Create Aviation Communication, Navigational, and Surveillance surfaces

Available with Aviation Airports license.

To identify whether buildings cause unacceptable interference to facilities, an international standard has been created to describe the parameters that are used to construct imaginary surfaces around these facilities. The Communication Navigational Surveillance Surfaces tool allows users to create these surfaces in accordance with ICAO EUR DOC 015.

Generalized depiction of surfaces

Omni-directional facilities

The following table reflects omni-directional facilities:

SpecificationClassificationFirst cylinder radiusCone radiusCone angleSecond cylinder radiusSecond cylinder height

Communication

VHF Communication Tx

Surface createdSurface createdSurface created

Communication

VHF Communication Rx

Surface createdSurface createdSurface created

Navigational

DME N

Surface createdSurface createdSurface created

Navigational

CVOR

Surface createdSurface createdSurface createdSurface createdSurface created

Navigational

DVOR

Surface createdSurface createdSurface createdSurface createdSurface created

Navigational

Direction Finder

Surface createdSurface createdSurface createdSurface createdSurface created

Navigational

Markers

Surface createdSurface createdSurface created

Navigational

NDB

Surface createdSurface createdSurface created

Navigational

GBAS Ground Reference Receiver

Surface createdSurface createdSurface created

Navigational

GBAS VDB Station

Surface createdSurface createdSurface created

Navigational

VDB Station

Surface createdSurface createdSurface created

Surveillance

PSR

Surface createdSurface createdSurface created

Surveillance

SSR

Surface createdSurface createdSurface created

Directional navigational facilities

The following are the directional navigational facilities:

  • ILS LLZ (medium aperture, single frequency)
  • ILS LLZ (medium aperture, dual frequency)
  • ILS GP M–Type (dual frequency)
  • MLS AZ
  • MLS EL
  • DME (directional antennas)

All directional navigational facilities have the following parameters:

  • a—Distance of the surface extending parallel from the antenna along the centerline of the directional fan.
  • b—Distance of the surface extending parallel from the antenna, opposite along the directional fan, along the centerline of the directional fan.
  • h—Height of the directionally sloped plane that describes the minimum height of interference.
  • D—Distance of plane extending from the antenna perpendicular to the centerline of the directional fan. Height is determined by value of a.
  • H—Height of the surface that extends from the bottom of the antenna up to the specified value that connects to the directional fan.
  • L—Distance from the center of the antenna, perpendicular to the centerline of the directional fan, to the connection point of the sloped directional fan.
  • r—Distance from the base of the antenna; describes the overall length of the directional fan.
  • Phi—Represents the angle of the directional fan starting at the distance of D.

For a visual depiction of these measurements, refer to the ICAO EUR DOC 015 document.

The Communication Navigational Surveillance Surfaces tool is a special Create Features template used to make multipatch features based on Specification, Classification and Construction input parameters.

To enable the tool, add a multipatch layer to your map.

Note:

The source multipatch feature class should have horizontal and vertical coordinate systems defined, and it should have a field called DESCRIP designated for up to 255 characters of text. The tool will populate this field with the specification and classification used when the feature was created. Optionally, the ObstructionIdSurface_MP from the Airports 18B data model may be used because it already has a DESCRIP field (Text, 255).

When a multipatch layer is added to the map, a Create Aviation CNS feature template with default settings is automatically created.

Create CNS surfaces for Omni-directional facilities

You can create multipatch features for Omni-directional facilities with the Create Aviation CNS tool.

The following image is a depiction of the output from the Create Aviation CNS tool:

CNS Omni-directional surfaces
  1. On the Edit tab, in the Features group, click Create Create Features.

    The Create Features pane appears.

  2. Choose the multipatch layer you want to create features for.
    The Create Aviation CNS button Create Aviation CNS appears below the multipatch layer.
  3. Click the Create Aviation CNS button Create Aviation CNS.
  4. Click the Omni Direction tab Omni Direction.

    The Omni Direction parameters appear.

    Create Aviation CNS Omni Direction

  5. Choose a specification from the Specification drop-down list.
  6. Choose a classification from the Classification drop-down list.
  7. If necessary, you can maintain and accept the default values in the Construction Parameters section, or edit them.
    Note:

    Construction parameters are dynamically dependent on the choices made in the Specification and Classification drop-down lists.

  8. In the scene, click a point for facility location to create a surface.
    Tip:

    On the Edit tab, in the Snapping group, click the Snapping button List By Snapping enable your snapping preferences, and move the pointer back to the map.

Create CNS surfaces for uni directional facilities

The following image is a depiction of surfaces created for directional facilities:

CNS directional surfaces
  1. On the Edit tab, in the Features group, click Create Create Features.

    The Create Features pane appears.

  2. Choose the multipatch layer you want to create features for.
    The Create Aviation CNS button Create Aviation CNS appears below the multipatch layer.
  3. Click the Create Aviation CNS button Create Aviation CNS.
  4. Click the Omni Direction tab Omni Direction.

    The Omni Direction parameters appear.

    Create Aviation CNS Omni Direction

  5. Choose a specification from the Specification drop-down list.
  6. Choose a classification from the Classification drop-down list.
  7. If necessary, you can maintain and accept the default values in the Construction Parameters section, or edit them.
    Note:

    Construction parameters are dynamically dependent on the choices made in the Specification and Classification drop-down lists.

  8. In the scene, click a point for facility location to create a surface.
    Tip:

    On the Edit tab, in the Snapping group, click the Snapping button List By Snapping enable your snapping preferences, and move the pointer back to the map.

  9. In the scene, click another point for the threshold.

    The Directional CNS surface is automatically generated.