Innovations of flight inspections for instrument landing systems in the netherlands

Jaap Heijstek, National Aerospace Laboratory, NLR, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Martijn Stuip, National Aerospace Laboratory, NLR, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Ger Nielen, National Aerospace Laboratory, NLR, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Jacco Bosch, Air Traffic Control the Netherlands, LVNL Schiphol-Oost, The Netherlands

Abstract

Air Traffic Control The Netherlands (LVNL) operates a number of automatically monitored Instrument Landing Systems at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Most of these are of the highest ICAO ILS category, cat. III, which allows landing of suitably equipped aircraft under low visibility procedure conditions. In order to meet the requirements for ILS set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), LVNL carries out ILS inspection based on measurements taken during flights, as well as measurements taken on the ground and equipment tests. Currently, these flight inspections are awarded to the National Aerospace Laboratory, NLR in the Netherlands. Many years of experience have led to the hypothesis there is a significant redundancy in the inspection regime. Within the framework of the LVNL maintenance strategy for ground based navigation aids, a joint research project with NLR was initiated in 2006 to develop efficiency improvements for ILS maintenance, particularly regarding flight inspections. Ultimately this should lead to a-periodic inspection regime for ILS.

This paper is jointly written by NLR and LVNL and presents:

• a short introduction to ILS and inspections on ILS
• the NLR practices with ILS flight inspections done for LVNL and other European ANSPs, using the flight inspection system onboard the NLR research aircraft and the supporting ground facilities;
• the developed generic approach how to safely improve the efficiency of the ILS flight measurements, taking into account the LVNL ILS ground measurement capability;
• the main benefits of applying this approach for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol; and
• the practical consequences of applying this approach for NLR flight inspections.