Satellite steering

 
Published: Saturday 15 July 1995

Aircraft flying over Calcutta lose precibus time awaiting instructions from overburdened ground con- trollers. The Calcutta air corridor is a notorious bottleneck in international air traffic, and airline carriers, Iiike Qantas, lose millions of dollars due to delay there, each year.

But this may soon change with a new satellite-based traffic management system, called the Future Air Navigation System (FANS), that is being sponsored by Air India.

FANS makes use of satellites to track a plane and then position it on maps on an onboard computer. This will reduce an aircraft's dependance on ground control.

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