The recent switching on of Europe’s Egnos satellite-based augmentation system is great news for flight management system (FMS) manufacturers like Universal Avionics Systems. “With Egnos being turned on officially,” said Dan Reida, Universal vice president of marketing, “we hope to start seeing a stronger interest in space-based augmented FMS. We look forward to implementation of more approaches [in Europe].”
The European geostationary navigation overlay system (Egnos) “safety-of-life” signal was formally declared available to aviation on March 2, after being subjected to a stringent certification and verification process. Now European operators equipped with suitable avionics can use the Egnos signals for vertical guidance precision instrument approaches at airports where specially designed approaches are available. Aircraft flying Egnos approaches must also be equipped with certified avionics that can take advantage of the more accurate lateral and vertical guidance available. Egnos is similar to the wide-area augmentation system (Waas) in the U.S. Japan has a similar system called Msas, and India’s Gagan system will also soon be available.
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