LARA V3.2 was released on April 9 2020, delivering new and improved functionality while integrating latest developments of the NM. Despite the unusual and challenging circumstances of COVID19, testing was conducted as usual, involving the LARA Team accessing different remote servers, running various national configurations interconnected via foreign cluster connections. As a result LARA V3.2 is declared fit for purpose and ready for implementation in the different states.
As with every release of LARA, the new features are built on two visible pillars: the requirements of LARA users, and the continuous synchronization with the evolving NM System. The invisible third pillar is composed of a large number of improvements behind the scenes to enhance performance, security and robustness of the application.
In order to support synchronization with NM, we have re-built the FBZ management functionality in LARA, allowing to manage and publish multiple FBZs per area, define and apply time and level buffers, and select FUA Restrictions as required. Furthermore, LARA supports fully the Single Category CDR Concept, No-Planning-Zones (NPZ) and an indicator if a UUP applies “Procedure 3 (P3)”. Additional improvements have been implemented in the LARA Housekeeper for better alignment with NM data by introducing lifetimes for FUA Restrictions and easy retirement of obsolete airspaces.
For the local use, LARA V3.2 introduces new ways of creating and managing ad-hoc areas, with the possibility to define vertical dimensions in 10ft increments. A major new enhancement is the possibility to create, manage and publish national Airspace Use Plans (NUP). These contain not only areas exchanged with NM, but also any area that is of interest to national users, general aviation, drone operators etc. These National Plans are tightly synchronized with AUP/UUPs exchanged with NM and can be exported in various file formats for further use and processing.
Additional improvements were introduced for the tactical phase of airspace management, like improved management and indication of tactical airspace releases. LARA is now running on JAVA OpenJDK11, releasing any potential licensing issues with Oracle, while profiting from a number of security improvements.
LARA users are invited to share their feedback on the new version as soon as practicable in order to be considered for future updates.
With the release of V3.2, the official support for V3.0 will be phased out. LARA Users are invited to start planning the upgrade of LARA to V3.1 or V3.2 in the near future. The LARA Team is ready to support in the migration process.
The LARA Steering Group has appointed Mr. Oliver Krause, Head of AMC Switzerland, as its new Chairman.
The LARA Steering Group has formally mandated the LARA Team to act on behalf of the LARA Users in the Network Systems Coordination and Synchronisation Group (NETSYS) on all aspects related to the LARA interfaces to NM.
The tentative schedule for the next LARA meetings is:
- LARA User Group on 21 September 2020
- LARA Steering Group on 29 October 2020