Raytheon and Air Force Demonstrate Civil-Military Interoperability for GPS-Based Precision Landing System

A government-industry team
accomplished the first precision approach by a civil aircraft using a military
Global Positioning System (GPS) landing system Aug. 25 at Holloman AFB, N.M.,
Raytheon Company announced today.

A FedEx Express 727-200 Aircraft equipped with a Rockwell-Collins GNLU-930
Multi-Mode Receiver landed using a Raytheon-developed military ground station.
Raytheon designed and developed the differential GPS ground station under an
Air Force contract for the Joint Precision Approach and Landings System
(JPALS) program.
The JPALS system is being developed to meet the Defense
Department’s need for an anti-jam, secure, all weather Category II/III
aircraft landing system that will be fully interoperable with planned civil
systems utilizing the same technology.
Raytheon and the U.S. Air Force have
been conducting extensive flight testing for JPALS at Holloman over the last
three months.

The FedEx Express 727-200 aircraft at Holloman successfully conducted a
total of sixteen Category I approaches.
After completing a number of pilot
flown approaches for reference the aircraft conducted six full autolands using
the JPALS ground station.
“The consistency of the approaches allowed us to
proceed to actual autolandings with very little delay,” said Steve Kuhar,
Senior Technical Advisor Flight Department for FedEx Express.
The aircraft
was guided by differential GPS corrections, integrity information, and
precision approach path points transmitted from the Raytheon developed JPALS
ground station.
Although the approaches were restricted to Category I,
accuracies sufficient to meet Cat II/III requirements were observed.

Raytheon is the world leader in designing and building satellite-based
navigation and landing solutions for civil and military applications.
In
addition to developing JPALS for the Department of Defense, Raytheon is also
developing both the Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) and the Wide Area
Augmentation System (WAAS) for the Federal Aviation Administration.
The JPALS
and LAAS will provide an interoperable landing capability for military and
civil applications.

“Raytheon is committed to developing and deploying satellite based
navigation and landing systems for the military and the flying public,” said
Bob Eckel, Raytheon vice president for Air Traffic Management.
“We understand
the importance of this technology and are proud to be a part of the success
achieved this summer during JPALS testing at Holloman.”

With headquarters in Lexington, Mass., Raytheon Company is a global
technology leader in defense, government and commercial electronics, and
business and special mission aircraft.

Note to Editors:

CATEGORY I/II/III refer to different levels of low visibility approaches.
CAT I is the least severe.

                    Ceiling             Visibility
    CAT I           200 feet            1/2 mile
    CATII           100 feet            1/4 mile
    CATIIIA         50 feet             Runway Visual Range-1200 feet
    CATIIIB         50 feet             Runway Visual Range - 700 feet
    CATIIIC         0                   0

    Contact:
    Blanche E. Necessary
    202-314-3780