SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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73–841PS
2001
DEVELOPING THE NEXT GENERATION
AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JULY 19, 2001
Serial No. 107–6
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/science
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For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800 DC area (202) 512–1800
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
HON. SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York, Chairman
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
JOE BARTON, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
NICK SMITH, Michigan
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
DAVE WELDON, Florida
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR., Washington
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
GARY G. MILLER, California
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JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
W. TODD AKIN, Missouri
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
FELIX J. GRUCCI, JR., New York
MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
RALPH M. HALL, Texas
BART GORDON, Tennessee
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
JAMES A. BARCIA, Michigan
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California
LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan
ZOE LOFGREN, California
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
NICK LAMPSON, Texas
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
MARK UDALL, Colorado
DAVID WU, Oregon
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington
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JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania
JOE BACA, California
JIM MATHESON, Utah
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
DENNIS MOORE, Kansas
MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics
DANA ROHRABACHER, California, Chairman
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
JOE BARTON, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
DAVE WELDON, Florida
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR., Washington
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
GARY G. MILLER, California
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia
SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York
BART GORDON, Tennessee
NICK LAMPSON, Texas
JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut
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DENNIS MOORE, Kansas
ZOE LOFGREN, California
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
MARK UDALL, Colorado
DAVID WU, Oregon
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
RALPH M. HALL, Texas
ERIC STERNER Subcommittee Staff Director
BILL ADKINS Professional Staff Member
ED FEDDEMAN Professional Staff Member
RUBEN VAN MITCHELL Professional Staff Member
CHRIS SHANK Professional Staff Member
RICHARD OBERMANN Democratic Professional Staff Member
MICHAEL BEAVIN Legislative Assistant
C O N T E N T S
July 19, 2001
Witness List
Hearing Charter
Opening Statement by Dana Rohrabacher, Chairman, Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics
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Opening Statement by the Honorable Bart Gordon, Representative in Congress from the State of Tennessee
Statement by R. John Hansman, Jr., Professor of Aeronautics and Astronauts; Director, MIT International Center for Air Transportation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Statement by Steve Zaidman, Associate Administrator for Research and Acquisition, Federal Aviation Administration
Statement of Samuel L. Venneri, Associate Administrator for Aerospace Technology, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Statement of John B. Hayhurst, President, Air Traffic Management, The Boeing Company
Discussion
Privatization
Airline Ticket Tax
Future Role of Pilots
Pilot Training
Transitioning Pilots to a Future A.T.M. System
Today's A.T.M. System
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Cockpit Technology
FAA R&D Budget and Noise Mitigation
Improving NASA's Effectiveness in Aeronautics
APPENDIX 1: Biographies
Biography for R. John Hansman, Jr., Professor of Aeronautics and Astronauts; Director, MIT International Center for Air Transportation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Biography for Samuel L. Venneri, Associate Administrator for Aerospace Technology, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Biography for John B. Hayhurst, President, Air Traffic Management, The Boeing Company
APPENDIX 2: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers submitted by R. John Hansman, Jr., Professor of Aeronautics and Astronauts; Director, MIT International Center for Air Transportation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Answers submitted by Steve Zaidman, Associate Administrator for Research and Acquisition, Federal Aviation Administration
Answers submitted by John B. Hayhurst, President, Air Traffic Management, The Boeing Company
DEVELOPING THE NEXT GENERATION AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
THURSDAY, JULY 19, 2001
House of Representatives,
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Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
Committee on Science,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2 p.m., in Room 2320 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. I hereby call this meeting of the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee to order. And without objection, the Chair will be granted authority to recess the Committee at any time. Hearing no objections, so ordered.
[The information follows:]
Committee on Science
Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Hearing on
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Developing the Next Generation Air Traffic Management System
Thursday, July 19, 2001
Witness List
Mr. Sam Venneri
Associate Administrator,
National Aeronautics & Space Administration
Professor R. John Hansman
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mr. Steve Zaidman
Associate Administrator,
Federal Aviation Administration
Mr. John Hayhurst
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President,
Boeing Air Traffic Management
Section 210 of the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995, applies the rights and protections covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to the United States Congress. Accordingly, the Committee on Science strives to accommodate/meet the needs of those requiring special assistance. If you need special accommodation, please contact the Committee on Science in advance of the scheduled event (three days requested) at (202) 225–6371 or FAX (202) 225–0891.
Should you need Committee materials in alternative formats, please contact the Committee as noted above.
HEARING CHARTER
DEVELOPING THE NEXT GENERATION
AIR TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
THURSDAY, JULY 19, 2001
10:00 AM
2318 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
I. PURPOSE OF HEARING
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On Thursday, July 19, 2001, at 10:00 am in 2318 Rayburn, the Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee will hold a hearing on industry and government efforts to develop the next generation air traffic management (ATM) system. Many aviation experts believe that the current ground-based system cannot be stretched much further to achieve the capacity increases necessary to accommodate predicted growth. The Federal Aviation Administration recently announced a major initiative known as the Operational Evolution Plan (OEP) that proposes a number of improvements to increase capacity in the National Airspace System (NAS) by 2011. If successful, these enhancements are expected to add 30% capacity, but predicted growth in traffic will offset these gains. The hearing will focus on government and industry efforts to develop ATM hardware and systems beyond the ten year horizon. Witnesses will be:
Prof. R. John Hansman, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, received his Ph.D. in Physics from MIT and has been a member of its faculty since 1982 specializing in flight safety, flight information, instrumentation, meteorology, human factors, and air transportation. He has over 4800 hours flight experience in a wide variety of aircraft. Prof. Hansman will address the following questions in his testimony: 1) What are the problems facing the Air Traffic Management system and assess FAA's success in addressing them? 2) Do FAA and NASA have the capability to collaboratively carry out an effective long-term R&D program on future ATM designs? 3) Does the Boeing ATM proposal offer promise as a genuine long-term solution?
Mr. Steve Zaidman, Associate Administrator for Research and Acquisitions, Federal Aviation Administration. Mr. Zaidman has been with FAA for 21 years and was named to his current position in July 1998. As AA for Research and Acquisitions, he heads an organization of over 2000 people that is primarily responsible for designing and upgrading the infrastructure of the National Airspace System. Mr. Zaidman will address the following questions in his testimony: 1) Given existing resources, is FAA capable of addressing long-term capacity challenges facing the ATM system? 2) Is FAA collaborating with industry and other government agencies to develop long-term solutions? 3) What is FAA's reaction to the Boeing Company's unsolicited Air Traffic Management program?
