An overview of civil airspace changes impacting interoperability with military aircraft

Abstract

Globally, airspace densities continue to increase at a rate which some fear could result in congestion levels approaching a gridlock condition. In response to this situation, Civil Aviation Authorities (CAA's) are transitioning to an air traffic management system that embraces the Future Air Navigation System (FANS) concepts originated by ICAO. This emerging system will automate most of the routine voice communications of the current system with data links that will provide communication between the aircraft and the air traffic controllers/computers. In the cockpit, aircrews will be required to assume an increased level of responsibility for safely maintaining separation assurance from ground and airborne hazards and obstacles, To ensure peacetime interoperability with the civilian sector, aspects of this new system (CNS-ATM) will ultimately be imposed on military aircraft either by direct mandate or through relegating non-compliant aircraft to sub-optimal routes. Faced with the situation described above, the United States Air Force (USAF) has defined a number of initiatives to ensure that they will maintain access to global airspace. This paper will focus on two of these, global air traffic management (GATM) and navigation safety (NAV SAFETY). A regionally based overview of the anticipated changes in civil airspace requirements that will potentially impact military avionics equipage will be provided.