Joint Venture Will Develop New Airliner Satellite Grid : Aviation: Government and industry will join hands to provide an array of global communications.

The Clinton Administration and the nation’s major airlines will announce today an unprecedented joint venture to develop a quicker and more accurate satellite-based data communications system for the global industry.

Both sides say the new government-industry corporation, ATN Systems Inc., will trim taxpayer costs and cut the system’s development time.

It could also provide a model for future efforts. The way it works now, the Federal Aviation Administration proposes standards on aviation gear with little input from industry.

The result: benchmarks often get bogged down in revisions to satisfy complaints and suggestions from industry officials and bureaucrats alike. This inflates costs and delays the roll-out of new equipment.

The new system, expected to be in operation in four years, will be called the aeronautical telecommunications network, or ATN for short. This is the acronym used in the joint venture name.

The system will handle a wide range of data communications between pilots and ground controllers, and between pilots themselves. Applications range from weather charts beamed into the cockpit to navigational information to data on plane positions. ATN won’t carry any voice communications.

The new system could be particularly useful to commercial airlines on ocean routes, when planes are out of radar range.

Currently, radio data messages from pilots are the only tool controllers can use to estimate plane positions on ocean crossings. The problem is, the messages are sometimes too slow.

Here’s how it works now: About twice an hour, pilots determine their position and then send the information to an air traffic controller, using high-frequency radio signals.

The message can take two minutes or more to get there, though. And by that time, a fast-moving airliner could be miles away from the call spot. A passenger jet traveling at a fairly typical 620 miles per hour, for instance, would be more than 20 miles from the place the information was sent.

ATN will be quicker and more accurate. It will bounce the pilot’s positional data from a satellite to a ground station, which will automatically flash it to the appropriate air traffic controller. The whole process shouldn’t take more than a few seconds.

The ATN system will work with new satellite navigational systems based on the Global Positioning System, a constellation of satellites that send out directional signals. When GPS comes fully on line in the next few years, pilots will use it to determine their position and then send the resulting fix to controllers on the ATN system.

Controllers using ATN will be able to better pinpoint planes, which should allow closer spacing and more flights on international routes, the fastest-growing segment of the industry. Improved safety could be another benefit.

The president of ATN Systems will be William Cotton, currently manager of air traffic and flight systems at UAL Corp.’s United Airlines Inc.

ATN Systems will do all the development work on the new system, including performance standards and equipment parameters, but the gear will be made by private manufacturers under competitive bid. Vendors are expected to work with ATN Systems on the planning process.