Airport - Smart Runway & Smart Landing

For reducing the risk of runway incursions and excursions

Aircraft and flight crew operate in complex airport environments every day. They fly in all types of adverse weather and often in limited visibility conditions. They complete the demanding tasks of safe landing and take-off over and over again. All of these tasks demand vigilance and high situational awareness. However, the risk for runway incursions and excursions in this environment is constantly increasing.

While the spectre of airline crashes dominates public perception of the risks of air travel on-the-ground, safety is a greater hazard for civil aviation. The cause of runway incursions and excursions is straightforward: heavier traffic, more congestion at airports, often mixed with poor visibility, poor flight crew execution and confusion.

Although runway incursions and excursions occur more frequently at the world’s busiest airports, they can happen anywhere. Runway incursions and excursions happen most often due to a loss of situational awareness, which can also be exacerbated by worker fatigue, unfamiliar and complex airports or even a lack of clear signage on taxiways, among other reasons.

Runway safety has long been a concern for aviation safety, but recently the issue has taken centre stage globally with governments, regulators, manufacturers and airlines. In the US, Congress last year, asked industry leaders and government officials to step up efforts in the area of runway safety.

In response to the growing concern over runway incursions and excursions, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has formulated short- and long-term plans to address runway safety. This has also been an ongoing issue on the US National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) “most wanted list” since its inception in 1990. Runway safety has also climbed the priority list in Europe and Asia, with a number of international aviation organisations coming together to form the Flight Safety Foundation’s Runway Safety Initiative (RSI) to address the challenge of runway safety. This is an international effort with participants representing Airbus, Airports Council International (ACI), Association of Asia Pacific Airlines (AAPA), Association of European Airlines (AEA), Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation (CANSO), Direction Générale de l’Aviation Civile (DGAC) of France, Embraer, EUROCONTROL, European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), European Regions Airline Association (ERA), International Air Transport Association (IATA), International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), International Federation of Air Line Pilots’ Associations (IFALPA), National Aerospace Laboratory NLR–The Netherlands, FAA and the NTSB.

NextGen Enhanced Situational Awareness and Runway Safety

Runway incursions and excursions are a major safety concern that costs the aviation industry $1 billion ( Rs. 5,000 crore) annually for injuries, inspections and repairs. That is why, Honeywell has developed a new line of Smart- Runway and SmartLanding products designed to increase safety during approach, landing, taxi and take-off, by breaking the chain of events leading to a runway incursion or excursion.

Building on Honeywell’s extensive experience in the area of runway safety, SmartRunway and SmartLanding offer an expanded number of available alerts and added visual messaging to support both “heads-up” and “quiet cockpit” operations. Both products complement Honeywell’s other safety products, such as electronic flight bags and integrated primary flight displays, but provide the extra comfort of global runway situational awareness. SmartRunway and SmartLanding are available now for airlines and business aviation aircraft currently equipped with Honeywell’s MK V or MK VII enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS).

SmartRunway

Honeywell’s new SmartRunway addresses one of the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) top 10 global safety concerns—runway incursions. One runway incursion happens daily worldwide, at a cost of about $100 million ( Rs. 500 crore) a year for passenger injuries and aircraft repairs and inspections. SmartRunway, the next generation upgrade of Honeywell’s RAAS, improves situational awareness by providing timely advisories and graphical alerts to the flight crew and advises them of their position during taxi, take-off, final approach, landing and rollout. SmartRunway includes the previous routine and non-routine advisories offered with Honeywell’s RAAS technology with two new advisories and a new graphical alerting feature. Positioned for future growth, SmartRunway will also utilise automated dependent surveillance-broadcast when available.

Various configurations of SmartRunway are available to best suit individual operating environments, including volume control and inhibit switches. Honeywell’s SmartRunway also complements EFB solutions, through heads-up aural advisories, and supports quiet cockpits with graphical alerts on the enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS) display. Honeywell’s SmartRunway consists of the same RAAS advisories that are already installed on more than 2,000 business aviation and commercial transport aircraft and capitalises on Honeywell’s worldwide terrain and runway database, which has been proven over 600 million flight hours.