Airlines Propose European Sites for ADS-B Implementation

Seventeen European airlines have identified seventy airports across the continent where they believe ADS-B (automatic dependence surveillance-broadcast) could be most usefully deployed.  Eurocontrol will now approach the appropriate ANSPs (air navigation service providers) to see if these implementations are feasible.

The airlines are participants in the ADS-B Pioneer Airlines Project, which is part of Eurocontrol's CASCADE (cooperative ATS through surveillance & communications applications deployed in ECAC) Program that was launched last year to help them obtain airworthiness approval for their existing ADS-B equipment.  Now that such approval is imminent, these airlines want to include the technology in their daily operations, and are proposing to start at locations where radar surveillance isn't available, often because it's too difficult or expensive to introduce.

A number of these sites are located in countries where the ANSPs are already actively participating in Eurocontrol's CRISTAL (cooperative validation of surveillance techniques and applications of ADS-B) trials. They are Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Other sites are located in Norway, Moldova, Romania, Spain and the Ukraine.

Eurocontrol's CASCADE program co-ordinates the implementation of initial ADS-B applications in Europe.  It performs trials, clarifies operational scenarios, drives the production of global standards and produces both safety and business cases, paving the way for operational approval.

Eurocontrol expects to start the implementation of "ADS-B out" (position and other datalinked from an aircraft) this year. 02-23-2008.

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