Flying the first PinS RNP-AR 0.15 approach with PLATERO Lite in Switzerland

Last October 2017, PildoLabs performed a flight campaign in the Alps with Swiss Air-Rescue Rega. Four PinS RNP-AR 0.15 approaches to Interlaken hospital were flown with Rega’s AgustaWestland Da Vinci (AW109SP) to demonstrate the feasibility and safety of this kind of procedures. Furthermore, Rega pilots tested the loss of the SBAS/GPS signals and were able to fly the missed approach with the installed AHRS with astonishing accuracy.

The merging of PinS concept and RNP-AR approach possibilities brings accessibility improvement opportunities to aerodromes located in obstacle-rich environments, which is the case of Interlaken.

Rega is working to obtain the approval of this type of challenging approaches, which would provide operational and safety advantages in their daily operations in Swiss challenging orography.

PildoLabs also tested the new flight validation platform, so called Platero Lite, operated directly by the Flight Validation Pilot.

Additionally, 3 GNSS monitoring stations were installed in locations where Rega operates: Samedan and Zweisimmen aerodromes, as well as Altdorf hospital. The objective of these stations is to ensure that GNSS SIS requirements for PBN approaches are met to perform this type of operations in such challenging environment.

This activity has been funded by H2020 5Lives project. 5Lives (Search, Challenge, Flight, Care and Rescue for Lives), aims at providing innovative solutions, based in European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (EGNSS), to overcome various rotorcraft operational weaknesses identified in five different scenarios, related to emergency and other critical missions (HEMS operations, Approaches in challenging environments, Firefighting helicopter displacement, UAV rotorcraft maritime search and Emergency troops monitoring & helicopter evacuation service).