FAA/NextGen Bashing on the other Side of the Pond
On 12/12/2011, in NextGen, by steve
If you thought we were occasionally unkind to SESAR, read this post. Then make up your own mind. While doing that, do not forget that what you are reading was put together before FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt was charged for driving under influence and subsequently quit the top-job of the FAA. Babbitt is a veteran pilot who flew 25 years for Eastern Airlines… But back to the article.
You will read things like “ERAM is the dead elephant in the room” and “How will the headless bureaucracy handle a doomed program that must succeed?”
What about this one: “In order to cost-justify NextGen, they have cooked the books on all future budget plans.”
The article is interesting, even if in places it fees a bit over-stressed, because it highlights what is probably a true problem for NextGen: basing it on ERAM, the En-Route Automation Modernization program, which is evidently struggling and might very well pull NextGen as originally envisaged down with it.
May be, just may be, there is also a lesson here for SESAR. Sorry… there we go again.
NextGen and SESAR – is this a race???
On 16/11/2011, in NextGen, by steve
For the past several years news from the US repeatedly mentioned how the FAA was teetering on the brink of running out of money while Congress was debating the so-called FAA reauthorization bill. At one point the Agency actually shut down for a few days while extra funds were made available for them.
Of course this unholy situation was anything but helpful for NextGen, the FAA’s flagship project aiming to modernize the ATM system in the US. However, after all this wrangling, there is light at the end of the tunnel… and it is not the train that is coming!
A bill that would finally settle the funding issue will probably be on the President’s desk by Christmas. This was announced recently on the occasion of the opening of the renovated NextGen Test Bed at the Daytona Beach International Airport in Florida. This airport is famous among others for being the home-base of the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
The bill in question will provide a four-year blueprint for the development of NextGen and will eliminate any reauthorization issues for the FAA during this time. Congressman John Mica, when talking about the bill, highlighted the fact that it includes deadlines, incentives to attract private money into the project and also a streamlining of the FAA processes used to certify new technology.
FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said that “NextGen will be more convenient, more dependable and it will improve safety and efficiency all at the same time.”
More surprisingly, it seems that there is a belief in some US circles that if the US gets NextGen up and running before Europe’s SESAR is ready, the US stands to reap important economic benefits. They believe that whoever sets the protocols and standards will also win he world market. The same people indicated that in their view, the US is ahead of Europe in this “race”.
Click here to read the full article
Metron Aviation Wins NASA Contract for NextGen Airspace Management
On 26/08/2011, in NextGen, by steve
Metron Aviation announced that it has been awarded a contract from NASA to perform advanced research and development to further NextGen airspace management concepts. This is an interesting twist in the NextGen story… Metron Aviation has been recently acquired by Airbus.
Metron Aviation will support NASA’s NextGen Concepts and Technology Development Project (CTD), as it continues to conceptualize and create Dynamic Airspace Configuration (DAC) concepts for allocating airspace capacity during convective weather events. Metron Aviation will develop DAC concepts and algorithms that incorporate uncertainties in weather forecasts, methods for conversion of convective weather activities into airspace capacity and uncertain pilot, airline and Traffic Flow Management (TFM) responses to weather.
“We are extremely pleased to have been awarded this prestigious NASA contract. Working consistently with NASA to dynamically change Airspace Configuration will not only show immediate results towards harmonization and NextGen, but will also impact the National Airspace for years to come,” said Robert Hoffman, PhD., Principal Analyst and Director of the Advanced Research Group at Metron Aviation. “For years, we have been working with NASA on various airspace optimization projects, and are excited to continue our heritage of innovation to create a more efficient, optimized and safer airspace.”
Click here to read the full article
ERAM suffers under FAA shutdown
On 20/08/2011, in NextGen, by steve
En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) is one of the FAA’s flagship projects that was supposed to be fully operational at all of the FAA en-route facilities by the end of last year. Formal acceptance took place in October 2007 and Lockheed Martin, ERAM’s manufacturer could be proud of having delivered the new system on time and within budget. As it turned out, their happiness was a tad premature. The system was running in operational trial mode in Seattle and Salt Lake City and a host of software problems arose resulting in the full-delivery date slipping to 2014. OOOOps!
Last year the US Transportation Department’s Inspector General went so far as to publicly name the problems ERAM was struggling with. These are the interfaces with other ATC facilities, the aircraft data labels on the controller displays and the way handoffs are processed. None of these areas represent revolutionary new ways of working. ATC systems the world over can do such things and one cannot but wonder: what was Lockheed Martin doing wrong so that they do not work well in ERAM? Or were the requirements such that they in fact became a system-designer’s nightmare as they struggled to keep up with the FAA’s requirement creep? Getting things back on track will cost a cool 500 million bucks extra and then we did not consider the extra costs the delay in operational introduction will cause the industry in general.
