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Transition from today to the future This document describes different aspects concerned with the transition from today’s straight runways to airports operating an Endless Runway. Aspects considered are the location of the airport, technological developments, regulations and certification, the shape of the runway and the possibility to allow free flight operations in the TMA. Project Number 308292 Document Identification Transition from today to the future Status Final Version 1.0 Date of Issue 10-04-2014 Author(s) Henk Hesselink, Albert Remiro, Steffen Loth Organisation NLR, INTA, DLR Classification Public

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Page 1: Transition from today to the future - the Endless Runway · Transition from today to the future . ... indicating prevailing wind directions are used to determine the best airport

Transition from today to the future

This document describes different aspects concerned with the transition from today’s straight runways to airports operating an Endless Runway. Aspects considered are the location of the airport, technological developments, regulations and certification, the shape of the runway and the possibility to allow free flight operations in the TMA.

Project Number 308292 Document Identification Transition from today to the future Status Final Version 1.0 Date of Issue 10-04-2014

Author(s) Henk Hesselink, Albert Remiro, Steffen Loth

Organisation NLR, INTA, DLR

Classification Public

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Document Change Log

Version Author Date Affected Sections Description of Change

0.1 A. Remiro 12/2013 All Creation of document

0.2 H. Hesselink 04/2014 All Updates + more contributions

1.0 H. Hesselink 10/04/2014 All Version 1.0

Document Distribution

Organisation Name

EC Ivan Konaktchiev

NLR Henk Hesselink Carl Welman René Verbeek

DLR Steffen Loth

ONERA Maud Dupeyrat Sébastien Aubry Peter Schmollgruber

INTA Francisco Mugnoz Sanz María Antonia Vega Ramírez Albert Remiro

ILOT Marian Jez

Review and Approval of the Document

Organisation Responsible for Review Reference of comment documents Date

All 10-04-2014

Organisation Responsible for Approval Name of person approving the document Date

NLR Henk Hesselink 10-04-2014

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Table of Contents

Document Change Log 1

Document Distribution 1

Review and Approval of the Document 1

Table of Contents 2

Abbreviations 3

Introduction 5 1

Location of the airport 5 2

Technological challenge 6 3

3.1 Developments 6

3.2 Further automation of the air transport system 8

Regulation, certification, standardisation 9 4

Transition from current to circular runways 14 5

Free flight 15 6

Conclusions 16 7

Literature and references 16 8

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Abbreviations

Acronym Definition

4D 4 Dimensional

A-RAP Adaptive Runway Aiming Point

ATM Air Traffic Management

CDG Charles de Gaulle

DLR Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt

ft feet

GBAS Ground Based Augmentation System

GPS Global Positioning System

HMI Human Machine Interface

ICAO International Civil Aviation Organisation

ILS Instrument Landing System

NLR Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium

INTA Instituto Nacional de Técnical Aeroespacial

LAAS Local Area Augmentation System

LED Light Emitting Diode

SID Standard Instrument Departure

SMS Safety Management System

SRM Safety Risk Management

STAR Standard Arrival Route

TMA Terminal Manoeuvring Area

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Introduction 1This document will provide a high level description of different aspects related to the transition from current-day operations with straight runways towards circular runway operations. It will consider current developments that will enable more flexible operations, such as curved approaches, and will describe potential solutions to alleviate the issues considered with changing from straight to circular runways. Furthermore, this document will give intermediate steps towards the full circular runway. Features of regulation, certification and standardisation will be assessed.

This document will start with considerations on the location of an airport with an Endless Runway and then describe current technological developments that will further enable operations at the runway. Obviously, current regulations do not permit operating a circular runway track. One chapter will be dedicated to regulation, standardisation and certification of the new type of airport and ATM operations. Some intermediate runway shapes are proposed next.

Finally, this document will discuss the application of the free flight concept to the Endless Runway as the Endless Runway may be an enabler for extension of the free flight concept in the TMA.

