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EGNOS Performs Well in Flight Trials

April 27, 2007  - By
Image: GPS World

The European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) recently passed flight trials in Limoges, France with flying colors, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).

EGNOS, a venture between the ESA, the European Commission and Eurocontrol, is the first step in Europe’s satellite navigation plans, paving the way for Galileo. EGNOS supplements GPS data, offering more accurate vertical positioning data to pilots, similar to systems already in operation in the United States. The system can provide a precision of better than two meters, according to the ESA.

In the most recent EGNOS flight trials, a French civil aviation authority test plane was specially equipped to make tests using EGNOS at an airfield in Limoges, France. It made a number of approaches and landings using the new procedures, in each case aligning itself with the runway’s axis and then following a descent path to touchdown.

Inside the plane, which is normally used for calibration of airport systems in France, the method of analyzing the quality of the EGNOS signals was done by comparing the landing phases guided by satellite with landings using traditional means, such as the plane’s Instrument Landing System (ILS).

The results of Limoges trials demonstrate again that EGNOS signals allow approaches and landings that meet the safety standards that govern international air traffic, the ESA says.

One of the main advantages of EGNOS is that it is available everywhere without the need for ground infrastructure and it provides vertical guidance procedures for every runway, the ESA says. Furthermore, the cockpit data display is the same as that of ILS, so there are no familiarization problems for the pilots and no additional training costs.

Currently in pre-operational service, EGNOS will be certified in 2008 for safety-of-life applications such as air traffic control. It will be comptible and interoperable with similar systems elswhere in the world, according to the ESA.

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