German Aerospace Congress 2009

The German Aerospace Congress is organised annually by DGLR, the German Society for Aeronautics and Astronautics. This year it took place at the Eurogress Conference Centre in Aachen, Germany, from September 8 to 10, 2009.

On the second day of the conference, DLR presented the AT-One paper on Virtual Block Control and Separation Bubbles. In contrast to the paper presented at ICNS 2009 in Arlington, this paper had a focus on evaluation of the concepts in cockpit simulator trials.

The conference sessions were generally set up with a broad range of topics so that there were not too many presentations directly focussing on ATM. Some of the presentations were mere descriptions of work approaches and used facilities, but they were nonetheless interesting. The sessions I attended described new approaches to avionics and control systems, especially for small private aircraft, knowledge management, simulator development, data analysis, and last but not least ATM.

A very interesting presentation from one of my AT-One colleagues described a revolutionary approach to controlling aircraft, referred to as sectorless ATM. In that scenario several tactical controllers share one giant airspace sector and control or rather guide a number of aircraft (between 3 to 8) through that sector. Although the concept still has some weaker points (controller communication, priority rules) it is an interesting starting point for innovative research in that area.

Skybrary

During this year's ATC Global exhibition Eurocontrol presented a new website called Skybrary. This website is an initiative of Eurocontrol, ICAO and the Flight Safety Foundation. It is supposed to become the most important point of reference when it comes to aviation safety knowledge.



Skybrary is set up as a wiki site allowing registered users to contribute to its contents. Apart from being a library of safety related terms the website currently provides three portals addressing different safety aspects. These portals try to categorise information for different purposes and different audiences. The main portal looks at operational issues and is a good reference for research in the aviation safety field in general. Two other portals focus on enhancing safety (e.g. through safety management and technology) and safety regulation.

While much of the information presented on the Skybrary website might already be available on the net, it is hoped that this effort will help in consolidating the knowledge under a single roof. From the point of view of R&D this is certainly met with approval and in the long run research results, especially in the category of operations and safety enhancing technology and methodologies, should find their way into this base of information.