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Mr. Sam Venneri, Associate Administrator for Aerospace Technology, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Mr. Venneri has been with NASA since 1981 and was named to his current position in February 2000. He also serves as NASA's Chief Technologist. Mr. Venneri received a B.S. in aerospace engineering, and an M.S. in engineering science. Mr. Venneri will address the following questions in his testimony: 1) What research is NASA performing to develop innovative long-term solutions for our nation's ATM system? 2) To what degree will a future ATM system rely on satellite-based communications, navigation and surveillance systems to provide critical ATM services?
Mr. John Hayhurst, President, Air Traffic Management, The Boeing Company. Mr. Hayhurst joined Boeing in 1969 and has held a variety of positions in marketing, design, and manufacturing. He was named to his current position in November 2000 and just prior to this assignment served as vice president and general manager of 737 programs. Mr. Hayhurst will describe their ATM proposal and address the following questions in his testimony: 1) Is the Boeing ATM proposal a complement to—or a replacement of—the current system? 2) What has been industry and government reaction to Boeing's proposal?
2. Background
The Federal Aviation Administration manages our nation's air traffic control system. It is a highly complex, inter-dependent network of ground-based radars, radio communication, and radio navigation systems built largely on a 50 year old operational model that employs over 17,000 air traffic controllers.
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Aircraft move over a network of jetways. These can be likened to ''highways in the sky.'' By routing aircraft through this system FAA controllers insure that airplanes are safely separated from nearby traffic. While the pattern of jetways is spread in a fairly uniform manner over the country—making it relatively easy to disperse traffic—operations begin to be constrained as aircraft converge on busy hub airports.
The paramount consideration underlying FAA's management of this system is safety. Regulations and processes designed to move aircraft throughout the National Airspace System (NAS) are structured to ensure that no two aircraft flying under instrument flight rules will ever come in conflict with each other. To that end, the FAA enjoys an extraordinary record of achievement, daily moving through the system 1.9 million passengers on 36,000 scheduled flights, 40 thousand tons of cargo, and 60,000 general aviation and non-scheduled flights.
Following deregulation of the domestic air carrier industry in 1978 (and after a protracted period of industry consolidation), routes and frequencies flown by scheduled air carriers changed dramatically with an emphasis on short, high frequency flights centered around hub airports. Today scheduled air carriers handle three-times the number of passengers as they did in 1978. Since 1991 passenger traffic has increased by 40%. FAA estimates that 670 million passengers will fly in the system during 2001.
Looking ahead, predictions of passenger demand—and the number of aircraft needed to transport them—show steady growth. Between now and the year 2012, FAA estimates that passenger traffic will increase at an annual rate of 3.9%, so that by the year 2012 real growth will be 50% above current levels with one billion passengers annually using the system.
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The Boeing Company, in its most recent market forecast, predicts that by the year 2020 the number of commercial airplanes in active service throughout North America will almost double, with many new aircraft being the popular regional jets. Their use presents a growing challenge to the ATM infrastructure. Regional jets carry far fewer passengers than traditional larger jets, but they occupy the same space when queuing for landings and take-offs.
No matter the future challenges, FAA admits that the current air traffic management system is reaching capacity at large hub airports and associated en-route centers. As evidence, the number of delays encountered by scheduled air carriers has risen 50% over the last five years. Most often these result from bad weather, but given the high degree of saturation at hub airports and the limited amount of capacity available to redirect traffic away from localized trouble-spots, a storm in one region of the country often causes delays throughout a large portion of the system.
System delays generate a huge cost to industry, passengers, shippers and government. Cost statistics vary widely, but however stated the sums are enormous. A report issued by the Congressional Research Service last year on air traffic control delays cited a cost to carriers of $3 billion.(see footnote 1) The Air Transport Association estimates that delays in 1998 cost carriers and their customers more than $4.5 trillion.
3. Government Initiatives
FAA has, for a long time, endeavored to increase system capacity. Its accomplishments though, have not kept pace with increases in traffic. As mentioned previously, in early June FAA announced an initiative—the ''Operational Evolution Plan''—that will add 30% capacity if it is successful. The OEP is a successor to several previous initiatives and represents a consolidated, tightly focused program that relies on a combination of solutions such as new runway construction, improved collaboration with airlines and airports, allowing aircraft on a limited basis to fly more efficient point-to-point routes rather than following jetways, and new operational procedures at certain en-route centers and hub airports. It is not a paradigm shift, but rather a series of incremental improvements to the existing operational model.
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Since its inception, NASA has performed long-term, high-risk research on a wide variety of aeronautical vehicles and systems.(see footnote 2) In recent years the agency has begun to focus more resources on ATM-related issues through its Aviation System Capacity Program. For Fiscal Year 2002, NASA requested modest funding for a new ATM research and development effort that could expand into a major program, provided early research shows promising results.
NASA has also produced a number of aviation safety-related technologies that indirectly bear on capacity and have potential application in future ATM architectures such as data-link systems, synthetic vision, and adverse weather detection.
4. The Boeing Proposal
The day after FAA announced its Operational Evolution Plan, Boeing Air Traffic Management formally announced its concept for a future ATM system advertised as being capable of meeting current and future air traffic demands. It would rely heavily on a constellation of satellites providing communications, navigation, and surveillance capabilities. Information—including flight guidance—would be data-linked between aircraft and ground controllers; aircraft would have cockpit displays showing nearby traffic, much the same as air traffic controllers see on their radar screens; and aircraft would be able to fly efficient routings of their own choosing for the cruise phase of flight, with controllers intervening only to direct converging aircraft away from each other well in advance of any potential conflict.
Details regarding initial costs, the possibility of user fees, how the system will integrate with the current ATM system, and how to transition to a fully operational system have not yet been resolved.
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5. Challenges
Significant challenges face government and industry as they attempt to reach consensus on a new Air Traffic Management paradigm. Key considerations are:
Equipage. No matter what the final design of a future ATM system may be, experts agree it will be highly reliant on a sophisticated network of ground- and aircraft-based computers to achieve the greatest capacity gains. Large and small aircraft will have to install expensive new communication, navigation, and cockpit display systems to be fully integrated. In some instances the cost to retrofit planes—especially older commercial jets—may far exceed their market value, forcing owners to discard them in favor of purchasing newer, more expensive models, or simply abandoning the plane(s). All market niches—general aviation, commercial, military, and business jet operators—are extremely sensitive to this issue. Nevertheless, to fully maximize the future system's capabilities all aircraft will have to carry a basic suite of equipment. General aviation aircraft may be able to get by with a less-expensive, less-sophisticated array of radios and on-board computers.
