| MFF The extraordinary growth trend of air traffic requires significant changes in Air Traffic Management (ATM) concepts, procedures and systems, beyond the currently agreed objectives of ATM Strategy 2000+.
Thanks to the foresight and funding provided by the European Commission, the Mediterranean Free Flight Programme (MFF) was an effective exercise in international co-operation to develop European consensus on innovative ATM techniques and technology options. It enabled experts from all over Europe to cooperate in overcoming the operational and technical hurdles in defining and validating future concepts and their safety implications. The MFF partners agreed to focus on a structured series of increasingly innovative and challenging applications. The project developed advanced simulation facilities and new validation techniques plus a live trials environment including fully equipped flight test aircraft. MFF studied innovative concepts based on a set of defined operational and technical requirements designed to improve the management of air traffic in the Mediterranean area. The key aspects were user preferred trajectories, redistribution of tasks between controllers and aircrew and making use of the possibilities offered by ADS-B services. Between 2000 and 2005, MFF validation activities ranged from Free Routing applications enabling user preferred trajectories to Free Flight in which aircraft maintain their own separation from others in designated airspace. Seven European ATM service providers (ENAV-Italy, AENA-Spain, DSNA-France, HCAA-Greece, MATS-Malta, NERL-UK, and SCAA-LFV-Sweden) participated in the project along with Eurocontrol, NLR-Th e Netherlands and military agencies.
OBJECTIVES
MFF was a pre-operational Programme aimed at defining, testing and validating ASAS applications and procedures within en-route scenarios in Free Flight Airspace (FFAS) and Managed Airspace (MAS) as well as the transition between the two. Furthermore the definition, testing and validation have been performed for free routing applications and procedures within MAS en-route scenarios. MFF intended to provide a technical and operational evaluation of CNS/ATM technologies and applications suitable for operational implementation in the Mediterranean area. The main objectives of MFF are listed below: - Define operational requirements and procedures based on the use of new CNS/ATM technologies enabling the introduction of ASAS operations;
- Verify appropriate new operational procedures in Free Route and ASAS scenarios based on 5 selected applications: Free Route, Air Traffic Situational Awareness (ATSAW), ASAS Spacing, ASAS Separation and ASAS Self-Separation (Free Flight);
- Pursue the exploitation and support standardisation of the new CNS/ATM technologies;
- Define guidelines for the implementation of ASAS operations in appropriate airspace.
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