White Paper

Rotorcraft are an important, and growing, segment of the aviation community within the United States. Each year rotorcraft perform 9.6 million takeoffs and landings and fly approximately 2.3 million hours. The value of the fleet, flight hour expenditures, and manufacturer payrolls exceed $6.2 billion per year. Sales of rotorcraft for the commercial market are forecast to double during the next eight years, largely as a result of improvements in pure rotorcraft technology and the planned introduction of civil tiltrotor aircraft.

At the same time, the existing capacity of the airport and air traffic control system is strained as a result of rapid increases in air travel during the past decade. Forecasts show a further doubling of air travel during the next few years. Unless these conditions are addressed quickly, the consequences for the air transport industry and the traveling public will be higher cost, greater inconvenience, declining quality of service, and possibly diminished safety.

Development of an airport and airway infrastructure to increase air system capacity and to accommodate simultaneous, non-interfering use by fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft is therefore a high national priority.

Goal: The development of air and ground infrastructure for rotorcraft operations based upon the concept of simultaneous non-interfering operations, which includes heliport to heliport all weather operations, by an FAA integrated product team, which includes operators and manufacturers, the FAA, NASA and the Department of Defense.

Background: Instrument practices and procedures used in today’s airspace do not support safe and efficient vertical flight operations. Air traffic management systems now in use, based on the technologies of ILS (1943), VOR (1949), and ATC radar (1950s), were developed for fixed-wing aircraft operations prior to the introduction of the first IFR-capable helicopter in 1964. These systems, designed for fixed-wing requirements, do not recognize the three-dimensional flight capabilities and the flexibility of rotorcraft and thus contribute to needless delays and increased airside congestion for all aircraft using the national airspace system.

The lack of an adequate air transportation system for rotorcraft restricts flight operations, generates unnecessary costs, and adversely affects flight safety. Operators of helicopters experience a range of common problems. Examples include (1) circuitous routing by air traffic control; (2) excessive non-precision and precision approach minimums; (3) a lack of GPS precision approach procedures; (4) the lack of weather availability for alternates and destinations; (5) limited communications and surveillance capability at low altitudes; (6) an absence of procedures to minimize rotorcraft and fixed wing interaction in constrained airspace; and (7) overly restrictive requirements for heliport and vertiport design.

Collectively, these factors increase congestion and delays and reduce airspace capacity. They also encourage helicopter operators to fly beneath the weather in marginal conditions, thus creating an unsafe operating environment for all users of the national airspace system. Non-IFR operations in marginal weather limit the safety and protection that the air traffic control system customarily affords the aviation community.

These issues should be addressed through procedural change and technology development. For example, in recent years GPS and DGPS instrument approach development programs – the result of cooperative efforts by the FAA, the industry and the operator community – have achieved quick, inexpensive and responsive results.

Recommendations: The societies, joined by the industry and operator communities, endorse the concept of simultaneous and non-interfering operations (SNI), which includes heliport to heliport all weather operations. SNI can increase the efficiency of rotorcraft operations and minimize interference between rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft operations in constrained airspace. Implementation of this concept through procedural change and technology development will result in additional capacity, reduced delay, improved safety, and efficient operations for commercial carriers, commuters, and general aviation.

To realize these benefits, we strongly recommend the creation of an FAA integrated product team, which includes operators and manufacturers, the FAA, NASA and the Department of Defense, to develop and improve an appropriate air and ground infrastructure for rotorcraft operations. The group’s initial goal should be the completion of the following SNI elements within the next twelve months using resources currently available to the government agencies and industry members:

• Complete the Special Category I (GLS or GPS Landing System) DGPS rotorcraft precision terminal procedures (TERPS) to enable near zero-zero approaches to a hover at heliports and airports (this work has already been initiated at Minneapolis and Newark airports).
• Complete implementation of the "GPS waypoint grid" for rotorcraft operations in the Gulf of Mexico; additionally, support the development of an Automated Dependent Surveillance Broadcast System (ADS-B) for offshore operations.
• Implement the GPS-based, low altitude IFR route structure developed for the Northeast corridor, and initiate similar programs for other high traffic corridors.
• Develop and implement criteria for reducing route widths utilizing GPS technology.
• Update instrument approach procedure development criteria to allow one flight technical error data set to be used to determine the terminal procedures for a family of approach navigation systems, such as the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) and GPS Landing System (GLS).
• Develop tiltrotor transition procedures, in conjunction with Department of Defense, to permit transition to and from low-high-low flight levels during flight operations.
• Streamline the development and approval process for infrastructure and procedures to permit the FAA and FAA-designees to certificate GPS approaches.
• Develop a vertiport advisory circular that meets the needs of the rotorcraft community.

At the same time, government and industry should collaborate upon and launch the following SNI initiatives with the goal of completing them within the next 24 months:

• Develop tiltrotor specific GPS non-precision and precision approach terminal procedures to maximize tiltrotor capabilities.
• Establish criteria that allows high fidelity simulations to be used as the basis for draft terminal procedures development and credit simulation experience towards the required number of approaches to validate the terminal procedures.
• Develop rotorcraft-inclusive air traffic management automation tools such as Center TRACON Automation System (CTAS), Final Approach Spacing Tool (Fast) and User Request Evaluation Tool (URET).
• Establish a vertical flight focal point within the Air Traffic System Requirements branch to ensure that vertical flight issues are addressed in terms of rotorcraft capabilities and concept of operations development.