Acquisition. While FAA may have a deep interest in learning more about Boeing's technology and business plan, it must also be cognizant of its larger responsibility to the public and to competing companies, especially when discussions are raised to the level of a potential new system acquisition. Should Boeing seek a sole-source contract, FAA may choose instead to put out a broad solicitation for competing bids in hopes of attracting superior offers.
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International Harmonization and Competition. The European Community and the Airbus Company have begun discussions on developing a new ATM system for the European continent. FAA must insure that aircraft equipped to fly in our future ATM system can effectively and safely operate in foreign airspace, and vice versa.
Another complication arises in instances where foreign countries have privatized their air traffic control systems, such as Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. No longer can FAA rely on government-to-government negotiations to harmonize standards, and these for-profit ATM companies may be reluctant to invest the necessary sums to accommodate aircraft equipped to fly in the U.S. system.
The U.S. has traditionally been the world leader in global aviation, especially in the areas of safety, security, regulation, and air traffic services. Should the Europeans move aggressively in establishing a new ATM system, they may well set international standards that will guide other countries as they upgrade their domestic fleets and ATM systems, imperiling FAA's leadership in the world arena and our domestic industry's ability to design, build, and sell ATM systems to foreign buyers.
Transition. Once a future design is agreed upon, rules and procedures must be developed to phase-in introduction of new ground- and space-based equipment contemporaneously with the introduction of new equipage standards for aircraft. Additionally, aircraft equipment builders will need time to design, test, certify, manufacture and install the systems.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. The U.S. Interstate Highway System allowed prosperity, efficiency and comfort to flourish in the 20th Century, as far as the United States of America. And I believe this trend of democratizing mobility also extends to the network of jetways that currently support commerce and public transportation.
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These jetways, regarded by some as highways in the sky, will become just as critical to our way of life and our prosperity in the 21st Century, as those roadways were, those highways were, back in the 20th Century.
A dramatic influx of air traffic anticipated for the nation's hub airports requires modernizing the air traffic management system over the next several years. Today's Hearing will focus on efforts by the FAA and NASA and industry, as well, to develop air traffic control hardware and systems needed to meet the near and long-term challenges to our national airspace system.
Air travel is an integral part of my life, in particular, because, obviously, I go back and forth every week and many Members go back and forth quite often and we depend on our air traffic control system. But it is also an important part of our country's prosperity and our country's economy. And I would say that a lot of this is due—and the success we will have with a successful management system. And that is what we are here to talk about today.
Those individuals responsible for safe and reliable air transportation must continue their track record in the face of new challenges. And with that said, the government and industry must move very quickly to ensure an improved air traffic control infrastructure is in place to meet the projected increase in air traffic.
Our panel today will inform us of ongoing efforts to shore up deficiencies in the current system, but also we will talk about, perhaps, some ideas that we might look to the future—as well. So I would like to now recognize Ranking Minority Member, Bart Gordon for his opening statement. You may proceed.
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[The prepared opening statement of Chairman Dana Rohrabacher follows:]
PREPARED OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN DANA ROHRABACHER
The U.S. interstate highway system allowed prosperity, efficiency and comfort to flourish in 20th Century America. I believe this trend of democratizing mobility also extends to the network of jetways that currently support commerce and public transportation. These jetways, regarded by some as the ''highways in the sky,'' will become just as critical to our way of life in the 21st Century. The dramatic influx in air traffic anticipated for the nation's hub airports, however, requires modernizing the air traffic management system over the next several years. Today's hearing will focus on efforts by the FAA, NASA, and industry to develop air-traffic control hardware and systems needed to meet near- and long-term challenges to the national airspace system.
Air travel is an integral part of my life because of this nation's successful air management system. However, those individuals responsible for safe and reliable air transportation must continue their track record in the face of new challenges. That said, the government and industry must move briskly to ensure an improved air-traffic control infrastructure is in place for meeting the projected increase in air traffic.
Our panel today will inform us of ongoing efforts to shore up deficiencies in the national airspace system.
STATEMENT OF HON. BART GORDON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE
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Mr. GORDON. Thank you. Good morning or afternoon. I would like to welcome the witnesses to today's Hearing. The nation's air traffic management system is critical to our economy. And we need to ensure that we will be able to handle the growth in air traffic projected for the next 25 years.
Since the air traffic management system is barely handling today's travel volume, it is clear to me that the FAA and NASA have a big job ahead of them.
Our witnesses today will describe some of the R and D that they hope will help us to improve the efficiency of the future air traffic management system, as well as their visions of what that future system should look like.
Of course, the devil is in the details. And some critical questions that I hope each of the witnesses will address are how will we transition from the existing air traffic management system to your desired future system without undue disruption of the nation's air traffic or air travel in the process.
How do you ensure the proposals to increase the capacity of the National Airspace System don't adversely affect safety, nor it's levels and other quality of life indicators?
In addition, I would like the witnesses to address the issue of training, both for pilots and controllers and how to ensure that we will have the skilled personnel we need in the coming decades.
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Finally, I don't think we can ignore the issue of resources. That is, is the Federal Aviation R and D budget big enough to enable all the research needed to increase the capacity and safety of the National Airspace System? Or are the existing budgets too small to permit us to explore potential revolutionary concepts more vigorously?
But we have a lot of material to cover today. So, again, I welcome the witnesses and look forward to hearing your testimony.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Without objection, the opening statements of other members will be put in the written record so we can get right to the testimony. Hearing no objections, so ordered. I also ask unanimous consent to insert at the appropriate place in the record for the background memorandum prepared by the majority staff for this Hearing. Hearing no objection, so ordered. And, lastly, I request unanimous consent that the record for this Hearing remain open until August 2, year 2001, so that additional testimony may be inserted into the record. And without objection, so ordered.
Today, we have 4 witnesses who will present testimony examining our nation's efforts in developing an improved air traffic control system. Before I introduce the witnesses, I would like to ask each of you, please summarize, a five minute summary would be appreciated. Your full statement and your ideas can be placed into the record. But it is better that we have a little bit of a dialogue.
And so, with that, Dr. John Hansman is our first witness. He is a professor at the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT. Dr. Hansman has logged over 4800 hours flight experience in a wide variety of aircraft. And we are very appreciative of the insights you have to give us today and you may proceed with your testimony, Doctor.
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Mr. HANSMAN. Sorry. It was a hidden button. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members for the opportunity to talk today a little bit about the future of the air traffic management system. In interest of time, I am going to try and just address the 3 questions that the Committee put to me.
The first is what is your assessment of the current problems facing the air traffic management system and how would you judge the FAA's response to these challenges?
My take on it is that the U.S. Air Transportation System and the systems in the western world are approaching a critical saturation threshold where nominal interruptions, such as weather, result in a nonlinear amplification of delays.
