Jeppesen First to Provide RAIM Reliability Briefings

Beginning next month, the FAA is asking pilots to obtain a receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) reliability briefing before flights involving GPS navigation. RAIM technology monitors the precision of GPS signals, and predicting its reliability is considered by FAA to be a safety element. By next July, for example, the agency has plans to mandate obtaining reliability briefings before flight. The Jeppesen technology uses algorithms to generate a prediction for the entire route of flight; and the service is included as part of a regular preflight briefing. To provide this capability, Jeppesen has teamed with DWI, the company that currently provides RAIM predictive technology for EuroControl.