Threading the needle: Flight path tech aids quake relief

After a devastating 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck a remote area of China on April 14 — leaving more than 2,000 people dead — authorities had to mount an emergency relief mission to a rugged, high altitude area along the border of the Tibet Autonomous region. Highway access would require days of travel through some of the highest terrain in the world. And precision navigation to the nearest airport at Yushu was only available on one end of the runway when the winds were blowing from the right direction. When Chinese aviation officials wanted to quickly deploy advanced flight path technology that would allow all-weather, precision access to all runway ends, Naverus, a part of GE Aviation, responded by donating the engineering and design work necessary to deploy them. In the 7-minute podcast below, Steve Fulton, a former Alaska Airlines pilot who co-founded Naverus, explains the technology, which is known as Required Navigation Performance, or RNP. Put simply, RNP allows planes to follow precise, curved paths, eliminating the need to build routes out of straight-line flight segments. It’s particularly important in congested airspace, around noise-sensitive areas — or through geographically challenging terrain, such as Yushu Airport, which is12,800 feet above sea level. Interviewing Steve is Ken Shapero, Marketing Communications Leader for Naverus.

Steve is a pioneer in the design of modern RNP procedures and was instrumental in its first commercial application in Juneau, Alaska. The navigation paths — which also provide fuel savings and reduced CO2 emissions because of their smoother, shorter flight paths — unleash the full potential of an aircraft to fly precisely-defined paths without relying on ground-based radio-navigation signals. Naverus has already worked with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), four Chinese airlines and seven Chinese airports, deploying 85 RNP procedures in China since 2004.

The Naverus animation below shows how a curved approach to landing reduces distances flown compared with a conventional approach.

* Read the earthquake relief announcement
* Read initial coverage about the earthquake from the BBC
* Read an update on rebuilding from The New York Times
* Read about our work with Yushu Airport in September
* Learn more about RNP on the Naverus website

Learn more in these GE Reports stories:
* “Not all approaches are created equal”
* “Jump into GE’s integrated cockpit at Paris Air Show”
* Read more GE Aviation stories