.
CO2 emission per passenger/km: The facts The Environment Ministry of Germany (UBA) has produced some interesting figures on CO2 emissions in transport (see box). Their emissions figures are based on 2005 data and the load factors percentages (number of passengers per vehicle) are taken from own industry calculated yearly averages. In 2005 24% of worldwide CO2 emissions came from transportation, and 3% came from aviation. 1kg of jet fuel generates 3.15 kg of CO2. Source: www.umweltbundesamt.de European aviation environment targets In Europe, additional fuel burn because of non-optimal trajectories is estimated to be in the region of 7-11%. ATM influence on global emissions is therefore low in relative terms, 7-11% of 3% is about 0.3%. There is plan to reduce the extra km flown from currently 49 km to 41 km over 4 years, which means a 16% reduction. It was also suggested that ATM should reduce CO2 emissions by: Reducing speed well before arrival (linear holding) instead of vectoring or holding patterns. Providing Continuous Descent Approaches (CDA) techniques. Using ATFM restrictions to hold aircraft on the ground with engines off. Reducing taxi time by using advanced departure and arrival management techniques. Souce: www.eurocontrol.int
Air France-KLM “Green routes” initiative Air France KLM would like to take part in evaluating “green routes” between its home bases in Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam – Schiphol and the North American destinations the two airlines serve, in conjunction with the air navigation authorities and services on both continents. The prime aim of these measures is to guarantee optimum en route flight paths, in complete safety, in order to minimize CO2 emissions on all transatlantic flights. Source: www. airfranceklm.com UK Conservative Party opposition would build high speed trains to replace aircraft The UK Conservative Party is strongly pushing the environment issue: In their web site, their top policy statement is: A Conservative Government will make Britain greener by tackling climate change and enhancing our environment. They also announced on 30th September that if they came to power, they would scrap the planned construction of a 3rd runway in Heathrow and would use the money to build a new high speed rail system between London and the north of the country. They say that the 20 billion pounds project would cut 66,500 flights per year, canceling the need for an expansion of Heathrow airport. The new railway will link London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester with London, and connect with the Paris high speed train current links. The current Labor Government is still considering building the 3rd runway. Source: www.conservatives.com Singapore Airlines environment policy asks for single engine taxi Singapore Airlines in its 2007-2008 environmental report (available for download from their web site below) stated its commitment to mitigating the effects of climate change by improving the fuel productivity of its aircraft. They will continue to invest in new fuel-efficient aircraft such as the Airbus A380s, A350s, and Boeing B787s which offer improved ef-
ficiency, reduced emissions, and lower noise generation. They also want to adopt new operational practices on the ground. Wherever possible, single engine taxiing will be used to reduce ground emissions. Also the use of ground power is preferred over aircraft auxiliary power unit (APU) to reduce aircraft emissions. Source: www.singaporeair.com The SWISS Green Party on aviation: total ban on night flights The Green Swiss party (les Verts) has a strong aviation policy but one that we can find back in the electoral programs of many ecological parties all over the world. Their point is that leisure transportation is becoming one of the most important sources of pollution. They claim that on average 40 liters of fuel are used per hour per passenger in air transport, and that the taxation of jet fuel at a rate similar to that of car fuel (super and diesel) is necessary to counterbalance the difference with other modes of transportation and to restore concurrence (especially with the trains). Landing fees should include the costs of protecting the local residents against noise. They advocate a total ban on night flights to protect the people living around airports. They also advocate that trips of less that 1000 km should be done by train or bus. Source: www.verts.ch Aviation in Norway: initiatives for reducing greenhouse gas emissions A recent report on sustainability lists 50 proposed improvements to reduce gas emissions. The list includes aircraft fleet replacement (could deliver 25-30% reduction) less taxing on the ground (3-7%), and Norwegian Airports “green” landing and take off procedures (12%). But Norway, due to its geography, cannot restrict air transport, so their objective is to try to keep emissions approximately at their 2007 levels by 2020, which, when taking into account expansion, means a 30-40% reduction. Source: www.avinor.no ^
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Charlie‘s Column
2008 Great contributions to global warming Save fuel on taxi A Chinese airline found a nice way to save fuel – after landing shut down the engines and ask the passengers to get out and push the aircraft off the runway all the way into the terminal! This was tried successfully last September in Zhengzhou airport by Sandong Airlines (see photo). Okay – the CRJ actually broke down and in order to vacate the runway, the airport staff asked some passengers to help them push the aircraft about 800 metres. As one of the airport workers said, “Thank God it was only a 20-ton medium-sized aircraft! If it had been a big plane, it would have knocked us out!”
4 SANDONG Airlines CRJ being pushed Photo credit: INT/europics
UN conference on climate change in Bali
again empty to Surabaya or even Jakarta to park, only to come back again empty at the end of the conference to pick up back their VIP passengers. Those VIPs, through their actions instead of their words, have made a great contribution to the global warming issue.
British football in Moscow Another great contribution to global warming was made by the European Champions League last May. They decided that the final between two UK clubs (Chelsea and Manchester United) would be held not in Manchester, and not in Chelsea, and no not even in London, but guess where? In Moscow, 2500 kilometres away! 42,000 British fans had to travel there, and Moscow airports received 20,000 of them. There were 160 extra flights on the day of the match, resulting in massive delays for lots of normal commercial flights as well. A great day for ATC, and a great day for the planet. Two days later IATA reps came to our Centre asking for a reduction in delays and for more direct routings to help them save fuel (the cost of oil was around $US140
per barrel then). When my boss mentioned this Moscow absurdity, they all smiled and replied “Oh, but this is business”!
Virgin Atlantic bio-fuel flight The famous flight of a Boeing 747 from Heathrow to Amsterdam last February with one of its engines using bio fuel has also made its own contribution to global warming. The flight was surrounded with a vast amount of publicity – an aircraft running on coconut oil! Well, actually only one engine was running on coconuts – the other three were at full power on normal JetA1 (as a safety measure, because one can never be sure how coconuts might react hey?). But it also appeared that this “BioFlight” had to hold because the ground indicated they were not ready yet for his arrival, most probably because of the Press were not in place yet. The aircraft asked to go to the holding pattern to make an orbit, as the pilot declared they had to delay their arrival. Ah Sir Richard, saving fuel is not that simple hey? ^
4 Sir Richard Branson, the pilot and the coconuts. Photo credit: Virgin & Digital News Agency
Last December there was a UN conference on global warming reduction in Bali, Indonesia. Most VIP delegates arrived not by regular airlines, but by private jets. Coming individually by jet aircraft instead of using public airline transportation was an interesting message to pass. But as Bali airport has only 15 aircraft parking bays, most of those VIP jets had to fly
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Photo credit: shutterstock
Green Charlie
20 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 24 April 2009
www.ifatca2009.com