track
60 Aircraft Tracking BRIAN HANNAN
AUSTRALIAN FLYING January - February 2015Keeping
Tracking systems
for aircraft have
become more
popular in recent
years thanks to
new technologies.
Brian Hannan
investigates what
this means for
general aviation
and details some
common products.
T
he disappearance of Malaysian
Airlines Flight MH370 in March
last year shocked the world. Public
confidence requires downed
aircraft be located quickly to
rescue survivors, then the wreckage
and flight recorder data to be
analysed to discover causes. To
date, extensive searching has found
nothing to analyse.
Conversely, Air France AF447
crashed on 1 June 2009; debris was
found within five days, but the flight
recorders remained unrecovered until
May 2011. AF447 was on track, and
Aircraft Communication Addressing
and Reporting System (ACARS)
messages reduced the uncertainty to
five minutes, a search area of 17,000square kilometres. French investigator
BEA later recommended to “study the
possibility of making it mandatory
for airplanes performing public
transport flights to regularly transmit
basic flight parameters (for example
position, altitude, speed, heading).”
MH370 was 26 minutes
into the f light when automatic
reporting ceased. This triggered
the International Civil Aviation
Organisation (ICAO) to meet last
May regarding ways to quickly
locate crashed aircraft. Council
President, Dr Olumuyiwa Benard
Aliu, noted: “ICAO will be using
the 12-13 May 2014 gathering
to try and increase current
momentum on deliberations overthe specific aircraft and satellite-
based capabilities needed to
permit global implementation of
worldwide f light tracking.”
These two incidents have brought
the subject of aircraft tracking into
sharp focus, and general aviation is
included in the frame.Current limits
There are three basic methods of
tracking an aircraft: primary radar,
secondary radar and the new kid
on the block, ADS-B.
Primary radars at strategic
locations detect the hulls of non-
co-operating aircraft. MH370
was detected by primary radar