Location of the airport 2Findings from the study to the Endless Runway, indicate that for constructing a new airport, the location of the new airport is of crucial importance. As aircraft are operating in any direction to and from the Endless Runway, an area of land in all directions should be free of inhabitants, where on the other hand, compared to current day location of airports, the size of this area is smaller, compared to the noise nuisance that is experience in communities that currently live “under” the runway.

The location of the new airport should also take into account how the airport is integrated in a network of airports. These networks can be defined as:

• Hub airports, linking regional airports and intercontinental hubs. • Regional airport networks, linking smaller airports with a regional centre or national centre. • A metropolitan multi-airport system serving a single metropolitan area, such as is the case at London

and Paris. • National networks linking the major cities of a country, as major airlines do for large countries such as

in Germany and Norway.

Networks can also be defined by the type of traffic or the carrier: • Passenger networks, for all types of carries as hub airlines, regional airlines and low cost airlines. • Cargo networks, for cargo traffic to airports. • Low-cost networks, served by low-cost airlines such as Ryanair, which serves airports such as Oslo

Tore and London Stansted.

For the determination of the airport site, meteorological conditions need to be investigated. Wind roses indicating prevailing wind directions are used to determine the best airport location and runway orientation. Furthermore, lower layers of air can be affected due to the shape of the ground. Updrafts, downdrafts and

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changes in wind direction can originate there and they can endanger take-off and landing operations. The main meteorological effects close to the ground are the following:

• Influence of a mountain range on the wind. Whirlwinds are originated in mountain ranges with steep slopes, which can increase the wind speed up to 25%.

• Influence of valleys on the wind. Air currents are also formed at valleys. During the day they go up the slopes due to the heating of the surrounding air by the slopes. The opposite occurs during the night. If there are narrow areas at valleys, air speed is increased so that vertical currents and horizontal whirlwinds are produced. When the valley widens, intense currents can be originated due to thermal effect. If wind blows perpendicular to the valley, strong vortices are produced.

• Influence of coasts on the wind. Winds from the sea and from the ground produce a whirlwind with a horizontal axis along the coastline.

• Influence of the geographical relief on cloud formation. Relief changes favour the formation of clouds in the areas where strong vortex exist. Foggy areas can be originated in narrow valleys, where currents have updrafts and downdrafts. However at plateaus near valleys, low clouds can be originated frequently. Mountain ranges can fix clouds at windward even though there are strong winds, because they are favoured by updrafts. The opposite occurs at leeward. When mountains divide a cold or warm front, the major rainfall occurs on the windward side. In close proximity to the coast and because of air currents, during the day, clouds are formed over land.

Technological challenge 3The required technology to operate the Endless Runway was briefly considered in the high level overall concept [2] within the project. It is obvious that today's typical navigational and visual aids are not adequate for this type of operation.

3.1 Developments

Navigation

Due to the straight arrival segment of the TMA structure, instrument landing systems like ILS could theoretically be used on all segments and for each direction (as the localizer is installed a long distance behind the touchdown point). From a practical and the economic points of view this is not really an option and therefore not considered as a solution. As one of the most promising technologies, already available today, GBAS (ground based augmentation system) could be a candidate. GPS (Global Positioning System) only provides sufficient accuracy for non-precision approaches. GBAS, which consists of a reference station located at or near the airport coupled with a monitor station that together measure GPS errors and transmit corrective information to aircraft, allows augmenting the positioning accuracy of the GPS to meet requirements for precision approaches (up to CAT II and CAT III). Today's GBAS specifications allow 49 different approach paths to be sent out even including curved segments. With the defined 18 runway segments, a number of 36 different arrival routes (clockwise and anti-clockwise runway use) need to be provided, which is within the capabilities of a GBAS. Furthermore, with GBAS, the problem of a separate installation for vertical and lateral guidance (as with an Instrument Landing System (ILS) localizer and glide path antennas) will be overcome.

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With the further development of satellite based navigational systems, their use could be an additional option. This depends on the achievable position accuracy and the availability that can be assured. With precise ground based support systems the satellite signals can be corrected and used for precise approach procedures. Currently systems like EGNOS (Europe), WAAS (USA), MSAS (Japan) and GAGAN (India) are used with increased accuracy with respect to the GPS position.

