SubscribeAvionics exhibition details
With air travel expanding and nearly 10,000 new commercial aircraft expected to enter service over the next 10 years, a greater burden is expected on an already strained airspace system, which could potentially result in more and longer delays of flight. Meanwhile, airlines struggle to cut operational costs in order offset mounting fuel prices; the airline industry wants to maintain the profits it enjoys in 2007 after six years of losses.
To prevent these burdens from impeding air travel's growth, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Europe's Eurocontrol are working to establish a modernised, satellite-based airspace system guaranteed to make flying more efficient while maintaining safety. FAA's Next Generation, or NextGen, airspace system is about to move from the planning stage to a four-year, implementation phase comprising modernisation projects worth $4.6 billion. And Eurocontrol's Single European Sky ATM (Air Traffic Management) Research program, or SESAR, is about to enter a development and evaluation phase. The two agencies also are about to begin a harmonisation of their modernisation programs.
On Going Maintenance for Aircraft
How will this modernised airspace system impact cockpit technology, pilot workload and training, and the retrofit of older aircraft? And how will the military's manned aircraft and its growing number of unmanned air vehicles operate in this new airspace?
New Technologies and Procedures
With the theme "Avionics for Tomorrow's Airspace," Avionics Expo 2008, to be held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, March 5-6, will help answer those questions, as well as spotlight individual, new cockpit technologies and procedures developed for both civil and military aircraft. These technologies and procedures are designed to have air traffic controllers and pilots share in the decision making to assure safe operations through use of satellite navigation and communication. This shared responsibility will replace old procedures in which air traffic controllers simply directed flight operations through voice commands.
Conference Speakers
Setting the tone at the conference as keynote speaker will be Bernard Miaillier, Eurocontrol's head of Division SESAR and ATM Strategy. He will outline his agency's SESAR ATM target concept, designed to meet performance targets for improved operational efficiency set for 2020.
Lead speaker for the second day of the conference will be Mark James Salvin, head of Avionics Engineering, Eurofighter GmbH. He will discuss key design drivers and constraints involving man/machine interface for the Typhoon, a combat aircraft about to enter an upgrade program developed by BAE.
And Ronald Stroup, chief system engine for FAA's Air Traffic Organisation will lay out his agency's plans for NextGen airspace environment. He will stress how aircraft modernisation must keep in step with ground and space-based air-traffic modernisation.
Other speakers will address such new technologies as automatic dependent system-broadcast (ADS-B), a cornerstone in the new airspace system. Both Eurocontrol and FAA have been testing ADS-B, and now, in preparation for full implementation, the U.S. agency is about to establish a nationwide ground infrastructure for the technology.
Also presented will be a case study of a low-cost carrier's commitment and preparation to adopt required navigation performance (RNP), another key technology. Performance-based communications will be addressed, too, as will synthetic vision blended with enhanced vision technology. Military aircraft outfitted to operate in the new airspace environment will be another topic. Likewise, speakers will address the seamless incorporation of unmanned air vehicles in this new environment.
Most aircraft mishaps occur during ground operation, and a presenter will talk of cockpit technology as part of a surface movement management approach. At last year's Avionics Expo, the shortfalls from a pilot perspective of flight management system (FMS) and the lack of FMS standardisation were outlined; this year, one manufacturer will address those issues, describing new FMS capabilities. In addition, Boeing and Airbus will offer their visions of tomorrow's cockpit technology, and Eric Banyan, vice president F-35 Mission Systems, Lockheed Martin, will provide a detailed view of the cockpit and sensor technologies for Joint Strike Fighter.
Can these new technologies truly improve operational efficiency and, in the case of combat aircraft, mission effectiveness? The developer of a new software tool will demonstrate how operators can assure optimum advantage from avionics in tomorrow's aircraft.
FOR PRESS PASSES to the conference(s) and exhibition go to
www.avionics-event.com/avionics06/press_registration.shtml
For further information please contact:
Adrian Broadbent on behalf of Avionics Expo Ltd
+44 208 123 2202 (T)
abroadbent@aerospace-media.com
www.avionics-event.com
