1. INTRODUCTION
The primary function of Air Traffic Control (ATC) is the provision of safe and expeditious sequencing of traffic, by providing safe horizontal and vertical separation distances between aircraft, which may not be reduced simultaneously. In areas outside the coverage of ATC radar systems, horizontal separation remains a function of time.
Using lower radar separation values has long been recognised as a beneficial way to improve Air Traffic Control Capacity and Efficiency. Such a reduction is to be done in a careful manner in order to maintain the high level of safety existing in Air Traffic Management.
Over the last three decades increasingly advanced radar systems, with constantly improving accuracy in both range and azimuth, have been deployed through most of the areas of high air traffic density in Western Europe. This has allowed the reduction of the horizontal separation standard from the procedural (non-radar) ATC separation of 10 minutes between aircraft at the same level to approximately 3 minutes or 20 - 25 miles between en-route aircraft, when the distance between aircraft is being monitored on radar by the controller, and to 10 miles or less, between aircraft, when the controller has the aircraft under positive radar control.
The implementation of 5NM/10NM radar separation by 1995, without degrading Flight Safety, is a defined objective of “The ECAC Strategy for the 90s”. Indeed, the Ministers of Transport, meeting in 1989 specifically identified the harmonisation of radar separation values as an ECAC Objective in the document, signed by the Transport Ministers in Paris on the 24 April 1990, which reads :
“En-route radar separation of 5 NM is to be applied throughout high-density areas by 1995 at the latest. Elsewhere, en-route radar separation of 10 NM is to be applied by the same date.”
The objective of this Strategy is to achieve the most expeditious flow of traffic commensurate with safety, to reduce delays and improve airspace capacity. It is recognised that many States in the high density areas already apply 5NM en-route radar separation minima and in parts of Germany 4NM is in use.
The en-route system being only part of the problem, the ECAC’s Directors General underlined the synergy effects emanating from incorporating the APATSI programme into the EATCHIP programme. MATSE 5 was presented with a proposal to terminate a separate APATSI programme and absorption of its activities into EATCHIP. The proposal was accepted and EUROCONTROL took on responsibility for its management. In the framework of this document it is judged beneficial to quote one of APATSI’s Major Objectives concerning the implementation of the ICAO Standards with regard to the prescribed separation minima : “ as a minimum,
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本文链接地址：GUIDELINES FOR THE APPLICATION OF THE ECAC RADAR SEPARATION(4)
