Page 3 - ATC Special Bulletin Series - Future Skies 2024

INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the latest ATC Network Special Bulletin focusing on ‘Future Skies’.
The aviation industry has new entrants which will need to be safely integrated into the airspace.
Drones, Advanced Air Mobility and Space Operations are providing challenges for everyone involved.
Alongside the new entrants is also a more pressing issue. How does the present aviation industry become sustainable?
I would like to thank all the organizations who contributed to this edition and especially NATS who sponsored the publication. Without this we would not be able to produce these focused magazines.
The first of the articles is looking at Upper Airspace Operations. The users can be very diverse; Hypersonic vehicles to slow moving high-altitude systems. The FAA has already developed a sophisticated system to safely integrate these operations among daily aircraft operations.
CANSO has kindly contributed with the second article. Eduardo Garcia who heads the new ‘Future Skies’ section of the organization was recently at the new ‘Collaborating on our future skies 2024’ event in California. This event looked at improving the future of ATM and also AAM. The article looks at the results of the many discussions held there.
DLR’s article looks at how an Urban Air Taxi system might work. I was fortunate enough to experience the DLR simulator used in this research in September last year in Madrid at the Airspace Integration event. It was a truly enlightening experience and I can’t wait to try my first real air taxi trip. Paris 2024 Olympics? I think I might have to wait a little.
A popular topic in my office is the subject of the next article from Yves Le Marquand. Can Electricity power a passenger aircraft with today’s technology? Last year I saw a demonstration of how, at an Aachen (Germany) based airfield where they are training Ab Initio pilots. Using two Pipistrel Electro aircraft it is possible to train multiple pilots. While one is flying the second aircraft is recharging for another set of touch-and-goes.
Think Research kindly provided our last article on Trajectory-based operations. Traditionally our industry has followed filed flight plans following NAVAIDs or waypoints but in reality this is often not the case. With modern technologies and operations aircraft can make substantial savings in fuel and carbon emissions. These savings in flight time and fuel burn etc need to be utilized as soon as possible before other initiatives can be developed such as hydrogen, biofuel and electricity.
I hope you all enjoy the articles in this edition. I certainly have found them interesting reading and some food for thought for our ‘Future Skies’.
This year we will be producing two more ‘Special Bulletins’ visiting old topics of ‘Training & Simulation’ and ‘Remote & Digital Towers’ If you would like to be involved please contact us.
Chris Wade
CEO ATC Network
chris@atc-network.com
Editorial Team ATC Network Chris Wade Vicky Janse Aino Essers Jose Miguel De Bleser
Design
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