Flying Through The Sky With GPS - Copy

As traffic up in the air continues to rise, airliners have found a way to combat crowded areas and tight flight plans.

By using a new supremely accurate GPS tracking system, pilots now have a way to chart their flight paths without having to rely on navigation beacons or overburdened control tower employees.

This stunning new technology is called Required Navigation Performance (RNP) and it utilizes GPS satellite navigation to track an airplane with an accuracy of 32 feet and within 10 seconds of its arrival.

The RNP platform also gives pilots a three-dimensional flight path to follow with a detailed visual map to show the exact pathway. The results provide more efficient flight paths for planes, reduced fuel costs for airline companies, shorter flights for passengers, and an all-around increased green emphasis by producing fewer emissions.

Developed by GE Aviation, the RNP system combines hardware, software and procedure that is similar to area navigation to make certain that airplanes are functioning within their specific airspace are doing so within the provided boundaries provided at least 95 percent of the time. In turn, this gives air traffic controllers the ability to create a specific landing approach for the plane that avoids obstacles and noise-sensitive areas.

The technology developed by RNP has been gaining more prominent use by airports all over the world in the past few years, but its implementation rate is speeding up even more as its cost savings are being realized.

For instance, in Brazil, which installed the system at over 10 of its airports around the country, planes have traveled 22 miles less and spent nearly 10 fewer minutes per landing on average than before its implementation. This transition translates into approximately 1,620 fewer pounds of greenhouse emissions and $24 million in operational savings over the next five years.