GPS making inroads

Whilst navigation by map remains a part of every pilot's training, GPS based aircraft navigation and surveillance systems are becoming the norm.

Our flight school's Sling aircraft are fitted with Cape Town manufactured  MGL avionics "glass cockpit" GPS based EFIS systems which give you map and navigation data combined with full engine statistics and information management capability. The auto-pilot in ZDL is especially useful for longer flights and will take us across the Mozambique Channel to Madagascar next year.

The MGL EFIS and GPS in our aircraft

NewGen

The next generation of GPS-based aircraft technology is the "NewGen" ADS-B transponders. (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast). This is surveillance technology to replace radar tracking of aircraft and is becoming mandatory in certain airspaces in the United States as well as Australia. Our aircraft in Durban operating in the King Shaka airspace are already required to be fitted with Mode S transponders. These send out signals which can be tracked by the conventional radar systems used in our controlled airspace by the air traffic controllers. The ADS-B equipment is a modified Mode S transponder in which each aircraft uses GPS to find it's own position, then broadcasts this position to other aircaft as well as air traffic controllers. Discussion in the States is around making this new equipment mandatory for General Aviation Aircraft and in the interim in a spreading number of controlled airspaces.

The facility for aircraft to broadcast their position and be tracked by other aircraft is intended to greatly enhance safety in the sky and in the States, where air traffic is reaching capacity loads, will enable aircraft to be routed closer together using the more reliable and accurate ADS tracking system.

Predictions are that by 2020, most aircraft will be fitted with this equipment.