Practical Application: A Microwave Landing System
In looking for applied research opportunities, Wild discovered that the Australian Department of Civil Aviation had been considering a call by the International Civil Aviation Organization for member states to propose a new system to replace the longstanding ILS (Instrument Landing System). He very quickly formed the concept of a microwave landing system and applied his energies to the project with great enthusiasm. The concept was simple: a radar fan beam scans back and forth horizontally while another scans up and down, giving the aircraft's position within a few inches.
Interscan proved to have many advantages over other precision landing systems. It allows a wide selection of channels to avoid interference with other nearby airports; has excellent performance in all weather; and gives freedom to locate antennae anywhere at an airport. Some installations became operational in the 1990s and more were set up subsequently in Europe. NASA has operated a similar system to land space shuttles. However, Interscan has not become widely deployed worldwide, largely because the US Federal Aviation Administration has developed the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), which augments the satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS). Although WAAS is cheaper and conforms to ILS Category I, its accuracy is under 1.0 metre laterally and under 1.5 metres vertically, which is a particular concern at locations that frequently suffer from low visibility.
In 1978, Interscan was accepted as the new global standard in microwave landing systems – but only after many international political hurdles had been overcome. The project involved long, delicate negotiations with the International Civil Aviation Organization and pragmatic alliances with other nations. It was during the ICAO negotiations, and as chief of his CSIRO division, that Wild was revealed as a highly talented diplomat and political strategist. Dennis Cooper, a key participant in the ICAO negotiations, described Wild as "an excellent mentor, happy to listen to the ideas of young colleagues, able to grasp complex ideas and explain them simply". And as the Interscan experience showed, persistence went with his intelligence.
Although Interscan did not sweep the aviation world as had been expected, it nevertheless provided a springboard for many engineers' careers, and made a considerable contribution to development of Australian science and technology.
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