Airport Maintenance

Groupe ADP is the French airport authority that develops and operates airport platforms including Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris-Orly, and Paris-Le Bourget. Paris-Le Bourget remains today the leading business airport in Europe.

The Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI) is a 4-light unit block located beside landing runways, that provides visual guidance information to pilots for acquiring and maintaining a safe and accurate glide slope on the final approach. 

To maintain operational conditions and precision of the system, scheduled maintenance is carried out using, for instance, aircraft or elevating work platforms. Blocking off the access to the runway, PAPI checks are performed by simulating sinusoidal approaches to verify threshold angles and ensure compliance with regulations. On the downside, the airport necessarily shuts down the runway, consuming up-time, imposing complicated logistics, and taking risks by deploying operators in the air and on the runways.

To achieve this aeronautical maintenance task, Groupe ADP deployed the Elistair tethered drone solution: the Safe-T station.