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| MITRE Taps Artists' Technique to Improve Runway Safety FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MITRE Contacts: Karina H. Wright Eryn L. Gallagher McLean, Virginia, February 14, 2001 — The MITRE Corporation has adapted an age-old painting technique to create a new look for airport runway markings designed to prevent runway incursions and aircraft collisions on the ground. The experimental markings make use of "anamorphic projection"—a Renaissance technique that creates a three-dimensional illusion—to heighten the marking's visibility for pilots of taxiing aircraft. MITRE researchers have applied the 3-D anamorphic style to the "hold-short" markings painted on taxiways and intersecting runways. Pilots are required to stop at hold-short bars until authorized to proceed by the control tower. The failure of pilots to see existing hold-short bars is often cited as a factor in the steady increase in runway incursions since 1993. According to FAA Administrator Jane Garvey, "taxiing on the airport surface is the most hazardous phase of flight." Aviation's worst collision resulted from a runway incursion at Tenerife, Canary Islands, in 1977 that claimed 583 lives. The concept of 3-D runway markings came to MITRE engineer James "Sonny" Krantz after he viewed a figure painted on the Community Bridge, an arts project in Frederick, Maryland. The artist, William M. Cochran, had used anamorphic projection to give the figure of an angel a strikingly realistic, three-dimensional appearance when viewed from an angle. Krantz noted that when viewed head-on the figure appears distorted, but when viewed from above it seems to emerge from the bridge surface. He envisioned runway surface markings that would appear to be actual barriers when viewed from the cockpit of an aircraft. Krantz obtained research funding from MITRE to pursue his idea and engaged Cochran to render a 3-D-style mockup of the hold-short marking on plywood. Using Cochran's painting as a base, MITRE staff generated a computerized model for the prototype. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, an advocate of "low-tech" solutions to prevent runway incursions, sanctioned the placement of a full-scale prototype on its aircraft ramp at the Frederick Municipal Airport in Maryland in December 1999. AOPA asked visiting pilots to evaluate the experimental hold short bar, which was replaced in May 2000 with a second, more refined version. Based on positive preliminary feedback from pilots at Frederick, MITRE forwarded the prototype design to the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, N.J., for consideration in their safety research program. The Center's initiatives for runway safety include comprehensive assessments of airport ground markings. MITRE (www.mitre.org) is an independent, not-for-profit company that was chartered to provide technical support to the government in the public interest. The runway markings research project was conducted in MITRE's Center for Advanced Aviation System Development, a federally funded research and development center operated by MITRE for the FAA. MITRE also operates FFRDCs for the Department of Defense and the Internal Revenue Service. The 365,000-member Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, based outside Washington, D.C., is the world's largest civil aviation organization. More than one-half of the nation's pilots and three-quarters of the general aviation aircraft owners are AOPA members. Related Information
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