The U.S. and regional economies are highly dependent on air transportation, business, air freight and personal travel. The current system is highly complex and interdependent. In fact, it is officially understanding—I actually don't believe that anybody has a full understanding of the dynamics of this system—including the economic elements.
Therefore, we need a better understanding of the system dynamics to guide and justify efforts to upgrade the system. And I will get to it a little bit later. But the current efforts will not provide sufficient capacity to meet demand at key points.
The impact of the upcoming crisis in capacity is not well understood, either in terms of its operational impact or its economic impact on the nation.
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This is just some data that shows us—you may have seen this. This shows—this is data showing total system delays by month for the past 5 years, starting in 1995. If you look at it carefully, you will see starting in about 1998, we have got an increase in delays during the Summer. In 1999, it was a little bit worse. In 2000, the delays came up in the Summer, but they did not go down in the Fall. That is actually due to a point problem in the system. It is actually due to the effect of LaGuardia Airport going over capacity due to some details in legislation. And if you look at it in 2001, we are a little bit better than some of us had thought we would be. Partly due to a slowdown in the economy. Partly due to some efforts on the part of the FAA and partly due to the fact that the airlines have recognized this to some extent and have done a little bit of schedule adjustment.
The delays don't tell the whole story. This is the flight cancellation rate data. And you see that it is important to note that the cancelled flights don't show up in the delay data. So as well as delays going up, cancellations have gone up significantly in the past 3 years.
As a result, the consumers aren't happy. This is the air travel consumer's report complaint data. And you can see starting in about 1998, there has been a significant rise in consumer complaints across airlines.
What are the cause factors? Primarily, we have too much demand and not enough capacity in the system. This shows you the increase in traffic demand. These are passenger enplanements since the U.S. modern air traffic control system was put into place. We have had a 7 fold increase in passenger traffic. And the system has evolved into a highly complex network of, as you noted, hub and spoke airports, as well as point to point airports.
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Just to give you an example, this is a movie actually developed by NASA and Raytheon, showing you the dynamics of the system over a 24 hour period. If you look carefully, you can see airplanes flying into and out of the hub and spoke system. This is in the late afternoon. As we go into the overnight period here, you actually see the traffic dies down. If you look carefully, you can see traffic flowing into and out of the cargo hubs. As we go into the early morning time here, traffic flows out of the cargo hubs to the East coast. Now, watch carefully, starting on the East coast in the morning, you have a blossoming of traffic. As the traffic grows across the country, and in the typical mid-day time period, you have roughly 4,000—it varies between 3,000 and 4,000 airplanes being controlled in the system.
Okay? And this is just to give you a note of sort of the complexity of the system. Remember, this was a two dimensional picture. This is a three dimensional system.
Now, one of the things that happens, I mentioned the weather problem. This is a picture of traffic flowing into Dallas/Fort Worth. The purple trajectory tracks are the radar tracks. Airplanes going into Dallas. This was May 4. If you look carefully, the yellow and green is weather that is heading into the Dallas Airport. That started to impact the capacity of the system, both through the arrival tracks—the weather isn't at Dallas yet. Due to the arrival tracks, as a consequence, airplanes are being held in the system. If you will look carefully, you will see little loops in the system. Those are holding patterns. And airplanes are being held as far East as the East coast, especially in Atlanta, due to the slowdown in Dallas.
Now, if you then take this and consider all the key airports in the system, you can see that it is extremely hard to control or manage the traffic going in. This is just another example in—at JFK.
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If you think about—that was the demand side. If you think about what the capacity limit factors are, fundamentally, we are limited by both airport and airspace capacity. We sort of have a balanced system in some sense. The airport capacity, fundamentally, is runway capacity. The nation has not added runway capacity at the rate that the demand—that the passenger traffic demands. In fact, we have been losing runways. In addition to airport capacity with runways, we have to consider gates and landside limits.
There is also a fundamental problem in some airports, particularly my home airport of Boston that the capacity of the system isn't even. It depends on the weather. So if the capacity of the airport drops, suddenly we get backups in the system.
On the airspace side, there are some fundamental issues on how we manage the traffic and the design of the airspace. The capacity is limited by the workload or complexity an individual controller in a sector can handle. And the system right now is somewhat inefficient due to what I call balkanization of responsibility. So that it is sometimes difficult to coordinate across multiple sectors.
As noted by Mr. Gordon, we also have fundamental problems in adding capacity because of environmental issues, particularly noise and emissions.
I will be happy later to talk more in detail. But I have to do this fast. Question two—oh, let me say, I didn't quite finish. I was supposed to talk about how the FAA's effort——
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you. You have——
Mr. HANSMAN. One minute? Okay. I will—I can stop if you want.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Well, we will give you 1 minute to summarize.
Mr. HANSMAN. Okay. In summary, do the FAA and NASA have an effective long-term research and development program for air traffic management? No. Not in my view of long term. Note that it takes 20 years to get technology into the system. People have done a good job implementing technology we have on the shelf. But we are not working the technology that we need for the 20 year out time frame.
How did I assess the operational concepts underlying the Boeing proposal? I think fundamentally, the Boeing proposal is strong, in terms of the system engineering aspect. It's use of trajectory base approaches. The question regarding satellite base CNS systems, satellite base systems are clearly the right answer for the world, however, we have an installed base in the U.S. and it is not clear how we are going to transition from the installed base we have to the global satellite base system.
[The prepared statement of R. John Hansman, Jr. follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF R. JOHN HANSMAN, JR.
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Chairman Rohrabacher and Members of the Subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the future of the U.S. Air Traffic Management (ATM) System. The U.S. has the best air transportation system in the world and we have become dependent on that system to maintain our quality of life and the health of the Nation's economy. We risk, however, a degradation in that quality of life as our air transportation infrastructure begins to reach capacity limits at critical points.
I will comment below on the specific questions which you have asked me to address.
What is your assessment of the current problems facing the air traffic management system? How would you judge the Federal Aviation Administration's response to these challenges?
The U.S. air traffic management system is approaching a critical saturation threshold where nominal interruptions, such as weather, result in a nonlinear amplification of delays and cancellations. Let me give you some evidence of the problem.
Figure 1 shows the number of delayed flights per month since 1995. You can see that in 1998 the number of delayed flights started to rise in the summer months. This is due to convective (i.e., Thunderstorm) weather which interrupts traffic flows and causes delays that ripple through the system. The situation was worse in 1999 and even worse in 2000. Note that the delays did not recover in the fall of 2000. This is due, in part, to a particular overload situation at the New York LaGuardia Airport. Many of us expected the situation in 2001 to be even worse than 2000 but a combination of factors including airline schedule adjustments, demand management at LaGuardia as well as a weaker economy appear to have had some effect.
