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Our guest this episode is Captain Steve Fulton. As a pilot at Alaska Airlines, Steve helped develop the world’s first Required Navigation Performance (RNP) procedure, and he was a principal author of the RNP RNAV criteria in the FAA Advisory Circular on this topic. Steve is now a Technical Fellow with GE Aviation, and a co-founder of what was formerly Naverus now GE PBN Services.
Graphic courtesy GE Aviation. To learn more about RNP and what it means for the airline industry and for the environment, see these videos:
- GE’s RNP path implementation at Bradley Airport in Connecticut
- Animation of RNP path vs. ground-based navigation path
We also have the aviation news from the past week, Steve and Grant’s Australia Desk Report, and Pieter Johnson with his Across the Pond segment.
The week’s aviation news:
- Verdict in Concorde crash called ‘chilling’
- Southwest’s Performance Problem: How to Fix Those Late Arrivals
- Plane makers eye Persian Gulf buyers for luxury jets
Mentions:
- TarmacLimits.com The impact of tree-hour tarmac delay rules and fines on passenger travel time and welfare.
- AirlinesAngel has a passion for aviation, with specific interest in the areas of customer focus and social media.
- Safety Is Mandatory video by jetBlue employees, and featuring listener Stephen.
- Desert Pilot Podcast Stories from a Commercial Land & Sea Pilot/ATC student.
- JSF engine too big for regular transport at sea from the Navy Times.
Follow the @AirplaneGeeks on Twitter and on Facebook, send us email at thegeeks@airplanegeeks.com, or leave a message on our listener line: (361) GEEKS01.
Opening and closing music is provided by Brother Love from the Album Of The Year CD. You can find his great music at http://www.brotherloverocks.com/.
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A completely fascinating discussion on RNP, ADS-B and the progress of new technology in US airspace.
There are many positive steps being taken here in Australia with regard to the implimentation of these technologies, and it’s a perhaps easier to use our less congested airspace as a handy platform to test things before trying to bring it into use in the US & Europe. Many of the QANTAS pilots we speak to who use RNP appear quite pleased with it so far. We’ll keep you posted if we hear otherwise!
ADS-B is causing quite some discussion here too, as the government plans to introduce it to the wider GA fleet over the next few years, at great expense to light aircraft owners. There are many who question the benefits of this move, and in episode 48 of PCDU, we chat with Bill Hamilton, an expert in this field, who gives us detailed appraisal of the issues.
On another subject, I think this may be the first time an episode of Airplane Geeks was longer that a PCDU episode…by three minutes!!
Cheers everyone!
Steve