Independent from the final technical solution, the most important part is the definition of the required navigation performance for arrival and take-off for the Endless Runway. Any technology that is capable of achieving these values can be used.

Adaptive Runway Aiming Point

New navigation technologies, like satellite navigation, make it possible to carry out satellite-guided approaches. Precision approaches refer to cases where the aircraft is also guided in both the lateral and the vertical plane, having recourse to systems such as the GBAS Landing System.

A new method for determining the runway aiming point is proposed recently where a (shifted) aiming point is determined, called the Adaptive Runway Aiming Point (A-RAP) [7], which shifts the touch-down point along the runway in the downstream direction and which can be used by different precision approach landing aids. A precise calculation of the aiming point is carried out which is moreover adapted to the actual conditions encountered at the time of the landing, regarding both the external environment (meteorological conditions) and the runway used (state, slope, . . . ). Automatic calculation makes it possible to reduce the work load of the pilot.

Current research towards Adaptive Runway Aiming Points will enable curved approaches to every separate segment on the Endless Runway. The work performed for the Endless Runway on planning runway segments can be used for A-RAP.

Visual guidance

Visual guidance is provided by markings and lights. Each segment will have an identifier marking at the beginning corresponding to the heading as known from today, however with the segmented runway, typical markings for landing will not be possible anymore because each segment can have different functions depending on its position in the temporary runway strip.

A generic lighting concept has been setup in the project that can be adapted to all needs. Single lamp control systems to be integrated in the infrastructure of the airport are already available. As LED lightning can also be adapted to different colours in one light it seems to be possible to have a common setup of lights for each segment with illumination dependent on the purpose of segment (fist segment as threshold, rolling segment for deceleration, final segment for leaving the runway strip).

Independent from all ground based visual aids a future solution could be the use of augmented reality and the integration of terrain data into cockpit. Head up and guidance displays in the flight deck will combine flight information and surrounding area and provide instructions to the pilot.

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Automated flight operations

From the workload perspective of the pilot it seems to be necessary to use highly automated on-board support systems during the take-off and landing phases. Due to the curved nature and the banked profile of the runway, the control of the aircraft and the alignment with the surface with high roll angles (up to 30°) for touchdown and take-off are more challenging than today's operations, especially in turbulence situations.

Automated air traffic management

Similar to on-board developments, workload of the air traffic controller and complexity of the air traffic management task will lead to the development of decision support systems. These systems will support efficiency of runway operations and ensure the safety of these operations through planning systems and collision avoidance systems. Uplink and downlink to and from the aircraft will ensure that airside and groundside situational awareness is synchronised.

One development is the remote tower. The air traffic controller does not have to make direct visual contact with the aircraft if the surveillance systems (including cameras) provide sufficient detail to manage traffic. The Endless Runway will benefit from this development in such that it will allow a good view of the operations on the runway and the circumventing taxiways where the terminal buildings will not obstruct the view.

System support

The exchange of trajectory information and a 4D operational concept will be essential to allow a safe and efficient operation. Especially the multiple use of the runway needs to be taken into account. The proposed dynamic booking of segments leads to a very flexible and continuously changing system which relies on the accuracy of the data available for the optimization process in the background. The number of segments that are used depends on the aircraft characteristics and the actual performance parameters. It needs to be ensured that the calculated and booked number of segments is safe for all operations at the airport.

From the current status of the project it seems to be clear that the coordination of all operations at the airport needs to be supported by highly sophisticated automation systems. The controller needs to be assisted in the resource planning process, the active control tasks and the monitoring of the aircraft in the air (separation) and on the ground.

3.2 Further automation of the air transport system

The ever more complex air transport system facing more and more ambitious goals is naturally evolving towards automation [9]. This automation of the air transport system will be built on three pillars: the automated air traffic management, the automated aircraft and the connection between the both: the ATM contract.

