US Helicopter Operations May Be Affected By Nationwide 5G Rollout
The upcoming AT&T and Verizon 5G rollout create significant headaches for the US aviation community.
The latest comes from the Helicopter Association International (HAI) revealed Thursday that US helicopter fleets nationwide might be grounded next week when 5G towers are switched on.
On Dec. 19, AT&T and Verizon plan to turn on their 5G towers as concerns over air safety have delayed the debut of the super-fast cellular network, originally scheduled to launch in early December.
HAI’s statement read, “transmission from these towers have been demonstrated to interfere with radar altimeters, widely used in helicopters and other aircraft to measure altitude.”
Over 1,450 Notices to Air Missions (NOTAMs) were issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) across the country next week around 5G towers that AT&T and Verizon will activate.
This means that areas around the towers will be considered “hazards” and unsafe for helicopters to operate and may affect “a significant portion of commercial, law enforcement, and other helicopter operations,” HAI said.
The heart of the problem lies in the aircraft’s radar altimeter uses frequencies close to C-band. 5G towers also use C-band radio spectrum frequencies that have the potential to disrupt radar altimeters, an important device on a helicopter or airplane that informs the pilot of the aircraft’s height above ground.
The FAA is mitigating these disruptions by placing 5G buffer zones around major airports so that radar altimeter disruptions do not impact commercial flights.
Meanwhile, Comcast announced the world’s first 10G technology for its network that could dramatically increase upload and download capacity in the coming years.
Aircraft manufacturers better figure out how to make radar altimeters that don’t interfere with 5G, or some severe aviation disasters could be ahead.
See more here: zerohedge.com
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D. Boss
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The article states: “Aircraft manufacturers better figure out how to make radar altimeters that don’t interfere with 5G, or some severe aviation disasters could be ahead.” Which is gibberish or hogwash!
The radar altimeters have been around for decades and had proper isolation buffers around their operational frequencies to prevent interference. The onus to change is on the newcomers [5G] – which were given frequencies too close to the radar altimeter band – and I might add paid billions of dollars for those frequency allocations to the Gov.
Heads have to roll at the FCC and the telecom bullies must be forced to give up the freqs too close to the radar altimeters. (they were warned about this for some time, but ignored it and forged ahead anyway, so make them pay to scrap a lot of their transmitter hardware is what I say, and the law says too regards who was there first)
And for those informationally challenged who argue there hasn’t been a problem in Europe – that is due to two factors:
1) Europe’s 5G is at lower transmitter power,
2) Europe left a larger buffer between the radar altimeter frequency and the 5G allocations for frequency. (hence mitigated the potential interference issues)
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Andy
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I agree with you. PSI is not endorsing what the article says, we published it so people are aware of what is being said.
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Cj
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Europe’s buffer zone is 3.8ghz.
Telcom in the US is currently operating at up to 3.85, articles claiming higher are misinformed.
This is a bunch of nonsense.
If there will be any interference it will be the altimeter causing elevated noise floors and possibly rssi problems for the 5g operators.
The 5g radios transmit digitally at an accuracy of around .000khz. They dont accidentally transmit at 4.2ghz,, that would never happen. Furthermore the antennas used in cellular networks now a days are highly directional. They dont just blast rf out all over. A typical cell tower antenna has a 65degree horizontal beam width. This is then aimed at an area via azimuth and downtilt settings. The FAA should stick to airplanes, as they stated in another article, they are still learning how all these systems work together on the airplanes,,? Yeah i bet they understand digital rf transmission.
I cant believe the telcoms are not suing yet. Especially when all of these articles seem to somehow blame them. And then everyone jumps on board,, funny how that works for most everything huh?
They bought the frequencies, the frequencies are supposed to be cleared and ready for operation. The second part of that is the responsibility of the fcc.
And has anyone noticed all the “mights and maybes”. Where are these supposed demonstrations of interference?
There are non,,
Sound familiar?
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D. Boss
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Your comment has numerous problems, But the main issue is your lack of a grasp at the margins of safety needed to fly commercial airliners (and medevac helicopters too) in routinely bad weather.