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The delays do not tell the entire story because canceled flights are not included in the delay data. Figure 2 shows the increased rate of flight cancellations starting in 1998. The combination of delays, cancellations and high aircraft load factors make it difficult for airlines to re-accommodate interrupted passengers. This has resulted in the public demand to address the air traffic management issue.
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The fundamental issue is that the demand for air transportation within the U.S. has outstripped the capacity at key points in the system. Figure 3 shows an example of a typical mid-day traffic situation showing some of the network structure, the concentration of traffic around the hub airports, and the high traffic density in the eastern part of the country.
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Demand Growth—Passenger traffic has grown by over 7 times since the modern Air Traffic Control (ATC) system was installed in the early 1950s. In order to meet this demand the airlines have evolved a complex network structure with hub and spoke elements. The hub and spoke system tends to create very high peak traffic demand as banks of aircraft flow into and out of the hubs. Because of the interrelated nature of the network, delays at one location tend to propagate throughout the system.
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Capacity Limit Factors—The capacity in the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS) is limited both by airport and airspace factors.
The key airport limit factor is the runway capacity. Due to aircraft wake turbulence considerations aircraft cannot get too close during takeoff or landing, thereby limiting the capacity of the runway system. The finite capacity of a particular airport may be further reduced in certain low visibility or wind conditions. Secondary airport limit factors include airport gates and landside limits such as ground transportation or airport security throughput. It has been extremely difficult to add airport capacity in the U.S., particularly at key locations due to local political considerations and environmental considerations, particularly noise and emissions. Each year we suffer a net loss in national airports and landing capability.
The key airspace limit factors are related to how traffic is managed in the current system as well as airspace design issues, controller workload, separation standards and difficulties in coordinating between sectors and facilities. In order to deal with the high volume, traffic is organized into fairly rigid patterns. Within the nominal structure, traffic is restricted to assure that no downstream sector will exceed its acceptable level of traffic. Any interruption in the flow then causes restrictions and delays to propagate upstream.
The FAA has had a difficult time trying to respond to increasing system congestion while operating the system at a day to day level. Given the limitations of the current system, the FAA and the individual controllers have done an outstanding job operationally. The safety record is excellent and the efficiency is greater than peer systems such as in Europe. The FAA's history of fielding technology has been mixed but the recent FAA performance has been better through the Free Flight Phase 1 and 2 plans, and I am encouraged by the Operational Evolution Plan (OEP). However, the OEP approach is incremental and will only marginally increase the capacity of the system.
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Do FAA and NASA have an effective long-term research and development program for air traffic management?
The FAA is consumed with near-term operational problems and has traditionally been poor at anticipating and working long-term research needs. In the past few years, the research budget has been cut dramatically and the FAA has essentially ceded much of its long-term research responsibility to NASA. With the exception of a few focused projects [e.g., Center TRACON Automation System (CTAS) and Datalink] NASA's activity in the ATM area is fairly recent. While the relationship between the FAA and NASA has been good at the research level, there is not a good process for the requirements to flow down from the operational elements of the FAA. Similarly there is not a good process for technology to be transitioned from NASA to the FAA. In many cases there is a gap between the Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) in existing NASA programs and the TRLs required for consideration in FAA programs.
There have been some success stories, such as CTAS, and many of the elements of Free Flight Phases 1 and 2 are the result of earlier NASA and FAA research efforts. However, these have depleted the pipeline of mature ATM technologies.
I would note that it has traditionally taken approximately 20 years to develop ATM technology to the level or maturity required for implementation. The stronger relationship between NASA and the FAA runs the risk of consuming the NASA efforts with relatively short-term objectives. This will become particularly acute in the next few years if the expected capacity crisis develops. I believe that it is critical that NASA keep a part of their research portfolio committed to long-term (20+ year) research and development efforts.
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How would you assess operational concepts underlying the air traffic management proposal recently put forth by the Boeing Company? Is a system of satellite-based communications, navigation, and surveillance the most effective solution for future air traffic management services?
Let me first qualify my comments by noting that my knowledge of the Boeing proposal is limited to the public documentation and some non-proprietary discussions with Boeing personnel. I therefore do not have knowledge of the proprietary elements of the Boeing plan. I would also note that the Boeing proposal is under development and at a relatively immature stage at this point.
Having said that, there are numerous elements in the proposal which are meritorious. In particular, I applaud the long-term perspective and the systems engineering approach where Boeing builds on their experience in large-scale system integration. This is consistent with what we are teaching at MIT in systems engineering and NASA has been supportive of this approach. I would caution Boeing that there are significant differences between transitioning a complex, evolved and operating system such as ATM and the development of a new complex system such as a modern aircraft.
I support the core operational elements of the Boeing proposal including Aircraft Trajectory based approaches, Common Information Networks, Airspace Redesign and New Runways. I believe that there is consensus in the ATM community that these are desirable elements of a future ATM system. The proposal is somewhat less clear on details of how the elements will provide system capacity improvements.
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Regarding the benefits of an integrated satellite-based Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) system, it is clear that such a capability is desirable from a global perspective, particularly in oceanic, developing and remote regions of the world which do not have good CNS coverage. The utility of satellite-based CNS infrastructure is less clear in developed regions such as the U.S. or Europe where there is already an installed base of existing ground and satellite-based CNS infrastructure. In the long term, it is desirable for the U.S. ATM system to be interoperable with the global system and even to set the standard. However, in the near term, it is difficult to see how improved CNS capability will significantly increase capacity of the system. This is because the current limitations are not due to CNS performance but more to airport infrastructure, airspace, and operational procedure limitations.
The key concern I have with the proposal is common to any ATM modernization effort. History shows that it is extremely difficult to change a safety-critical, operating, socio-technical system such as ATM. We do not have a good process for transition. Because the current system is so safe, those responsible for safety and operations will naturally resist change. This is even more difficult in the international environment where it often takes decades to make even simple changes. If the Boeing, or any, ATM operational paradigm shift is to be possible, we need to develop a transition process where the national and international regulators define standards and processes which manage implementation risk.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much and we will excuse that extra minute because you had such, you know, really groovy graphics. It is really cool.
And next, we have Steve Zaidman, who is Associate Administrator for Research and Acquisitions at the FAA. He is responsible for designing and upgrading the infrastructure of the National Airspace System. So we have the fellow who is in command on the front line and we are very happy to have you with us to give us some of your thoughts. You may proceed.
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Mr. ZAIDMAN. Thank you, Chairman Rohrabacher, Congressman Gordon and Members of the Subcommittee. And I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss about the next generation air traffic management system.