Air Traffic Management will be assisted by a range of sensors that will enable operations under all weather conditions, including high wind and low visibility to detect aircraft movements, movements of other vehicles and a view of all other relevant objects, like birds and debris on the runway. Control towers will be replaced by remote towers. This transition towards automated ATM has been ongoing for several years already: controllers are supported by conflict detection systems and planning tools that allow increasing efficiency,

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predictability and throughput. This transition will lead to a shift from a human decision maker supported by assistance systems towards advanced automated decision systems managed by a human.

Aircraft operations will see the same shift in responsibility, where the pilot will monitor the aircraft instead of taking active actions. The key aspect of aircraft automation is the complete implementation of the 4D contract concept. Aircraft will be “responsible” for monitoring their commitment to the 4D contract that was signed with the ground ATM centre. Dynamic updates of plans will be possible in cases where the contract cannot be fulfilled and the ground centre as well as other relevant traffic will be informed. Aircraft will collect and manage information on other air traffic, weather, communications, navigation and surveillance infrastructure status, airports, terrain and obstacles. According to [9], airborne automation should be advanced enough for:

• Adaptive 4D trajectory management and on-board re-planning capability for negotiating trajectories with the ground system.

• A complete, or extended, sensor fusion system, deriving navigation/control data from all on-board sensor systems.

• Comprehensive health monitoring of systems integrity.

Figure 1 gives the overview of envisaged automation of the air transport system.

Figure 1 Air Transport System automation towards 2050

Regulation, certification, standardisation 4Today's typical TMA operations are defined by Standard Arrival Routes (STAR) and Standard Instrument Departures (SID). These are predefined routes following a number of waypoints connected to a specific runway.

For arrivals, the approach starts at the initial approach fix. When reaching the final approach fix typically a straight final segment leads to the touchdown at the runway. The routes are used to coordinate the

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approaching traffic, separate the aircraft and build up a sequence of the use of the runway. As all aircraft scheduled for one runway have to pass the same point for the final approach, traffic from all directions has to be guided to this point, which leads to longer flight distances in some circumstances. The same situation applies to departures. With a given runway in use the departing direction is fixed. Even in low wind situations this implies, that some aircraft have to take off in the complete opposite direction compared to their destination. Figure 2 and Figure 3 give examples of approach and departure chart for Paris CDG.

Figure 2 Arrival charts for Paris Charles de Gaulle airport

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Figure 3 Departure chart for Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.

Because of the proposed curved approaches and the dynamic assignment of runway segments to aircraft, the operation will be different from today. In [3], the basic requirement was defined as:

"Departure/Arrival routes shall be defined that will allow the pilot to choose the most cost effective route from the runway to the Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA) exit or from the TMA entry to the touchdown point."

For each of the 18 available arrival segments a separate arrival route was defined, that is comparable to today's final approach segments. The arrival is a straight path starting at typical 3000ft ending with at the beginning of the first booked segment. Due to the curved nature of the Endless Runway the aircraft has to align with the banked runway and the touchdown point will be further on at the segment.

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The same solution as for the one chosen for arrival traffic toward the Endless Runway has been applied to departure traffic: 18 departure routes have been defined that start at the end of a segment and perform straight climb outs to 5000ft (typical transition altitude to the flight level system).

Implementing these routes (arrival and departure) for each of the 18 segments leads to a complete new TMA layout, as presented in Figure 4, with a high degree complexity as a significant number of crossings between routes exist.

Figure 4 Implemented arrival / departure route structure.

Obviously, more generic route charts will have to be defined, where the SIDs and STARs will be indicated as parameterized routes. The aircraft will not follow exactly described routes, but will have to follow the route as indicated in the chart, based on one generic route description, and then calculate the exact points for initiating the bank angle (for arrivals) themselves. Regulations currently do not allow parameterised route charts.

Regulations will be necessary to ensure that every operator at the airport has good knowledge of procedures. To set up regulations, a thorough safety assessment will need to be performed where all aspects of operating the airport will need to be investigated. Existing procedures and systems will need to be checked against the new circular concept, while newly developed procedures and systems will need a full safety assessment. A safety assessment for the Endless Runway can be set up similar to current day safety assessments, where the main question in this case will be: “how can safe operations be performed at an airport with a circular runway?”

