Future
The Microwave Landing System (MLS) introduced in the 1970s was intended to replace ILS but fell out of favour in the United States because of satellite based systems. However, it is showing a resurgence in the United Kingdom for civil aviation. ILS and MLS are the only standardized systems in Civil Aviation that meet requirements for Category III automated landings. The first Category III MLS for civil aviation was commissioned at Heathrow airport in March 2009.
The advent of the Global Positioning System (GPS) provides an alternative source of approach for aircraft. In the US, the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) has been available to provide precision guidance to Category I standards since 2007, and the equivalent in Europe, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), is currently undergoing final trials and will be certified for safety of life applications in 2010. Other methods of augmentation are in development to provide for Category III minimums or better, such as the Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS).
The FAA Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS) office is currently working with the industry in anticipation of the certification of the first GBAS ground stations in Memphis, TN; Sydney, Australia; Bremen, Germany; Spain and Newark, NJ. All four countries have installed GBAS systems and are involved in technical and operational evaluation activities. The Honeywell and FAA team are working on the System Design Approval of the world's first Non-Federal U.S. approval for LAAS Category I operations; expected in first quarter 2009 and compliant with International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs) Category I LAAS.
Read more about this topic: Instrument Landing System
Famous quotes containing the word future:
“Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...”
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“[With the Union saved] its form of government is saved to the world; its beloved history, and cherished memories, are vindicated; and its happy future fully assured, and rendered inconceivably grand.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values.... Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)