THE Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) plans acquiring an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system to boost air traffic surveillance here at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.
With such a system in place, GCAA says, aircrafts will be able to determine and track their own positions, via Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and provide such other information as heading, ground track, ground speed, and altitude.Receivers on the ground will then collect this data and periodically relay it to Air Traffic Control, where it will be used as seen fit.
The acquisition will also help boost Guyana’s capacity to accommodate as much as four times the usual amount of traffic/aircraft operations within the same airspace.
According to GCAA, work has already been done in terms of achieving ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) compliance, and a Category One rating under the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s International Aviation Safety Assessment (IASA) Programme.
Staffing at the Authority was also significantly boosted so as to enhance oversight functions.
Said to be one of the technologies selected as part of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) and the European CASCADE programme, the ADS-B is set to replace radar as the primary surveillance method for controlling aircraft worldwide.
Word is that in time, the United States will require the majority of aircraft operating within its airspace to be equipped with some form of ADS-B, while the European Union (EU) will make it mandatory, as of 2017, that planes with a weight above 5,700 kilogrammes (12,600 lb) or a max cruise of over 250 knots be outfitted with an ADS-B system.