Avionics News April 2013 - 46

industry

NextGen

Status Report
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
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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 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 “radarbased 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.

Avionics News April 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News April 2013