Digital air traffic radios integrated into base's operations

Published Sept. 19, 2011
By Chandra Lloyd
88th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- New air traffic radios take their first flight on Wright-Patterson's airfield in an effort to transition from analog to digital communications.

"With the increase in technology over the recent decades, we are at a point where we can implement to the standard that's needed for the military," said 1st Lt. Jeremy Bridgeman, 88th Operations Support Squadron, Air Field Operations flight commander. "The transition will provide a more efficient and reliable system."

The new system, named the SMART Blade Radio System will replace Air Force Materiel Command's 1960s-era legacy equipment. Manufactured by Rockwell-Collins International, the new system is expected to expand to the rest of the Air Force within the coming years.

"AFMC has historically been the leader in air traffic control and landing systems innovation," said Mr. Leslie Atkinson, AFMC Airfield Systems Remote Maintenance Center chief. "We were the first to put the new instrument landing systems in, and then the first to field modernized beacons that guide the airplanes to the airport, and now we are the first to convert to a digital air traffic radio system."

SBRS contains various state-of-the-art technologies. It is an Ethernet-based system, much like Internet-based digital telephone. This provides noise reduction capability not present in the legacy systems.

"When an air traffic controller is talking to a pilot who's taxiing down the runway with their canopy open they can't talk to them because of noise in the cockpit. With the new system, noise is eliminated," said Atkinson.

According to David Nunes, chief of Air Force Materiel Command Weather and Air Traffic Control and Landings Systems, an improvement from the old system to SBRS is its remote-maintenance capability, which allows a six-member Remote Maintenance Team, located at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., to maintain the systems in lieu of individual maintenance teams at each AFMC facility.

"The old systems were located off-base in a building which made maintenance and troubleshooting much more costly and time consuming," said Lieutenant Bridgeman. "Now that they are located in a secure centralized location it is guaranteed to cut down on footprint in maintaining an off-base site."

In addition to reliability, centralized location placement, and remote maintenance capabilities, the 88 OSS will see significant savings from the conversion.

"The Depot Level Reparable costs ran in the thousands of dollars to repair and maintain the legacy radios. Now, since the SBRS has a 15-year warranty, air traffic control DLR costs will significantly decrease," said Mr. Nunes. "The other savings will be reflected in utility costs, since these digital radios operate at 10-watts versus 25-watt power amplifiers with the same results."

AFMC plans to convert all the bases within the command to digital radio by 2015. Duke Field, Fla. and Robins Air Force Base, Ga., will be the next two installations to transition.