Safety Risk Management (SRM) is ‘a formal process within a Safety Management System (SMS), and is composed of describing the system, identifying hazards, assessing the risk, analysing the risk, and controlling

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the risk’. Risk Management is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) as the identification, analysis and elimination (and/or mitigation to an acceptable or tolerable level) of those hazards, as well as the subsequent risks, that threaten the viability of an organization [10]. The objective is to ensure that risks associated with hazards to flight operations are systematically and formally identified, assessed, and managed within acceptable safety levels. Typically, SRM consists of five steps:

1. Describe the system to be introduced or changed. 2. Identify the associated hazards and causal factors. 3. Analyse risks (characterise risk in terms of hazard severity and likelihood of occurrence). 4. Assess risks (and provide results for decision making). 5. Treat/control the risks (i.e. mitigate, monitor and track).

In the near future, all European airports will have to be accredited an airport certificate. For this, they will have to comply with Doc. 4444 [11] and Annex 14 [12], will have to implement a safety management system and an organisation that allows safe operations and learns from mistakes and they will have to provide good and efficient emergency services, according to prescribed standards. The application of the Endless Runway to airport certification will be discussed in the sections below, where the major elements will be mentioned. Many small issues will pop up for the certification of an airport with an Endless Runway and after an extensive safety assessment will have been performed.

To comply with Doc. 4444 and Annex 14, it will be necessary to change the document itself. The most recognisable issues are obviously the curve in the runway and the bank angle. Doc. 4444 clearly describes that runways must be straight and cannot have a lateral slope, apart from a very minor one of 1.5% or 2% for drainage of water, Annex 14, 3.1.19. Doc 4444 defines a runway as “a defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and take-off of aircraft”. The banked circle does definitely not comply with current regulations and will need further investigation and definition, before it can be included in regulations and implemented.

Another important issue is the proposed TMA concept with many crossings of arrival and departure traffic. Doc. 4444, section 2.6.2, explicitly mentions that safety assessment shall consider complexity of the operations. The proposed operations are far more complex than current ones and will need extensive research before they can be implemented and regarded safe. Furthermore, the simulations performed in the project have indicated that the proposed TMA procedures do not give sufficient capacity – new procedures may be necessary to increase capacity. It will need to be seen whether these are even more complex or if they can be made easier. On the other hand, increased automation as describe before, will aid in operating the newly proposed procedures.

One other thing to mention is the simultaneous operations on the runway as proposed by the project. Until recently, the most important runway rule was that only one aircraft can operate one runway at any given time. Because of the length of the Endless Runway, it will be necessary to facilitate multiple simultaneous operations. In the simulations performed for the Endless Runway, actually the long circular runway has been considered to consist of several independent parts. Current research towards extending capacity of the runway and increasing efficiency of the operations already indicate some options for simultaneous use of the runway. These developments should be carefully followed and it is expected that in the near future, operations as proposed on the Endless Runway will be included in regulation.

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Emergency services have been defined in the design of the airport for the Endless Runway, where current regulations for response times have been taken into account. One major issue to resolve will concern the assistance to incidents and accidents at the banked track of the runway. It needs to be evaluated and tested how emergency services can operate quickly and efficiently at the track.

Many other issues will need further investigation before they can be implemented in operation on the Endless Runway. It must be noted that for the design of the airport and development of procedures in the project, current regulations have been followed as much as possible and the major issues will be related to the ones described above.

Transition from current to circular runways 5This chapter will give some examples of alternative shapes for operating the Endless Runway in a transition phase. Apart from all possibilities already mentioned in [1], some intermediate shapes that can function as an incremental development towards an Endless Runway are presented in Figure 5. Together with the shape, dimensions are given, so that a comparison to those proposed in the project are possible.

