Britain’s National Air Traffic Services (NATS) is stepping up operating trials aimed at making greater use of both en route and terminal area airspace. New procedures being evaluated include the use of parallel offset tracks in place of radar headings alone; closer spacing of parallel routes with autonomous operations; and the use of precision area navigation (PRnav) procedures for terminal area control.
At a January 23 meeting of the UK’s Business Aircraft Users Association (BAUA), Peter Legros, NATS’ head of airspace development, said that the use of parallel offset tracks for en route navigation will reduce the need for controllers to constantly change headings in five-degree increments. “In high winds, controllers might have to issue pilots with 10 heading changes in the space of just 150 miles,” he explained, adding that the use of parallel offsets would allow them simply to monitor flights rather than having to adjust them inefficiently.
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