EU okays air safety tech

Johannesburg, 13 Nov 2007

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has approved the new microwave landing system (MLS) that boosts airport safety - particularly in bad weather - and increases airport capacity.

British Airways will be the first airline to implement MLS at London`s Heathrow airport. It is expected the technology will be rapidly rolled out around the world as other aviation regulators follow the European lead, and as the technology is deployed at airports and on aircraft.

For now, the EASA has approved MLS for use aboard Airbus A320 aircraft.

MLS uses microwave signals that are less susceptible to interference, such as that from buildings and other aircraft and vehicles moving on runways, than the current instrument landing system (ILS).

Airports equipped with MLS will be able to increase their traffic flow during bad weather conditions and will no longer have to re-route aircraft when visibility is low.

Airbus SA spokesman Linden Birns says EASA`s Category III b approval enables airports to allow precision approach and landings in very low visibility conditions, with the decision height lower than 50 feet (15m).

"The new innovative system is the result of a significant joint development by Airbus with major industry partners, including Thales, British Airways and the UK and French national airport and air transport authorities," Birns adds.

"Both the on-board MLS receiver, hosted in a multimode receiver, and the airport MLS ground station, are manufactured by Thales."

MLS operations are very similar to those using ILS, with straight approaches in the runway axis along a three degree slope. The aircraft is equipped with special capture and tracking antennae and an avionics software suite, while on the ground, each runway has an MLS ground station.

Designed with pilots and airlines in mind, MLS is similar in terms of Human-Machine Interface to ILS, so costs related to pilot training, maintenance and operations are kept to a minimum.