A localizer design to improve missed approach guidance

A novel VHF localizer system has been designed, built and successfully tested to provide increased reliability and safety of commercial and general aviation air transportation. Additional benefits are more precise tracks for aircraft executing a missed approach, reduced volume of the airspace needed for missed approaches, and reduced sizes of areas affected by noise. The design uses contemporary instrument landing system (ILS) hardware to provide dual independent front and back course directional localizer operation with two carriers in the receiver passband offset 4 kHz from the nominal carrier frequency. An example is given of an application and solution to an ILS problem at Reno, NV. Relevant data are presented     

Hybridizing contemporary glide slopes to provide vertical guidancefor GPS approaches

Vertical guidance for an instrument approach to landing during conditions of reduced visibility is a crucial element with respect to safety of flight. It is noteworthy that this vertical component-to be most useful and safe-must desirably provide the pilot with no more than several feet of uncertainty. Unfortunately, with GPS the vertical portion of the position information supplied the pilot by GPS signals is the least precise because of geometries involved. Augmentation for enhancement of accuracy is quite important and the assertion is that it is necessary for totally safe vertical guidance. Evidence from approximately 60 years of experience with electronic landing systems serving the public is that there has been no aircraft accident due to a defective vertical guidance signal. Visibilities as low as 600 feet horizontally can exist at certain airports and landings can still be accomplished. These landings, while not common, are being accomplished flawlessly by contemporary aircraft and equipment. Many aspects of the contemporary UHF glide slope have been studied during its half-century of use. This paper reports on advances, some of them quite recent, that make it realistic to claim that a glide slope can be sited for Category I operation at any runway that meets the physical requirements for this type of operation. For the UHF glide slope, siting imperfections are accommodated by using one of five available types of contemporary glide slope systems or derivatives thereof. This paper reviews how accommodations are achieved in practical cases. Results from earlier tests are identified which show hybridizing of UHF glide slopes and GPS can be used to provide good approach guidance to aircraft making fully automatic approaches to touchdown     

ILS-a safe bet for your future landings

An argument is presented in favor of the ILS (instrument landing system), the principal components of which are the localizer, which provides lateral guidance to the pilot, and the glide slope, which gives the vertical guidance. A pilot flying these signals precisely will end up over the hard surface runway with the ILS receiving antenna, wherever it is mounted on the aircraft, being about 20 ft above the touchdown point. The safety record and evolution of the ILS are examined, and a pilot's view of ILS (that of the author, an engineer who has worked with ILS since 1957 and a pilot who has used ILS safely for over 30 years) is given. System availability is discussed, and comments concerning future use are offered