Click here to read the full article
Meet EDA – The Efficient Descent Advisor
On 21/07/2011, in NextGen, by steve
You will have heard of Tailored Arrivals… they are nice and work well but they often also need to be broken off prematurely when conflicts between aircraft arise. Now here is a tool that pre-empts the conflicts and releases the full power of tailored arrivals. Meet EDA, the Efficient Descent Advisor being developed by NASA.
What is the problem?
As an airplane transitions for landing, today’s air traffic control procedures often force the aircraft to fly inefficient arrival paths involving frequent changes in vectoring, altitude, and speed in order to maintain safe separation from other aircraft. The frequent changes of this stair-step approach are problematic because they often require added engine power, which increases fuel burn, causing detrimental effects to the environment.
What is the solution?
Continuous Descent Approaches (or CDA) is a next generation aviation concept that enables aircraft to “coast” during the final stages of flight, using less engine power. Instead of approaching an airport in a conventional stair-step fashion, CDA allows aircraft to fly a continuous, gliding descent at low engine power, thereby minimizing fuel consumption, environmental emissions, and noise pollution.
What is NASA doing to help?
Click here to read the full article
FAA Funds ADS-B for JetBlue
On 04/02/2011, in NextGen, by steve
Low-cost carriers are not known for their willingness to pay for extra equipment that may be required to improve air traffic management. In this respect they are very much similar to their legacy brethren… Even when there is a clear business case, the mad rush to equip is usually conspicuous by its absence. There are exceptions to rule though. Southwest had announced earlier that it will equip all its fleet with RNP capability and the news is out now that US low-cost carrier JetBlue is equipping 35 of its Airbus A-320 aircraft with ADS-B Out capability, including the ACSS SafeRoute suite of applications. The catch? This is a demo project funded by the FAA to the tune of 4.2 million dollars.
Once equipped, JetBlue’s aircraft will be able to fly more precise trajectories under ADS-B surveillance from Boston and New York to Florida and the Caribbean although this latter will have to wait until 2012 as there is no ground ADS-B infrastructure there just yet.
Click here to read the full article
NextGen in trouble?
On 04/01/2011, in NextGen, by steve
Why is it almost a given that new air traffic management programs, big and small, usually end up in trouble, fail to deliver their promised benefits or drag on for years swallowing money like there was no tomorrow? We could count on one hand the number of truly successful ATM projects of any significance.
Doubts are now rising about NextGen, the FAA’s flagship project, and if Calvin L. Scovel III, the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General is to be believed, there is major turbulence ahead.
In a letter sent to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, the IG concludes that the FAA’s slow progress in implementing the recommendations of the RTCA NextGen Mid-Term Implementation Task Force and the start-up problems with ERAM (En-route Automation Modernization) make it doubtful whether the agency will in fact be able to meet the mid-term goals of the NextGen implementation program.
Reaction to the letter was swift. “Tighter oversight of the FAA is a must and delay in delivering NextGen benefits is not acceptable” countered John L. Mica, the incoming House Committee Chairman.
Click here to read the full article
Equipping for NextGen – where does the cash come from?
On 24/11/2010, in NextGen, by steve
If anything, the LINK2000+ program in Europe has shown what a bit of free cash can achieve. Equipping aircraft for Controller/Pilot Digital Link Communications, the raison d’être of LINK2000+, was proving difficult as in the initial phases those who spent on the required avionics would see few benefits and hence there were no takers. Then, with part of the money coming from EC funds things suddenly took off and some 700 aircraft got promoted to CPDLC-enabled status.
But the funds needed to equip for NextGen (and SESAR for that matter) far exceed the budget of LINK2000+ yet the vicious circle of low initial benefits, reluctance to equip is exactly the same. It now looks that at least for NexGen, a novel solution is being offered for funding avionics upgrades.
Click here to read the full article
FAA NextGen Implementation Plan (NGIP) 2010 available
On 05/07/2010, in NextGen, by steve
The NGIP is a very interesting document, published by the FAA in a new version every year. The latest issue was released in March this year. The purpose of the NGIP is to help inform the public at large about how the Agency plans to implement the Next Generation air traffic management concept over the coming years (2009-2018).
The book describes the FAA’s accomplishments to date and lists the targets it is working to in terms of technology and program milestones. Of particular interest are the sections that describe how achievement of the targets and milestones will be supported.
