Automatic Dependence Survailenc

5 Pages 1295 Words

Introduction
The beginning of the twentieth century brought about major changes in the world. One of these changes began at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina witht the Wright brother’s historic first flight. The rest of the century brought gigantic leaps in the aviation industry. Charles Lindberg’s solo Atlantic crossing showed the world the growth avation was capable of. By the end of the Second World War, the jet age had been born, and Radio Detection and Ranging (radar) was tracking aircraft as it crossed the sky. The Soviet Union’s launch of the Sputnik satellite brought humanity into the space age. As mankind passed through the 1960s, Neal Armstrong made his walk on the moon. From these fledgling first steps, aviation has moved to routine space flights, a constellation of manmade satellites currently circle the earth, and everyday thousands of people board non-stop international flights. Through the use of new satellite based technology, the safety and efficiency of aviation will continue to grow.
Current Airspace Systems
The United States current National Airspace System (NAS) is arranged around ground based equipment. Navigation is based systems such as Very High Frequency Omni directional Range (VOR), and Non-directional Beacons (NDB). Aircraft surveillance is maintained through the use of radar. Radar is broken down into two categories, primary and secondary. Primary radar is the signal that is returned as the radar waves bounce off an aircraft and is shown displayed on the controller’s screen. This is supplemented by secondary radar, which is a signal sent from the aircraft giving its current altitude. Both the navigational and surveillance systems currently in place rely in ground-based equipment and airborne receivers. These systems are costly to maintain, as the ground transmitters must continually be serviced. They are also susceptible to errors such as the slant range error and are limited to line ...