By JOHN CROFT, FAA
The very ingredient that makes Asheville a magnet for vacationers and retirees — mountains — can also make the western North Carolina city more challenging for those arriving by aircraft.
Mountains have a bad habit of blocking radar, creating surveillance blind spots for controllers and forcing instrument flight rules (IFR) aircraft to take inefficient flight paths.
NextGen radar and ADS-B technology is helping to remove those blind spots, easing the workload for controllers and boosting efficiency and safety for airline, military, and general aviation pilots who use the airport and airspace.
The action started in June 2018 when the FAA installed the Fusion upgrade to the Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System (STARS) in the terminal radar approach control facility (TRACON) at the Asheville Regional Airport (KAVL).
Before Fusion, STARS relied on only one airport surveillance radar at the airport. Fusion blends multiple radar feeds from other locations, as well as input from seven ADS-B radio stations distributed throughout the Asheville area. The ADS-B radios receive surveillance data from ADS-B Out-equipped aircraft and transmit that data to the TRACON. Fusion combines all the surveillance inputs and displays the most accurate information to controllers.
Benefits will increase as more aircraft equip with ADS-B Out ahead of the 2020 deadline, according to FAA officials.
“What we do has always been safe,” says Asheville Air Traffic Manager Michael Silvius, “but this upgrade improves efficiency in addition to giving us a safety boost.”
For controllers, Fusion provides aircraft position information at lower altitudes and farther from the airport. In many cases, controllers can see aircraft equipped with ADS-B Out all the way down to the ground, even at some distant airports.
Bill Curcie Jr., the National Air Traffic Controllers Association representative at Asheville TRACON, says before Fusion, IFR aircraft arriving into Asheville’s airspace at 6,000’ altitude from the east would not show up on controllers’ screens until they were inside Asheville airspace. Similar issues at higher altitudes occur for aircraft arriving from the north and west.
When controllers do not have surveillance data on a flight, they have to block relatively large tracts of airspace around its expected path.
“Now when they’re at 6,000’, we see them about five to eight miles outside of our airspace,” says Curcie.
With surveillance, he and the other 14 controllers at the facility are able to better use the airspace by reducing separation between aircraft to as close as three miles to either side of the course. He says the upgrade eliminates the workload of remembering aircraft they cannot see on the display.
“It makes us far more comfortable,” he says.
For the many general aviation and military aircraft flying in the Asheville area, the enhanced surveillance in the TRACON means they can receive more effective flight following, which means controllers can point out more traffic.
Aircraft equipped with ADS-B Out get an additional surveillance advantage — coverage that in many cases extends to the runway.
Thirty miles north of Asheville is a private airport called Mountain Air, located within a golf course in the shadow of mile-high Mount Mitchell.
“A lot of aircraft fly in and out of Mountain Air,” says controller Ryan Chase. “We see them and can point out traffic. We couldn’t do that before.”
The efficiency boost should also be a boon for airlines serving Asheville, including Allegiant, American, Spirit, and United. It’s too soon for quantitative data, but Silvius has seen a qualitative bonus.
“If we see the aircraft sooner, we can turn them sooner and get them a more direct path to the airport, saving time and fuel,” he says.
Love ADSB in and out. I wish I had it 20 years ago. I installed it in time to get the rebate because it was going to be required. If I had known what it was going to be like, I would have done it when it first came out. I love it especially when I am IMC and have no idea what is lurking in the clouds next to me. It makes my wife more comfortable ion bad weather. Happy wife Happy life.
Now if we could get everyone to install ADS-B IN and OUT, not just for transponder mandated airspace, safety would truly be enhanced. After installing ADS-B I am looking outside even more as I realize what I was missing before ADS-B. Knowing there is traffic out there not similarly equipped, I wonder who else I am not seeing.
I find it ironic that in Alaska, where ADS-B essentially began with the Capstone program, many operators and individuals don’t even have transponders installed…and don’t intend to do so, while midairs continue to occur. I bet those folks would have an issue flying in an airliner without the benefit of TCAS or ADS-B, yet there seems to be no objection to having the lack of the same traffic information capability in their aircraft.
I am a huge fan of ADS-B In/Out and have been using it for 6 years in a pair of aircraft. Sadly still there are some who do not have it despite the deadline now just 6 months away!
But the technology can be defeated by a mountain as part of the system is aircraft-to-aircraft signaling. Targets can and do disappear from the screen if you are flying on one side of a mountain and the target is on the other. Converging with an aircraft like that is possible if you are flying in the same direction around the same mountain.
There can also be a ghosting issue that shows your own plane as a target for a brief time.
But all in all I can say that in EVERY flight I see planes close enough to raise concern. Planes not reported by ATC and not detected in the sky visually that usually require speed change, altitude change or heading change. Those not flying with ADS-B may be ignorant of such traffic, but that does not mean they are not still there.