The 2010 edition of the NGIP is interesting also in that it re-states, in Section 2, the FAA’s response to the RTCA NextGen Mid-term Implementation Task Force report and so you get in a single volume all the most important information relevant to NextGen. Other sections describe the current state of NextGen, FAA’s proposals for development and implementation in the 2009-2018 (mid-term) timeframe, the benefits FAA expects to be realized and finally in Section 5 the challenges and risks are discussed.
Download your copy here.
Learn a new abbreviation: NIEC! – NextGen Integration and Evaluation Capability
On 02/07/2010, in NextGen, by steve
All information seems to suggest that NIEC will play an important role in getting the FAA’s NextGen off the ground. Located at the William J. Hughes Technical Center (WJHTC), Atlantic City International Airport, New Jersey, the mission of the NexGen Integration and Evaluation Capability is to foster the exploration, evaluation and integration of NextGen enabling components within a rapid prototyping environment for concept validation and maturation.
That is quite a mouthful… Let’s see (using the relevant FAA fact sheet) what NIEC is all about.
The NIEC is the FAA’s research platform to explore, integrate, and evaluate NextGen concepts through simulation activities resulting in concept maturation and requirements definition. The NIEC Display Area (NDA) complements the unique NAS facilities and aviation based equipment located at the WJHTC.The NIEC leverages existing NAS operational systems and high fidelity, real-time simulation capabilities to create an integrated, flexible and reconfigurable environment that can be tailored for NextGen research as well as test and evaluation. The NDA can provide a futuristic NextGen gate to gate visualization environment with advanced data collection capabilities to support integration and evaluation of new technologies and concepts. The ability to provide a combined environment of legacy systems with future technologies and capabilities also enable the NIEC to support the transition to NextGen.
Click here to read the full article
Your project delayed? Come join the club!
On 15/06/2010, in NextGen, by steve
It must be horrible to be the project manager of major aircraft programs these days. Look at the Airbus A380, the A400M, the Boeing 787 or the 747-8. They were all delayed by several years and the reasons were often quite pedestrian (like incompatible software or strength calculation errors). It will fall on the Airbus A350 to improve the record but in view of what has almost become the routine now, it would be a miracle of the 350 flew on time.
But air traffic control systems are faring little better. Which was the last really new ATC system in Europe that was delivered and put into operational use on the date originally stipulated? And now, a delay to ERAM is here to set the trend forth.
Under the En-Route Automation Modernization (ERAM) program, the FAA is replacing the computer network for air traffic control facilities that manage traffic in the upper airspace. Modernizing this network is critical to allowing the FAA to continue managing air traffic effectively. It is also an essential component of NextGen , the FAA’s next generation air traffic control system.
Click here to read the full article
FAA releases final rule on ADS-B
On 02/06/2010, in NextGen, by steve
It has been some time in coming, but finally here it is, the FAA’s final rule on ADS-B.
This final rule amends FAA regulations by adding equipage requirements and performance standards for Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast (ADS–B) Out avionics on aircraft operating in Classes A, B, and C airspace, as well as certain other specified classes of airspace within the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS). ADS-B Out broadcasts information about an aircraft through an onboard transmitter to a ground receiver. Use of ADS-B Out will move air traffic control from a radar-based system to a satellite-derived aircraft location system. This action facilitates the use of ADS–B for aircraft surveillance by FAA and Department of Defense (DOD) air traffic controllers to safely and efficiently accommodate aircraft operations and the expected increase in demand for air transportation. This rule also provides aircraft operators with a platform for additional flight applications and services.
The compliance date for this final rule is January 1, 2020.
You can download the full text of the rule here.
RTCA NextGen TF report and the FAA’s response
On 07/05/2010, in NextGen, by steve
RTCA Task Force 5 or by its more catchy title RTCA NextGen Mid-Term Implementation Task Force published its final report on 9 September 2009. This report is in fact a set of recommendations formulated on the basis of industry consensus and is concerned with the improvements desired in the US air transportation system in the period 2010-2018. Solid NextGen territory you might say.
The FAA in turn published their responses to the TF5 report in January this year, accepting 33 of the TF’s 56 recommendations.
The RTCA report is a saleable item which you can purchase here.
However, the statement of Margaret T. Jenny, President, RTCA, Inc. before the Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and related agencies, Committee on Appropriations of the U.S. House of Representatives gives a pretty good, high level overview of the recommendations. You can download the full text of the statement here.
The FAA responses to the TF5 report are available here!