The Federal Government has an obligation to provide a safe and efficient air traffic control system. And local governments and communities must also make difficult choices to address the need for more airport capacity. And each airline must make scheduling and fleet use decisions that maximize system efficiency and airport capacity as well.
The good news is that in recent years, important collaborative relationships have evolved and have been established in the way we do business. Building on these relationships is the only way in the long term and also in the short term, to address the capacity challenges that face us.
In June of this year, FAA released what we call our Operational Evolution Plan or OEP. And that is a comprehensive, integrated picture of NAS capacity enhancement initiatives for the next several years. As the title suggests, the document will change as new innovations and technologies are implemented and others emerge.
The development of this plan does represent a coordinated, integrated effort with FAA and the industry. The plan calls for changes in how aircraft operate to better utilize capacity, how to redesign airspace, how to accommodate the growing numbers of flights while maintaining safety, how to deploy new technologies and how to transition those technologies in. And as new innovative technologies become available, they will be included in our plan. And thus, integrated in the system.
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The plan sets achievable goals that build upon one another for long-term success. As Administrator Garvey often says, we need to be able to be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, so we can build on what we are accomplishing. And we at FAA are making those commitments. And the plan will require our partners, especially the airlines, to make investments in avionics equipment and pilot training for this effort to expand system capacity. And that is why we have worked so diligently and so cooperatively with the users.
Our partner, one of our partners, NASA, provides the critical research and development for the future system. And their Congressional mandate, really, is ideally suited with ours, when NASA develops the concepts, prototypes them and then hands them off, if you will, for FAA for a transition into the system. So I do think we have relatively complimentary roles, which work well together.
In addition to NASA, we also work with our Federally funded research and development centers, such as Mitre, Lincoln Laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and other private industries. And collectively, this team helps leverage the limited resources that we all have to do our job.
But, Mr. Chairman, the technology has always played a role in maintaining commercial aviation's impressive safety record. However, new technology alone is not a panacea and must be deployed judiciously. The wrong technologies, employed in the wrong ways, could cause more problems than they solve. In addition, sometimes the technology that is helpful in getting an aircraft from point A to B may not work smoothly when integrated into the overall system. So it is critical to development of useful technology that our public and private partners understand the air traffic management system and the complexity of aircraft operations.
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And in recent years, NASA and our other partners have worked closely with us, with our Agency, to understand the most complex airspace in the world. And you saw the—and you mentioned the video. In order to better focus developmental efforts. I think many of us who have been working on future technologies that meet the challenges posed by anticipated capacity demands have a vision of what the next generation air traffic management system should look like.
And what that is that air traffic control computers on the ground, who know where all the traffic are, will communicate directly with flight management systems in the cockpit through a protected, secure, high-speed data communications to determine the best possible routes. And through that interchange, preferred routes can be negotiated. And then negotiated around other traffic and then negotiated around hazardous weather. And so the ground-based air traffic control systems will know the position of the aircraft and the weather and will negotiate, like I said, directly with the airborne computer. And this is our vision and this is our belief where we are heading.
However, understanding what we want and understanding how to get there are two different things. One of the greatest challenges we face in our modernization effort is the development of new technologies without excessive disruption to the existing system. And the demands of the National Aviation System will never permit us, obviously, to close down the system while we rebuild it. In addition to new technologies, we will be dependent on system users investing in costly avionics. That is the equipment on board the aircraft, to obtain the additional information and enhancements that they provide. So working through these types of challenges is why continued collaboration with systems users is so essential.
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A vision of the future accompanied by needed capital investment and hard work will help shape how air traffic is managed in the next 20 or 30 years. But even the most innovative plans will only succeed with the necessary communication, collaboration and cooperation throughout the industry. And we stand ready to facilitate the development and implementation of that future system.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Steve Zaidman follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEVE ZAIDMAN
Chairman Rohrabacher, Congressman Gordon, Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss the next generation of air traffic management. Secretary Mineta has said repeatedly that one of the most critical issues facing us today is our ability to build the technology and infrastructure improvements needed to manage the continued rapid growth of aviation. We will only succeed in meeting the challenges that face us in this area if government, at all levels, works in cooperation with all segments of the aviation industry. The federal government has an obligation to provide a safe and efficient air traffic control system. Local governments and communities must make difficult choices to address the need for more airport capacity. And each airline must make scheduling and fleet use decisions that maximize system efficiency and airport capacity. The good news is that, in recent years, important collaborative relationships have been established that have changed the way we do business. Building on these relationships is the only way the long and short term capacity challenges of the national airspace system (NAS) can be met.
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In June of this year, FAA released its Operational Evolution Plan (OEP), a dynamic, comprehensive, and integrated picture of all of FAA's capacity enhancement initiatives and goals for the next ten years. As the title suggests, the document will change as new innovations and technologies are implemented and others emerge. The document accommodates FAA's current practice of soliciting ideas and new technologies that could improve the efficient and safe movement of air traffic and/or increase NAS capacity, even if these technologies would not be viable for 25 to 30 years. As new innovations and technologies become mature and can be implemented, they will become part of the plan.
I would like to take a moment to describe the OEP and the process that developed it, because it demonstrates the importance of collaboration with all segments of the industry in order to successfully address the issues of air traffic safety, efficiency and capacity. The development of the OEP represented a coordinated effort within the FAA and collaboration with the airlines, airports, and other members of the aviation community.
The plan calls for changes in how aircraft operate to better utilize available capacity; a redesign of the airspace to accommodate greater numbers of aircraft while maintaining safety; deployment of new technology to increase flexibility; construction of new runways; and new procedures to improve management and mitigation of delays.
The OEP represents a fundamental change in our approach to integrated planning. It sets achievable goals that build one upon the other for long-term success. It is a natural extension of Administrator Garvey's approach to modernization, that of evolution rather than revolution. It is all about commitment, accountability, and then delivering on the promise. While we at the FAA are making certain commitments, the OEP will require our partners, particularly the airlines, to make significant investments in avionics equipment and pilot training for this effort in expanding system capacity. That is why we have worked so diligently in getting industry support for the OEP.
