*Satellite to cut flight time on all Nigerian routes by seven minutes
Wole Shadare
Nigeria’s airspace safety received a major boost as the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has test run the Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS).
The agency on Wednesday successfully carried out a demonstration flight to improve on the accuracy, integrity, and availability of the signal through augmentation of the satellite systems with its $8.5 million Beechcraft King Air 350i aircraft.
The SBAS is used to enhance the accuracy and precision of an existing GPS system. GPS by itself is not sufficiently accurate to do things like help land airplanes or other applications where there is a need for high accuracy combined with high consequences for failure. Simply put, it means using satellite systems for air navigation.
The airlines are also able to save costs through fuel burns as the system has the capability of reducing flight time on some routes within Nigeria by up to 5-7 minutes.