Who are Aeropath?
We are a commerical subsidiary of Airways Corporation, which is a NZ State Owned Enterprise responsible for air traffic control within NZ.
We are a small team of approximately 30, based in Wellington.
Our people are pilots, air traffic controllers, GIS specialists or software developers. Many of them are a few of those things.
We have two main functions and we serve customers within New Zealand and around the world.
AIM
Procedure Design
What is AIM?
AERONAUTICAL INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
Put simply…we are the team that manage all the aero data behind the scenes that enables the aviation system to work.
We look after everything “air-side”, so the moment you step through the boarding gate you are entering our world. We know and manage the length of the runway you will take off on, the boundaries of the airspace you will fly through and the flight paths your pilots will fly on.
The data we manage is used in the autopilots that the big jets rely on to fly and the radar screens Air Traffic Controllers use, so it’s pretty important stuff. Once you arrive at your destination our data informs crews and Air Traffic Controllers of the taxi-ways in operation to get you to the terminal.
A quick recap of some concepts…
NAVIGATION – VFR vs IFR
Visual Flight Rules (VFR)
Conventional IFR - Referencing radio beacons on the ground
GNSS IFR - Referencing Satellite systems
AIRSPACE – CONTROLLED vs UNCONTROLLED
FLIGHT PROCEDURES
AVIATION IS ONE BIG ‘SYSTEM’
So you want to go flying?
…and you operate any of these…
AIRLINES
ROTARY
LIGHT AIRCRAFT
RPAS
GLIDERS
PARASAILS
ATC
…then you need to be across a lot of this…
ATC
ADVISORY CIRCULARS / RULES
LATEST CHANGES
MET ACTUAL / FORECASTS
MET ACTUAL / FORECASTS
AIRWORTHINESS DIRECTIVES
SOPs
OBSTACLES
TERRAIN
AIRPORTS / ALTERNATES
AIRSPACE / FREQUENCIES
FLIGHT PROCEDURES / ROUTES
Today Aero data updates come from…
VFR CHARTS
UPDATED EVERY
DAYS
IFR ENROUTE CHARTS
UPDATED EVERY
DAYS
AIP NZ
UPDATED EVERY
DAYS
NOTAMS
UPDATED EVERY
MINUTE
and the system can be characterised as…
HIGH QUALITY & COMPLIANT
TIME CONSUMING
MOSTLY PAPER BASED
LIMITED INTEGRATION
What if we combined it all and made it visual?
EASIER TO USE
A MORE COMPLETE PICTURE
ENABLES FLIGHT APPS
UPDATES IN NEAR REAL-TIME
Well that is what we are doing. For example:
MIXED USE AIRSPACE
FLIGHT PROCEDURES
PRE-FLIGHT
FLIGHT ADVISOR
Future Considerations