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While the OEP represents fundamental, achievable goals, longer term initiatives and technologies must be developed for eventual inclusion in the OEP. Long-term research and development of air traffic management systems is no longer being done primarily by the FAA. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) provides crucial research and development of future air traffic management technologies. NASA's congressional mandate is ideally suited to assist FAA with creating and developing concepts for the future. The foundation for our working relationship with NASA was formalized in October 1998 when Administrator Garvey and Administrator Goldin signed an agreement to articulate and achieve specific goals enabling the NAS to meet its future challenges. In accordance with the agreement, FAA and NASA jointly develop advanced air traffic control support tools, improve training efficiency and enhance safety through human factors research, and develop and test advanced communications, navigation and surveillance systems. NASA's role is to perform research, development, verification and transfer activities upon technologies with advanced potential for improving the NAS and to assist in the transition of those technologies. The FAA's complementary role is to prepare these identified technologies for introduction into the NAS. We are working on technologies that will help with the flow of aircraft, including high altitude aircraft, into busy airports and will provide a flexible surface management system that will reduce arrival and departure delays and inefficiencies due to surface issues and other restrictions. These are just two of many examples of next generation technologies being worked on.
In addition to our efforts with NASA following our 1998 agreement, the FAA established and tailored a Technology Transfer program to address the need for Government-private sector cooperation by enabling companies, institutions of learning, and Federal laboratories to work together to develop innovative technologies and marketable projects. For example, we have worked closely with NASA/Ames on the development of free flight tools, which have been very successful. Mitre/CAASD, which is the FAA's federally funded research and development corporation, assisted us in the development of the OEP. They have also provided considerable assistance in research for collaborative decision making tools. In addition, we are working with Lincoln Labs on important weather projects. These partnerships leverage our resources in order to fully explore the potential for the future technologies.
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In August 2000, FAA and NASA signed the ''FAA–NASA Integrated Safety Research Plan.'' This plan further builds on our existing relationship. In addition to building upon previously existing plans involving the two agencies, it describes how FAA and NASA will achieve ongoing communication and coordination with respect to safety research in pursuit of common safety goals. It also establishes a strategy for FAA and NASA to make complementary, coordinated research investment decisions.
Technology has always played a role in maintaining commercial aviation's impressive safety record. However, new technology is not a panacea and must be deployed judiciously. The wrong technologies, employed in the wrong ways, could cause more problems than they solve. In addition, sometimes a technology that is helpful in getting an aircraft from point A to point B may not work smoothly when integrated into the overall system. It is critical to the development of useful technology that our public and private partners understand the NAS and the complexity of aircraft operations. In recent years, NASA and our other partners have worked closely with FAA to understand the complex United States airspace in the world in order to better focus developmental efforts on technologies that can be beneficial when integrated into the existing system.
I think many of us who have been working on future technologies that meet the challenges posed by anticipated capacity demands have a vision of what the next generation of air traffic management should look like. Air traffic control computers on the ground will communicate directly with flight management computers in the flight via high speed data communications to determine the best possible routes. This interchange will be capable of predicting potential conflicts with aircraft and weather enroute and offer the best resolution around it. The ground-based air traffic control computers will know the current position of all aircraft and weather and will be able to predict their future positions. Flight based computers will be able to accept or reject the proposed routings electronically. This is a commonly accepted view of the future of air traffic management.
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However, understanding what we want and understanding how to get there are two different things. One of the greatest challenges we have faced thus far in our modernization efforts is the deployment of new technologies without excessive disruption to a demanding and complex NAS. The demands on the NAS will never permit us to shut down one system while another is being installed and tested. In addition, many of the new technologies will be dependent on system users investing in costly avionics to obtain the additional information and enhancements they provide. Working through these types of challenges is why continued collaboration with system users is so essential.
A vision of the future accompanied by needed capital investment and hard work will help shape how air traffic is managed in 20 or 30 years. But even the most innovative technologies will only succeed with the necessary communication, collaboration, and cooperation throughout the aviation industry. FAA stands ready to facilitate the development and implementation of future air traffic management technologies to maximize the capacity and improve the safety of our busy and complex airspace.
Mr. Chairman, I will be happy to answer your questions at this time.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. Our next witness, Sam Venneri, is Associate Administrator for Aerospace Technology and Chief Technologist at NASA. We welcome him back and we thank you very much for all the hard work you have done in the past and the insights you will give us today.
Mr. VENNERI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here at this Hearing. And I would like to thank you for hosting this and the opportunity for NASA to participate in this important topic.
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I have a visual presentation I would like to make, along with my opening remarks and the written testimony is submitted with more details in there.
We have been working this for a while and in partnership with the FAA. And I think we have an opportunity to deal with the issue that has already been articulated by the first two speakers.
You know, one of the challenges we face is the fact that air transportation has been so accepted. If you look at that top graph that—since '78, since the airlines were deregulated, gross domestic product grew by 62 percent. Revenue passenger miles and revenue ton miles or cargo grew by 190 and 289 percent, respectively. That is the reason why those curves at the bottom are occurring. There was a phenomenal growth in the utilization of this transportation mode, both by passengers and moving goods and services, domestically in the United States and outside the United States. So it is a critical part of our transportation infrastructure.
Well, the issue is, and this has been touched upon by the previous speakers, this system that we currently have is the safest in the world and it is the most complex. The European system is only half as complex as the domestic U.S. airspace system. So we move up to 5,000 flights. There are 63 million operations a year in this system. And it is essentially unchanged since the 1960's, from a technology base. It is sector based. It is based on radar surveillance, Victor airways, two-way communication. A typical flight may go through 7 ATC centers, Air Traffic Control Centers, and talk to 25 controllers.
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What we are looking for is the next stage of evolution into an architecture that gets away from, in a sense, a system that all of us agree that will not reach the anticipated growth that everyone sees for this transportation sector.
Now, look at another view of the airports. You saw the animation that was done for the number of flights that occurs. You have to understand something of the nature of the hub and spoke system. We have 5,400 airports in this country. Yet, we only use the top 64 for enplanement of 80 percent of our passengers. So, in effect, you are looking at 1 percent of the airports handling 80 percent of the traffic.
And we only use about 10 percent of the airports effectively in this air transportation sector. So one of the aspects that we are looking at is exploiting the resources called other airports that are there and to expand that capability to truly look at alternative architectures that use other cement that is already in place.
Now, some of the things that we are doing today in NASA, and this is in excellent partnership with the FAA, we are looking at the aviation capacity with today's architecture. Today's ATC infrastructure. And we are looking at advanced air transportation technologies. And I will show you a few of those tools, as well as things in the terminal area of productivity.
We can give you details of this, but we have, basically, 16 tools. 16 entities that are on the FAA roadmap for evaluation and insertion into the current system today. There are things that we could do to increase capacity today with today's architecture. This gives you an example of what they are.
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Now, in effect, we are going into these various centers that are—the sectors around the country. And we are putting these tools in place with controllers, looking at how they work in the real world.
We just had a successful demonstration at Dallas/Fort Worth in early July. And the ability to give airlines direct routing in and out of the Dallas/Fort Worth area, versus these vector paths out.
