Four New WAAS Ground Stations Operational in Alaska

The FAA's Mary Ann Davis reports that four new WAAS (wide area augmentation system) ground stations have come on line and are operational in Alaska to give expanded satellite navigation coverage there.

The new WAAS wide-area reference stations (WRS), at Barrow, Bethel, Fairbanks, and Kotzebue, greatly expands the limited WAAS service that had been available only in the southeast part of the state.

According to Ms. Davis, writing in the November issue of the FAA's SavNav News, the differences in Alaskan WAAS service coverage are significant.  WAAS was available only about 25% of the time for approach operations requiring vertical guidance in Southeast Alaska, but should now be available 98% of the time.  As of the remainder of the state, where WAAS had been extremely limited for aviation applications, it is now available throughout most of Alaska 95% of the time or better.

Besides, providing more availability for all aviation operations than is possible with GPS alone, WAAS can supply many aircraft with the lateral accuracy and vertical guidance necessary to fly LPV (localizer performance with vertical guidance) approaches.

Anchorage's international airport is currently awaiting a flight check of its LPV procedures, as are the airports at Emmonak and Homer.  12-04-2006.

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