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BAA - T5
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BAA / Heathrow Airport
British Airports Authority (BAA) (www.baa.com) look after the logistics of planning, development and running all of the UK’s airports. Heathrow Airport is the largest of these, welcoming 63 million passengers via 90 airlines each year.
The Challenge
Terminal 5 is the latest development at Heathrow and involves designing for a wide variety of vehicles from baggage trolleys right up to the aircraft themselves. The cost of a mistake in the layout of a taxiway can run into millions so accuracy was a major priority. To further complicate matters the team at BAA needed to model aircraft that were not yet in full production.
The Solution
The design of the runways and taxiways was a critically important aspect of the project. In particular, the team had to ensure that the taxiway corner radii were sufficient for not only the current aircraft but also future planned aircraft. Project Engineer, Tony Blackmore, a long standing user of AutoTrack, decided to use AutoTrack to help him in the design process. AutoTrack’s library of over 100 aircraft and support vehicles provided many of the design vehicles but several had to be created from scratch including the new Airbus A380-900. These new vehicles have since been added to the standard aircraft library. The Followcommand, whereby the vehicle tracks along a predefined line, was used extensively to model the manoeuvres of the aircraft following taxiway markings. The feature was designed specifically for this purpose and allows designers to track a line with the nose-wheel or the pilot’s eye. The results of the AutoTrack analysis enabled Tony and his team to accurately position the edge of the pavement. They were also able to plot the paths of support vehicles.
'I have been using AutoTrack for over 12 years. It produces exceedingly accurate tracks - vital in our industry.', Tony Blackmore, BAA
Why BAA use AutoTrack:
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Posted: 08.08.2010 « back
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