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Area Navigation - The 20-year-old Infant with Great Expectations
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English
Abstract
After 20 years of experimentation, evaluation and discussion, area navigation appears finally to be on its way. The paper discusses the three basic functions of area navigation: organization and simplification of cockpit navigation workload; permitting aircraft operations enroute, in terminal areas, and on approach, on any desired course within coverage of ground navigation systems; and to permit easy pilot response to air traffic control instructions on routings which otherwise would not be possible without requiring navigation vectors and resulting controller workload. Increasing demand for efficient airspace and controller utilization is likely to require area navigation capability soon.
The paper discusses what area navigation can do soon to improve terminal area and enroute ATC, and what area navigation cannot do. It will review prospects and problems for area navigation to “put navigation back into the cockpit,” to provide high-quality, consistent three-dimensional guidance to runways not served by ILS, to reduce controller workload, and to provide continuous current position information in the cockpit.
The paper attempts to relate the role of area navigation to other elements of air traffic control improvement and review the difficulties of overlaying an efficient area navigation route system over an existing radial route system.