Chapter 1

Transcript

1. 1.1 General 1.2 A Brief History 1.3 Economic Aspects Module 1 - Introduction
2. Landing in low visibility is perhaps one of the most "exciting" ways to operate an aircraft but is certainly the most demanding. Such progress in civil aviation was made possible by huge improvements in aircraft automatic control systems over the last 30 years coupled with stringent requirements for airfield equipment and crew qualification. General
3. In Category III, pilots see the runway lights only few seconds (about 5 seconds) before touchdown; therefore, there is no margin for error. The basis for Category II/III operations, such as aircraft certification or airline operational demonstration, ensures a high level of safety. Moreover, approach success rate in actual in-line services is now nearly 100%. General
4. This brochure discusses all aspects of Category II, Category III and LVTO operations, which are the main part of AWO (All Weather Operations). The term AWO also includes Category I operations, and taxiing in low visibility, as shown below. General
5. General
6. On 9 January 1969, a Caravelle of AIR INTER became the first aircraft in the history of civil aviation to land in actual Category III A conditions during a commercial flight (Lyon-Paris). The operational approval was obtained from the SGAC (France) only two months before in November 1968. This approval was the direct result of successful flight tests made since 1962 during which an automatic landing system was tested (5 March 1963 at Toulouse: first automatic landing without visibility). A Brief History
7. Since then, many aircraft were granted approval for Category III A, such as the Trident, the B747 (1971 ) or the Concorde (1975). In 1974, the A300 was certified for Category III A, followed by the A310 (1983) and also the A300-600 (1984) for CAT III B. Fail-operational automatic landing was first used for these types of operations, but it was found useful to develop fail-passive capability in order to satisfy airline requests. Currently, Airbus Aircraft are certified both with fail- passive (limited to DH = 50 ft) and fail-operational landing systems. A Brief History
8. CAT II / CAT III equipment represent a significant cost for an airline. However, it is the only way to keep in-line services during the whole year without any diversion. Weather conditions mainly depend on the airfield location, nevertheless actual CAT II or CAT III conditions may occur at any airfield during some periods of the year. Economic Aspects
9. Diversions are expensive for an airline: directly by passenger compensation costs but also by the resulting bad "image". For these reasons, getting operational approval for CAT II and CAT III approaches may be considered as a necessary step in the evolution of a modern airline. Economic Aspects