Airports with short runways or those surrounded by rugged terrain are considered ideal sites for a transponder landing system (TLS), a precision approach system manufactured by the Advanced Navigation and Positioning Corp. (ANPC), of which Mains is the CEO.
“There are many airports that would love to have an instrument landing system (ILS) but can’t for a variety of reasons, usually because of the surrounding terrain or runway length,” Mains said. “These make up 80 to 90 percent of the world’s airports.”
ANPC, the only manufacturer in the world of the TLS, received approval in mid-2010 from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as a supplier of the system.
Both the ILS and the TLS are designed to provide pilots an approach path with exact lateral alignment and vertical descent guidance on final approach to a runway.
An ILS uses ground equipment consisting of two directional transmitters — the localizer and the glideslope — as well as two or three mark…
