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#12
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RNP demo at DCA
G Farris wrote:
In article , lid says... DCA or JFK? My (admittedly uninformed) comment was motivated by the fact that LGA also has a 13/31, of the same length, I believe, as their 04/22, so I wonder how often JFK will be using the ILS to 13L (below minima for the visual portion of the Canarsie approach) and LGA will be using ILS to 04 - seems like they would both be landing on 13 under those conditions, but again there could be any number of reasons I'm not specifically aware of that would make this conflict a real hassle for them. I don't recall the exact reasons why LGA prefers to use 4 over 13, but I believe it has to do with noise. When they hand 22 or 4, they can usually depart 31. But, when they land 13 then they use 4 for departures. I think this makes the PONY mad. ;-) The DCA issue is a bit of a funny one, because we need to develop all sorts of wizardry in order to comply with our own, self-imposed restrictions. If it's such a bad idea, or such a present danger to the sitting government to have planes flying low over the Capital, then it would seem that was just a bad place to put a major airport! Nevertheless, the demo is impressive, and even with all the inertia Tim describes in getting the airlines' fleets equipped, it's still a promising development. Airlines in the US may not be in much of a porition to rejuvenate their fleets as they are in much of the rest of the world, but sooner or later it will become necessary, and the way will be found. The further along we are with this stuff when that begins to happen, the closer we will be to a really useful modernization - it's been a long time coming. I have serious doubt that the U.S. airlines will ever retrofit their legacy glass aircraft. Boeing wants a king's ransom to do that. The 757/767 fleet manager at American said, "No way, it would cost as over $100 million." |
#13
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RNP demo at DCA
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#14
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RNP demo at DCA
Bob Noel wrote:
In article xdcrf.15668$LB5.8651@fed1read04, wrote: I have serious doubt that the U.S. airlines will ever retrofit their legacy glass aircraft. Boeing wants a king's ransom to do that. The 757/767 fleet manager at American said, "No way, it would cost as over $100 million." what am I missing here... American's 757/767 fleet has what kind of glass? Is the architecture so tightly integrated that processors and software can't be upgraded (even as part of tech refresh)? Is there additional equipment that needs to be added? How many aircraft? Any of their 757s/767s delivered after some date (circa 1995?) have the required stuff. That is when Boeing switched to GPS as the primary sensor and the Pegasus FMS. These birds can do true RNP and radius-to-a-fix legs (RF legs). American's fleet is capable of RNP-2, isn't it? If not, then they should be looking at some upgrade cost anyway. RNP 2 is not much of anything, and can be done with DME/DME in the en route environment. Containment areas for RNP 2.0 is 4 miles, centerline to edge, no different than a VOR airway. For RNAV departures the term of reference in FAA-dom is Level 1 (RNP 1.0) and Level 2 (RNP 2.0) Level 2 accomplishes little, if anything. To get into the performance-based approach game, RNP 0.3 is required just to enter the game. RNP 0.1 is where it all is going, and that simply will not happen with the 757/767 pre-Pegasus avionics. The hardware is too old and rigid. They would have to rip out the old FMSes and replace them. To get down to RNP 0.1 you need some pretty nifty software routines that will compute and estimate ANP (acutal navigation performance), you need redundancy to achieve an E10-7 target level of safety, you need the latest EGPWS (TAWS) with peaks and obstacles, and you almost certainly need at least one IRU. With three IRUs that are updated by dual, independent GPS sensors, and two (better three) independent FMSes, you have the absolutely best performing platform. When you are threading between the rocks at RNP 0.10 and possibly lose GPS, you don't want to be DEAD reckoning. ;-) (btw - $100 million? feh - you don't want to know the cost to upgrade the USAF fleet...) The Air Force has the necessary eqippage in some of the new stuff. I doubt they will be doing much retrofitting of avionics except for special-use aircraft. |
#15
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RNP demo at DCA
Bob Noel wrote:
In article xdcrf.15668$LB5.8651@fed1read04, wrote: I have serious doubt that the U.S. airlines will ever retrofit their legacy glass aircraft. Boeing wants a king's ransom to do that. The 757/767 fleet manager at American said, "No way, it would cost as over $100 million." what am I missing here... American's 757/767 fleet has what kind of glass? Is the architecture so tightly integrated that processors and software can't be upgraded (even as part of tech refresh)? Is there additional equipment that needs to be added? How many aircraft? American's fleet is capable of RNP-2, isn't it? If not, then they should be looking at some upgrade cost anyway. (btw - $100 million? feh - you don't want to know the cost to upgrade the USAF fleet...) I read USAF spends $700M per year painting aircraft. |
#16
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RNP demo at DCA
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#17
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RNP demo at DCA
Bob Noel wrote:
In article D0drf.15670$LB5.8392@fed1read04, wrote: (btw - $100 million? feh - you don't want to know the cost to upgrade the USAF fleet...) The Air Force has the necessary eqippage in some of the new stuff. I doubt they will be doing much retrofitting of avionics except for special-use aircraft. Most of the USAF aircraft aren't new, and the USAF is doing a lot of upgrades to a lot of aircraft, not just special-use. I don't know much about what the USAF is doing other than a Lt COL who is at their instrument procedures group told me that performance-based RNP procedures would be limited to a small segment of USAF aircraft. I don't know what he really meant by that. |
#18
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RNP demo at DCA
Stubby wrote:
Bob Noel wrote: In article xdcrf.15668$LB5.8651@fed1read04, wrote: I have serious doubt that the U.S. airlines will ever retrofit their legacy glass aircraft. Boeing wants a king's ransom to do that. The 757/767 fleet manager at American said, "No way, it would cost as over $100 million." what am I missing here... American's 757/767 fleet has what kind of glass? Is the architecture so tightly integrated that processors and software can't be upgraded (even as part of tech refresh)? Is there additional equipment that needs to be added? How many aircraft? American's fleet is capable of RNP-2, isn't it? If not, then they should be looking at some upgrade cost anyway. (btw - $100 million? feh - you don't want to know the cost to upgrade the USAF fleet...) I read USAF spends $700M per year painting aircraft. They're not in Chapter 11 nor anywhere near it. ;-) |
#19
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RNP demo at DCA
wrote:
Stubby wrote: Bob Noel wrote: In article xdcrf.15668$LB5.8651@fed1read04, wrote: I have serious doubt that the U.S. airlines will ever retrofit their legacy glass aircraft. Boeing wants a king's ransom to do that. The 757/767 fleet manager at American said, "No way, it would cost as over $100 million." what am I missing here... American's 757/767 fleet has what kind of glass? Is the architecture so tightly integrated that processors and software can't be upgraded (even as part of tech refresh)? Is there additional equipment that needs to be added? How many aircraft? American's fleet is capable of RNP-2, isn't it? If not, then they should be looking at some upgrade cost anyway. (btw - $100 million? feh - you don't want to know the cost to upgrade the USAF fleet...) I read USAF spends $700M per year painting aircraft. They're not in Chapter 11 nor anywhere near it. ;-) Right. That sounds like a lot of money but some of those paints are very special. |
#20
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RNP demo at DCA
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