USDA Forest Service Taps Iridium for Automated Flight-Following
Iridium Satellite has announced that
the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service
(USFS) has fitted 200 primarily contract aircraft with
Iridium equipment. The aircraft are part of the interagency
Automated Flight-Following (AFF) program and are mainly
helicopters, and light and transport fixed-wing airtankers,
used for wildland fire fighting and other natural resource
agency missions. In addition to the USFS, agencies involved
in the AFF Project include the U.S. Department of the
Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service, National
Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian
Affairs and Office of Aircraft Services; the National
Association of State Foresters; the U.S. Department
of Commerce’s National Weather Service; and the
U.S. Fire Administration.
Iridium is a key AFF provider for data and voice communications
between the aircraft and the ground. The agencies use
Iridium for flight-following as well as cockpit voice
and data communications.
“Iridium provides the technology
for fast, secure access to voice and data communications
with aircraft regardless of geographic location,”
said Robert Roth, aviation management specialist, USFS.
Iridium's constellation of low-earth
orbiting satellites provides the only aircraft tracking
and monitoring solution that is robust, reliable, cost-effective
and that offers global coverage," said Don Thoma,
Iridium executive vice president. “Our involved
partners have been leading pioneers in developing advanced,
integrated solutions for aircraft requirements when
it comes to remote communications.”
The AFF system automatically tracks
and displays location and other associated information
for aircraft on operational missions. Mapping data includes
information on cities, tanker base locations, topography,
airports, thermal detection, lightning, flight restrictions,
and other critical, time sensitive information geographically
dispersed users require from dynamic and static sources.
Under visual flight rules (VFR), aircraft
on official missions are required to establish positive
contact and report aircraft position at least once every
15 to 30 minutes, depending on the agency. The land
management agencies used to rely on voice radio reports
to flight-following dispatchers, who recorded aircraft
positions by hand. Frequent lapses in radio communication
coverage and aircraft position reporting required pilots
to toggle between different radio frequencies for aircraft
position reporting. Position reports consumed limited
radio “air time,” and increased dispatcher
and pilot workloads.
“Through the AFF system, we have
been able to increase the aviation program’s efficiency
through timelier, more accurate location capabilities,”
Roth said. “This is especially valuable when it
comes to worst case search and rescue. With AFF we have
reduced radio traffic, frequency switching, work levels
at dispatch centers and costs.”
Main AFF users come from the fire community,
including aircraft dispatchers, fire managers, aviation
managers, aircraft vendors, air tanker base ramp managers
and aviation contract administrators. Non-fire natural
resource aviation users include sketch mappers, marine
mammal survey flights, and Alaskan Operations.
The
AFF Project team completed a Pilot Phase in 2003 and
its First Implementation Phase in 2004. Phase Two of
Implementation is in progress and includes training,
policy development, hardware acquisition and installation,
flight-following procedure development and facilitation
of other agency and vendor adoption. |
19
December 2005 
