Pilot's Guide to Avionics 2013-2014 - 84

PILOT’S GUIDE

NextGen

Status Report
B Y

J O S E P H

E .

( J E B )

istory tells us when it comes to developing and implementing large-scale modernization programs, the Federal Aviation Administration doesn’t have the best track
record. And just to keep things interesting, the Next Generation Air Transportation System involves many more agencies
and will require new avionics. How’s all that going?
“The Federal Aviation Administration’s first responsibility in
operating the nation’s air traffic control system is to ensure the
safe and efficient movement of planes. Today, the system is a
blend of several generations of technologies and equipment,
much of which is labor intensive and obsolete by modern
standards. Indeed, the present equipment was designed to
be most efficient at air traffic volumes below today’s level and
below the level projected for the future. This system has been
adequate to assure that air transportation remains a very safe
means of travel. But limitations in the system already cause
delays for air travelers, as well as very high operating and
maintenance costs for the FAA. As the skies become more
crowded in the future, the present system may not be able
to maintain the highest standards of safety, and costs can be
expected to grow disproportionately.”
The above paragraph is excerpted from testimony before
the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Transportation, delivered by Alice
M. Rivlin, congressional budget office director, in support of
increased FAA funding requests. Those requests were an
underlying component of the agency’s multiyear National
Airspace System Plan, which, among other things, sought to
“modernize and expand the nation’s air traffic control system”
by implementing promising new technologies like the microwave landing system as a possible replacement for the instrument landing system.
Meanwhile, an FAA fact sheet highlights the agency’s
plans to “improve safety, capacity and efficiency on runways and in the nation’s skies” and transition from what the
agency calls the “radar-based air traffic control system of

B U R N S I D E

today to a satellite-based system of the future.”
Are Rivlin and the FAA addressing the same program?
No, they aren’t. Rivlin’s testimony supporting increased funds
for the NASP was delivered 30 years ago. The NASP and its
programs, which the FAA labeled “a comprehensive 20-year
blueprint for a state-of-the-art traffic control and air navigation
system to accommodate projected growth in air travel,” have
long since been discarded, victims of “problems in developing
ambitious automation systems,” according to the agency. The
FAA fact sheet is a primer on the agency’s current plans for the
NextGen dates from 2010, and it describes a program formally
established by Congress in 2003.
If there is any constant in aviation’s dynamic world, it might
be the FAA’s never-ending quest to modernize itself. In the
1980s, the NASP fell victim to many factors: reduced funding, emerging technologies – which made many programs
obsolete before they could be fielded – and, of course, inadequate management. The MLS program, for example, was
suspended in 1994, in favor of a then-emerging technology,
GPS. Since then, NextGen – the FAA’s latest large-scale modernization effort – was created to transform the “radar-based
air traffic control system of today to a satellite-based system of
the future” in which “all airports and aircraft in the U.S. airspace
will be connected ... and will continually share information in
real time to improve air transportation’s safety, speed, efficiency and environmental impacts, while absorbing increased
demand levels.”
With so much at stake and with the NASP’s failure as a
warning, it’s both fair and timely to ask how NextGen is progressing and whether or not it’s on schedule and within its budget as the new program reaches its 10th anniversary.
NextGen’s Component Programs
While NextGen might first seem monolithic and seamless,
it isn’t. Instead, it can be thought of as several individual, interdependent programs involving new systems, technologies

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Pilot's Guide to Avionics 2013-2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pilot's Guide to Avionics 2013-2014