NAV Portugal awarded by egnos service provider for the 1st LPV publication in Portugal

NAV Portugal has been participating in the ACCEPTA project launched by the European GNSS Agency for a few years with the objective of taking advantage of EGNOS based operations in aviation. The primary objective of this initiative is the publication of new LPV approach procedures at European airports, the equipage of aircraft with the SBAS avionics and the development of the necessary Supplemental Type Certificate. 

The implementation of LPV procedures in Portugal has been carried out at Lisbon airport on runways 03 and 21, having also available Baro-VNAV and LNAV minima. 

This rather important undertaking will release LPV procedures that will improve safety in a first step contributing in addition to capacity increase and cost reduction over a long term, since it is an effective alternative to conventional ILS CAT I. 

LPV offers similar performance without the need for significant on-site infrastructure installation and maintenance. For these reasons, it is becoming a very valuable navigation aid to small and medium-size airports, increasing safety and accessibility to those aerodromes. 

“NAV Portugal completed the safety assessment and due to some constraints of the EGNOS service, which are expected to be solved in the near future, it was decided to apply a mitigation measure that will slightly increase the approach minima” as stated by Americo de Melo head of Airspace and Procedures Design at NAV Portugal. 

NAV Portugal has signed the EGNOS working Agreement and expects to have feedback on the provision of this working agreement after the publication of the LPV procedures in 28 May 2015. 

“The first concern is the promotion of safety and efficiency benefits and also the safeguard of environmental effects of the aeronautical activity using new RNP Approach procedures. In that sense, we are already studying LPV procedures for other airports, namely Porto that we expect to implement in 2016 and in Faro in 2017” added Americo de Melo. 

NAV Portugal will closely monitor EGNOS upcoming developments in the southwest of Europe, particularly in Portugal and Spain, for future implementations.