from Hacker News

Transponder Landing System enables precision approaches at McMurdo in Antarctica

by rmnwski on 8/14/24, 9:07 AM with 41 comments

  • by macintux on 8/19/24, 2:12 AM

    Unsurprisingly, the challenges of getting to, living in, and managing infrastructure in Antarctica is a frequent theme of posts shared here. Some previous discussions of note:

    * How to Operate an Airport in Antarctica (also via flightradar24.com): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26340384 (68 comments)

    * Nuclear Power at McMurdo Station, Antarctica: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27549484 (192 comments)

    And perhaps my favorite blog, brr.fyi makes frequent appearances here. An example:

    * South Pole Water Infrastructure: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40615530 (63 comments)

    For all Antarctica posts: https://brr.fyi/tags#south-pole

  • by mmaunder on 8/19/24, 12:52 AM

    Wow that’s badass. It’s tempting to argue that a GPS based RNAV approach could have similar performance but this has several advantages:

    The ground based equipment dictates approach path with no updates to onboard approach databases on aircraft needed.

    RNAV can’t do curved approaches on a glide slope as far as I know.

    ILS minimums are generally slightly lower than LPV which is the RNAV approach type with lowest minimums.

    This supports older aircraft with ILS (localizer with glide slope) that don’t have a WAAS capable GPS.

    Edit: Also, using the Mode S transponder with precision approach radar instead of ADSB-out for the aircraft position means older planes without ADSB (because they don’t fly under a mode C veil) can be supported and it also means the base is trusting their equipment for the aircraft position rather than trusting an aircraft that potentially doesn’t have an SBAS GPS on board.

  • by kylehotchkiss on 8/18/24, 9:50 PM

    Year round aviation access to Antartica. Well Done! Every step towards McMurdo becoming a normal city despite its location seems like such an incredible accomplishment.

    Can this work at pole station too? I realize there's a lot of other considerations landing there in the winter (fuel freeze temp?) but the less isolated it becomes, the more science we can get.

  • by webnrrd2k on 8/18/24, 10:53 PM

    Landing at McMurdo Station seems a lot like landing on a giant, slow-moving aircraft carrier.

    I wonder how similar their ILS is to the ILS used on navy aircraft carriers?

  • by standardUser on 8/19/24, 5:49 PM

    Reminded me of a blog I stumbled upon by a woman who, just for kick, decided to work and live in Antarctica:

    https://wandereatwrite.com/how-i-got-paid-to-live-in-antarct...

  • by zokier on 8/19/24, 11:04 AM

    How they do aircraft positioning is the most interesting aspect here. The article says its multilateration, but I don't think it's quite the tradional simple multilat. Instead they are doing some cleverness with two angle of arrival detectors arranged perpendicularly, which feels novel?

    Found this random paper that has more details

    https://www.icasc.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Application_...

  • by gte525u on 8/18/24, 9:10 PM

    There a couple companies that make a DILS where the localizer and glideslope can be temporarily deployed. The intent is for emergency or short term use.

  • by computerdl on 8/18/24, 8:00 PM

    How does the TLS work with multiple aircraft landing at once? With ILS, the signal broadcast is static but it seems like it will now be per aircraft.

  • by polemic on 8/18/24, 10:17 PM