GPS and Air Traffic Control: Start With a Clean Sheet of Paper

Donald Tilden

Abstract:	We have all heard stories of pioneer navigator/pilots flying from bon fire to bon fire in the early days. These intrepid souls applied the lessons learned from other forms of transportation and developed their own “navaids”. along came primitive radio beacons, and in order to navigate over long distances jagged lines were drawn connecting point of origin to destination. Even with all of the t&urologic advances in the past nine decades, aircraft still fly the same basic pattern from bon fire to bon fire. Whether they are called jet routes or any other name, they are still rigid and inflexible, and when weather or other variables outside of the control of ATC interfere, adherence to an inflexible grid costs NAS users time and money. It is time to redesign air traffic control from the ground up, and to begin with a fresh sheet of paper. Technologies are rapidly emerging that will make “free flight”, or flight direct from one point to another a reality. GPS as a technology provides a jumping off point for the establishment of a user friendly system, one which still provides the highest degree of safety possible, while providing more flexibility and the possibility for decreased delays and increased profitability. The opportunities for GPS technologies in ATC for general aviation (GA) will receive special emphasis in this paper, as it is an important element of the total air transportation system that is often neglected. Any solution which does not include GA from the beginning is doomed to failure.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 7th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1994) September 20 - 23, 1994 Salt Palace Convention Center Salt Lake City, UT
Pages:	909 - 911
Cite this article:	Tilden, Donald, "GPS and Air Traffic Control: Start With a Clean Sheet of Paper," Proceedings of the 7th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1994), Salt Lake City, UT, September 1994, pp. 909-911.
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