Chopper corridors within the Western Province of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Air traffic has steadily increased with the improvement of air vehicles. Fixed wing and rotorcraft are the two main categories of air vehicles. Both categories of vehicles have improved in technology and design leading to increase in the functionalities they are capable of performing. Due to its flexibility in movement over the fixed wing crafts , rotor crafts gain popularity for travel and military purpose for a relatively shorter distance. The civilian use of rotorcrafts was mainly used by VIPs or VVIPs therefore an increase need for dedicated routes came about to ensure the safety of travel. Sri Lanka has seen a steady increase in air travel since it was introduced in the early 1900' s. Following the end ofthe war the air traffic has steady increase. Further the use of rotorcrafts by private owners was introduced. These facts have show n an increase need for dedicated routes for rotorcrafts also known as helicopters or choppers. The need of chopper corridors mostly require within Western Province which has two international airports and one military airport where most of the civil training is carried out. The output of this project is a helicopter route map for the western province of Sri Lanka which was identified as the region with the highest traffic movement for both rotorcrafts and fixed wing crafts. Those routes or corridors should be safe and feasible. Resulted map is presented with six routes for safe, effective and efficient air navigation with in Western Province and also out of the Province for frequent destinations assigning safer altitudes . The map indicate assigned route altitudes for a flight and obstacle heights are from Mean Sea Level instead of above ground level to avoid conflicts with fixed wing aircraft which are flying on low altitudes when proceeding out of the Province.