FAA's January 20, 2005 domestic Reduced Vertical Separation Minimums deadline,
applicable to U.S. airspace between FL 290 and FL 410, seems well
in the future to many Citation operators, but the availability of
RVSM hardware and upgrade slots at Citation Service Centers will
become critically short unless operators act now, according to Ron
Chapman, Cessna's senior VP customer services.
"My biggest concern is that many customers have not yet committed
to RVSM installations," Chapman explained. "Unless customers
start scheduling appointments immediately, there are going to be
hardware and upgrade capacity shortages," he cautioned.
Cessna has developed complete RVSM solutions for all Citations,
except for the first 274 Model 500s fitted with Bendix FGS70 analog
flight guidance systems. "2003 has been a particularly busy
year for Cessna as we've introduced integrated RVSM solutions
for all these aircraft," Chapman said. Operators who don't
gain RVSM approval prior to January 20, 2005 will be limited to
operating at FL 280 and below.
Thus far, Cessna has installed or shipped 350 RVSM service bulletin kits.
Moreover, the firm also has developed in house and shipped 240 RVSM
manuals packages, including all required operations, maintenance,
training and testing documents. Cessna even can handle GPS Monitoring
Unit verification and validation flight tests, having performed
more than 300 GMU flights to date in 2003.
The United States is the last major air traffic control operating
region to embrace RVSM, which provides six extra flight levels for
airline traffic. RVSM was first required for operating in the airspace
over the North Atlantic in March 1997. Then, it spread to the Pacific
oceanic operating region in February 2000, the Western Atlantic
Route System and Australia in November 2001, Europe in January 2002
and Southeast Asia in February of last year. The Middle East and
South Asia are due to start RVSM in November.
It's futile to believe there will be a roll back in the U.S. domestic
RVSM deadline, FAA insiders say. Commercial airline traffic accounts
for more than 60% of high altitude operations and 85% of them
already are RVSM compliant. Business aircraft amount to only 15%
of the traffic up there. Guess who's driving domestic RVSM? Hint:
It isn't the crowd at this year's NBAA Convention.
