Sessions
EGNOS Past, Present and Future
11:45 AM - 12:15 PM Thu
It took Paul 20 years to get a job in aviation having discovered on leaving school a minor eyesight defect barred him from being an airline pilot. His career saw false starts in the worlds of Insurance Broking, Aluminium Access Equipment, Mechanical Engineering and Spec House Building. Finally, in 1990 he joined Manchester Airport's Commercial Division selling advertising space in and around the Terminals. 5 years later after a spell on Route Development Paul was lucky enough to transfer to the Airfield Engineering Section where he was part of Duty Management Team. The Second Runway Project needed Technical Liaison Leads for both Engineering and Airfield Operations and as he had a Private Pilots Licence wore two hats working with the Design Engineering company running the tender process. Once the Joint Venture company started work he joined Airfield Ops retiring in 2003 as the Airfield Safety and Standards Manager looking after a team of 30 Safety Officers. A surprise invitation to join the Civil Aviation Authority at Gatwick as a Policy Maker for Aerodrome Standards saw Paul take on all the Technical aspects of runway safety. This included introducing LED high intensity lighting, developing the Global Reporting Format as part of the ICAO Friction Task Force. His final project was the introduction of satellite based instrument approaches to non-towered airports which in 2014 included the introduction of LPV minima enabled by the SoL service from the EGNOS augmentation System. Retiring in 2016 the UK aerodromes which had stated Airspace Changes asked Paul to help them progress hence the birth of Merlin Aerospace. To date Paul has seen 5 RNP approaches successfully into service and is supporting another 3 sponsors.