The “mights and maybes” can’t be demonstrated unless several 200 tonne airliners crash and burn into residential neighborhoods killing all on board and collateral damage of 500 on the ground, etc. i.e. the risk is not worth the reward!
The radar altimeter is to the avionics system as is the heart or liver to the human body. Mess with it and you have severe consequences.
Here is a decent reference:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43917/the-5g-fiasco-from-an-airline-pilots-point-of-view
If you don’t want to read the article, here are the videos contained therein:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGSK8wUJRqQ (Radar Altimeters)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcfUCnZlPtg (Cat III Approach with HUD)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHJx7iJQnfY (Cat III AutoLand)
RA or Radio Altitude is critical to the operation of numerous safety systems in a modern airliner. The ground proximity warning system, the RAAS system, the autopilot, and stall warning and prevention systems, and planes with T tails have a stick pusher to prevent deep stalls, and most importantly RA is critical to landing in low visibility regimes with very low minimums (the minimum height at which the pilot must decide whether to proceed or to abort the landing attempt) (to put this into perspective, you have a 60-300 ton aircraft on short final, doing 150-180 MPH, and cannot see the runway until at 200 feet above ground level. It is descending at 750 feet per minute, or 12.5 feet per second. You absolutely must know your height above the ground with accuracy to make the judgement call of whether to continue or abort, if you do not yet see the runway or lights or anything on the ground. And that is only a Category 1 ILS approach. Cat 2 and 3 have even lower minimums or no minimum with autoland engaged)
Plus autothrottles, HUD and several other sub systems become inoperative with faulty RA values. The TCAS (Traffic Collision and Avoidance System) can deliver faulty commands with bad RA. etc. In short when aircraft are most vulnerable and in greatest danger, is close to the ground and the Radar Altimeter is at the heart of the safety net interwoven into a multitude of safety measures and protocols. It is not worth shaving off these already tight tolerance margins of safety for ANY reason!
There is at least one actual crash attributed to failure of the Radio or Radar Altimeter, where the PIC (Pilot In Command) failed to heed the warnings that his RA was faulty and crashed short of the runway. This was indeed pilot error in a much older plane. But in seriously low visibility, we have double and triple redundant systems which automatically land the plane – and most have 2, and some 3 radar altimeters and 2 or 3 independent autopilot systems, all of which must agree with each other or the autoland is aborted.
Introducing a stupid potential ground interference issue upon this finely balanced and super critical safety issue, is just wrong. And anyone who says it isn’t proven – is akin to idiots who witnessed the concrete degradation at Champlain Towers in Miami and dismissed the structural failure issues as “unproven”, and proclaimed the building safe: (an Engineering report 4+ years earlier said serious structural safety issues would accelerate exponentially if not addressed and it was ignored) (same here with RA and 5G – but both the FCC and the telecoms dismissed the warnings from the FAA and pilot’s groups for years)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnEtPTKBM0s
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Cj
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Radio frequency calculation is an exact science it doesnt have ifs and maybes involved. If there is a possibility of interference than it can be demonstrated in a test using a cband radio and an altimeter. It can also be demonstrated with mathematics to predict intermods and power levels of those along with their affect upon the altimeter reciever. Simple as that. How do you think they are clearing manufacturers to fly? They test the system as stated above. Exactly what the FAA should have been doing long ago since they seem to think they know RF transmission better than the FCC that divided the spectrum and sold it. Do you think they just roll dice and pick numbers?
Then what about the ultra high power military com that used to use those frequencies before they were sold? Never had a problem. Hmmm why is that?
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Cj
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This from another article,
“2020 after the RTCA Inc., a nonprofit group that establishes FAA technical standards with aerospace manufacturers, published lab test results that suggested aircraft altimeters could be vulnerable.”
Again, there are no maybes in RF calculations. Any reputable RF lab could certify this and guarantee their calculations and tests. Why is the FAA relying on an NGO nonprofit?
And then this,
“An NTIA lab offered last year to start testing equipment used in civilian aircraft, but FAA officials didn’t accept, a person familiar with the matter said.”
There you go, the FAA is the one that is turning this into some fear show. Could have been tested and done by now and non of this wpuld be news.
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