Validation of the FAA LAAS Specification Using the LAAS Test Prototype (LTP)

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently developing a specification for the Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) Ground Facility. The FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center has been tasked with validation of this specification. As part of the validation, the LAAS Test Prototype (LTP) was used in a series of tests to evaluate LAAS performance at operational airports selected from the LAAS Requirements Document (RD). This paper summarizes the LTP ground and flight tests conducted in Pennsylvania at the Philadelphia International Airport, in Alaska at the Fairbanks International and Cold Bay Airports, and in Minnesota at the Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport. Over 240 approaches were conducted using the system described in this report. Approaches were completed in both an FAA-owned Boeing 727 and a Falcon 20 owned by the National Research Council of Canada. The results of the LTP tests show that the current LAAS architecture is capable of providing the level of service required by the LAAS RD.