The Thiruvananthapuram International Airport joined the big league of airports in the country on Tuesday after a long wait, with an upgraded radar facility comprising a Route Surveillance Radar (RSR) and an Approach Surveillance Radar (ASR), going on stream.
Chief Minister Oommen Chandy re-dedicated the facility at a function organised in the domestic terminal of the airport.
The new Czech-made RL-2000 ASR, co-located with MSSR-1 RSR, replaces an 18-year-old Airport Surveillance Radar and the Monopulse Secondary Surveillance Radar (MSSR). The new system costs around `13 crore (1.60 million Euros).
The modern radar system with a surveillance range of 293 nautical miles has been put up as part of the effort of Airports Authority of India to provide safe, efficient and environment-friendly aircraft operations.
Airports of Colombo, Tiruchirappalli, Male and Kozhikode will be under its scan prowess, apart from the movement of flights from the Gulf regions and Singapore over T’Puram skies.
The innovative feature of the new radar is Mode-S. Compared to the replaced radar, the call sign, route and speed can be passed to the Air Traffic Control from the cockpit.
The Czech Republic-based company ELDIS Pardubice had installed the radars as part of the AAI’s effort to modernise Air Navigation Services in the country with new radars. Spanish Information Technology and Defence Systems Company’s Indra, an air traffic control technology,is already in vogue at the Air Traffic Control (ATC) here.
The data from the new radar can be integrated with the local Approach Control and Area Control Centres coming under Indra. The same data is also fed to and integrated with Chennai Air Traffic Services (ATS) Automation system, along with other radar feeds, for providing radar coverage at required redundancy levels over the Southern Indian airspace and around.
Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation K C Venugopal, who switched on the radar system, pointed out that the new facility would allow for the flying of more aircraft in the airspace as the distance between two carriers can been reduced from 80 nautical miles to 10 nautical miles, thus giving more savings in time and fuel. He hoped that it will help the effort of the Government to develop the capital city as a travel and tourism hub.
Joint General Manager (ATM) Shibu Robert made a presentation of the radar and the new facilities. Health Minister V S Sivakumar, AAI Member (ANS), V Somasundaram and Airport Director V N Chandran spoke.