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Figure 5 Transition runway shapes

Free flight 6One interesting aspect for TMA operations of the Endless Runway is based on a full free flight concept as presented in Figure 6. Every aircraft can book a number of available segments at the runway at a given time and approach the airport from the direction it wants without a pre-defined route. This approach requires a high degree on automation and high performance in terms of navigation and communication capabilities. Separation is transferred completely to the aircraft and a high load of communication between aircraft will be necessary to coordinate all movements within the TMA.

Figure 6 Free flight concept for the Endless Runway in the TMA.

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This development complements the current work in free flight, which is solely dedicated to en-route traffic. When approaching an airport, the free flight tracks will converge to a TMA merging point and a transition from a free flight concept to a controlled concept with standard routes is taking place.

For the Endless Runway an intermediate step was taken towards free flight operations, as each aircraft will fly a straight line from TMA entry to the runway (and vice versa), close to the original idea of a highly flexible airspace and the requirement of effective routing. The application of the free flight concept could also give room to a capacity increase in the TMA.

Conclusions 7Many aspects will have to be considered when constructing an airport with an Endless Runway. The motivation for a location will be different, as aircraft will fly in any direction and more noise near the airport can be expected.

The technological challenges that will have to be solved for operating an Endless Runway are actually mostly already under way. Increased automation in the aircraft and on-ground will aid in planning the runway segments to be used and in determining exactly what take-off or touch-down point will be optimal. To exactly follow the plan, automation will also help. Research performed in the Endless Runway can benefit current developments in for example the application of Adaptive Runway Aiming Points (A-RAP).

Regulations, standards and certification will need to be adapted to the Endless Runway. As far as possible, current regulations and standards have been followed within the project, but the new runway shape will certainly require changes. Some intermediate shapes that will allow the evolvement from straight runways to circles are proposed.

Finally, the Endless Runway may form an enable from application of the free flight concept in the TMA, which is currently one of the bottlenecks in the application.

Literature and references 8[1] www.endlessrunway-project.eu [2] Dupeyrat M., Aubry S., Schmollgruber P., Remiro A., Loth S., Vega Ramirez M., Hesselink H., Verbeek R.,

Nibourg J., D1.2 The Endless Runway State of the Art, runway and airport design, ATM procedures and aircraft, version 2.0, November 2011

[3] Hesselink H., Verbeek R., Welman C., Dupeyrat M., Schmollgruber P., Aubry S., Loth S., Remiro A., Vega Ramirez M., D1.3 The Endless Runway concept description: High-level overview, version 2.0, December 2012

[4] Remiro A, Welman C., D2.2 The Endless Runway Airport Infrastructure, version 1.0, September 2013 [5] Schmollgruber P., De Giuseppe A., and Dupeyrat M., D3.2 The Endless Runway Aircraft Aspects, version

1.0, September 2013 [6] Loth, S. H.H. Hesselink, R. Verbeek, M. Dupeyrat, D4.2 ATM Operational Concept, D4.2_WP4_ATM

Operational Concept version 2.0, The Endless Runway, September 2013.

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[7] Loth, S. H.H. Hesselink, R. Verbeek, M. Dupeyrat, D4.3 Simulation Modelling and Analysis, D4.3_WP4_Simulation, The Endless Runway, September 2013.

[8] S. Loth, Hesselink, H. Dupeyrat, M. Welman, C. Verbeek, R. D5.2 Assessment of the Endless Runway, version 1.0, April 2014

[9] Method and device for aiding the flight management of an aircraft during a landing phase, US patent 20130304285 A1, published 14 November 2013.

[10] EREA ATS 2050 Phase 2, From Air Transport system 2050 Vision to Planning for Research and Innovation, published by the Association of European Research Establishments in Aeronautics, May 2012.

[11] EUROCONTROL Safety Regulation Commission (SRC); ESARR 3 – Use of safety management systems by ATM service providers, Edition 1.0, 17-07-2000.

[12] Doc 4444 Procedures for Air Navigation Services: Air Traffic Management, International Civil Aviation Organisation

[13] Annex 14 to the Convention on Civil Aviation, Aerodromes, volume 1: Aerodrome Design and Operations, International Civil Aviation Organisation