Runway Awareness & Advisory System (RAAS) - FS Add On

A runway incursion is an incident where an unauthorized aircraft, vehicle or person is on a runway. This adversely affects runway safety, as it creates the risk that an airplane taking off or landing will collide with the object.  Runways incursions are not uncommon.  One carrier, Alaska Airlines has introduced an additional warning system in their flight decks to counter against this potential problem.  The system is called RAAS or Runway Awareness and Advisory System.

The Runway Awareness and Advisory System developed by Honeywell in 2003, provides pilots with audible alerts when they approach and enter taxiways and runways. The system confirms runway identifications to help ensure pilots are on the correct runway with enough distance to complete takeoff, and provides an audible warning if a pilot inadvertently accelerates for takeoff while on a taxiway.  To learn more about the real Honeywell RAAS click here.

Although RAAS is not compulsory to real 737 proceedures, it’s a nice add on to include in your flight deck.  Dongjin Shin, a software engineer has developed RAAS for us to use in flight simulator.  His program is called FsRAAS Runway Advisory.

Program & Installation

The program is a stand-alone program that does not need to be installed into flight simulator; it can be run from anywhere on your computer, however, I have been "informed" the recommended place for installation of the rRunway position data file ("r4.csv") is in same folder as FSUPIC (FS10/modules).

FsRAAS can be started before or after FSX; I prefer to start the program after FSX has been configured for flight.  I have a shortcut to FsRAAS on my desktop menu and after FSX is running I click the shortcut and FsRAAS immediately starts and minimises. At the moment, FsRAAS cannot be run from client computers as it does not support WIDE FS.  However, the computer workload of running this very small add on is not noticeable on high-end computers.  The program does require FSUPIC for correct operation.

Evaluation

My initial evaluation of FsRAAS has been excellent and I’ve incorporated this program into my flight deck.  The program will provide, at the minimum, the following audible call outs;

• Approaching/crossing taxiway
• Approaching/crossing runway
• Flaps not set call out (flaps flaps flaps)
• Lined up on runway (ie: runway 34R call out)
• Runway distance remaining after take off roll (eg: 2000 feet remaining call out)
• Runway distance remaining after landing and roll out
• Approaching runway on final approach (approaching 34R call out)

My only vague criticism (if pushed) is that the call outs are slightly delayed when approaching a runway or taxiway.  The program is currently a free program and can be downloaded directly from Shin's blog site, or search the AVSIM library for FsRAAS11-1 or the latest release FsRAAS 2.

Below is a short embedded video of the FsRAAS courtesy of the developer.

Update on Tuesday, July 3, 2012 at 4:13PM by FLAPS 2 APPROACH

 I've just be informed that a new version of FsRAAS has been released which rectifies some of the shortcomings in the original version and adds additional functionality.  It is called, not surprisingly FsRAAS V2.