Now, in terms of the terminal area productivity, we are looking at doing things with the airplane, the lower corner, in terms of low visibility. We did a demonstration, again, at Dallas/Fort Worth that if that technology was available, would have prevented that tragic runway incursion event that happened when that 747 Singapore Airlines took off in a rain storm and basically, couldn't see the obstacle on the runway that was there. This is synthetic vision to let the cockpit crews see as good as in daylight under harsh conditions.
We are also looking at capacity because of the nature of not knowing where the vortex is coming off subsequent airplanes. We space them out. If you know where the vortex is, you can eek out and get more capacity out of existing runways. We looked at a 6 percent to 10 percent gain in runway efficiencies in peak conditions, just knowing where the vortex is to tighten up the spacing.
Likewise, then, we are saying, look, we have a problem. And, actually, I think you touched upon it in your opening statement. You can't turn one system off and turn another one on. So we are looking at evolving from today's concept to looking at, perhaps, a satellite based or a smart infrastructure, where the airplane becomes part of the ATC system. So the airplane becomes part of the solution, so it is not just a ground-based structure.
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One of the things that we are working on is in our FYO2 budget, you will see a line there called Virtual Airspace Modeling. The previous speakers talked about the complexity of the system. It is a complex, nonlinear, you cannot model this with conventional techniques. We are looking at stepping up to something that deals with understanding the dynamics of the system at a fidelity scale that looks at potential solutions and architecture changes.
This is something we are expanding this year that is going to be a NASA/FAA/industry/university effort to deal with understanding the investments we need to do.
So in summary, the demand is growing and the delays are climbing. That is a given. The FAA Operational Evolution Plan that Mr. Zaidman referred to, we are on that roadmap to fix today's solutions. And at the same time, we need to look at ways of new partnerships with industry to actually bring maybe industry investment into a change state. So it isn't all government money. If you want to look at an evolution of the current system into an architecture that is fundamentally different from what it was in the 30's to today. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Sam Venneri follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SAMUEL L. VENNERI
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:
I am pleased to have this opportunity to discuss with you the important topic of air traffic. As we approach the centennial of flight, the size and scope of the Nation's air transportation system are truly impressive. Today, 75 percent of all passenger trips over 2000 miles and 50 percent over 1000 miles are made using air transportation. Furthermore, air freight carries 27 percent of the value of the Nation's exports and imports.
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Air transportation is vital to this Nation's economy and quality of life. Since 1978, when the airline industry was deregulated, the inflation adjusted gross domestic product (GDP) has increased by 62 percent, while total output of scheduled passenger air transportation (as measured by Revenue Passenger Miles, or RPMs) has increased by 190 percent and total air freight ton miles have increased even more, by 289 percent. Both passenger and freight growth continue to outstrip the growth in GDP. In many ways, the U.S. has only begun to tap what is possible in air transportation. The U.S. has 5,400 airports, but the vast majority of passengers pass through a little more than one percent of those airports and only about 10 percent have the instrument landing systems required for reliable operations.
Technological advances over the past 30 years, many of them first pioneered by NASA, have enabled a ten-fold improvement in aviation safety, a doubling of fuel efficiency with reductions in emissions per operation, a 50 percent reduction in cost per seat mile, and an order of magnitude reduction in noise generation. In large part, the gains we have enjoyed have been due to the efficient transfer of the benefits of technology to consumers via competitive air transportation markets.
Air Traffic Control
The U.S. Air Traffic Control (ATC) System controls the movements and ensures the separation of aircraft within the U.S. and coordinates the departure and arrival of aircraft leaving or entering the U.S. This is an enormous system operated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). It safely handles 63 million aircraft operations carrying 544 million passengers traveling over 537 billion revenue passenger miles annually.
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The U.S. system is the largest and most complex system in the world. The U.S. system is staffed by 17,000 air traffic controllers in 476 towers, 194 Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) Facilities, 21 Air Route Traffic Control Centers (ARTCCs) and one Command Center. A typical flight crosses 7 ATC centers and communicates with over 25 air traffic controllers. By comparison, the European system, the second largest, is about half the size measured in total operations.
Unfortunately, the U.S. system has grown in size and complexity over time in a reactive manner in response to serious accidents and to safely keep up with demand that resulted from deregulation, especially at the huge hubs. Moreover, the system has not fundamentally changed since the 1960s and is based on technology that had its origins in World War II—radar surveillance of aircraft by air traffic controllers, radio navigation along air corridors and voice communication between pilots and air traffic controllers to maintain safe separation between aircraft.
The System is Reaching Saturation
Commercial air transport markets are projected to be extremely large over the next decade. These projections are based on the assumption that the current aviation system can support unconstrained growth. But, just as the Nation (and the world) becomes more dependent on moving people and goods faster and more efficiently via air, important obstacles have emerged. The air traffic and airport systems in both the U.S. and overseas are reaching full capacity. Delays are increasing. Experts agree that the congestion and delay problems experienced throughout the U.S. last summer will only get worse unless drastic action is taken. Each year, airlines must add more ''padding'' to their schedules to maintain on-time performance and the integrity of their scheduling systems, while facing more congestion in the system. At the same time, legitimate concerns over environmental issues (e.g., noise and emissions) are preventing additions to physical capacity. In 1998, airline delays in the U.S. cost industry and passengers $4.5 billion—the equivalent of a 7 percent tax on every dollar collected by all the domestic airlines combined. With demand projected to double over the next decade, NASA estimates, based on a computer model of operations at the Nation's top 64 airports (80 percent of enplanements), that in the absence of change, annual delay costs will grow to $13.8 billion by 2007 and $47.9 billion by 2017. But growth in airport infrastructure that might offset this problem is not likely in the foreseeable future. Several key airports are unable to gain approval for projects to expand infrastructure because they are in non-attainment areas, where National objectives to reduce emissions have not been met. Therefore, we are seeing constraints to growth that could threaten the commercial prospects of our aerospace industry as well as impact the integrity of our transportation system.
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Beyond these numbers lies another serious problem. Because of the networked nature of air transportation, as the system gets closer to its capacity limits, it has less flexibility to deal with unexpected but inevitable events. When the system is operating at its limits, an isolated problem within the system, such as a thunderstorm, creates missed connections, severe delays and canceled flights that ripple throughout the system. This loss of flexibility to deal with unexpected events cuts to the heart of the National imperative to have a dependable transportation system.
What is Needed?
To solve these problems a balanced approach of aggressively developing and implementing current ATC modernization efforts must be coupled with an aggressive effort to develop a new, high-capacity architecture. All this must be built upon a foundation of modeling and simulation that will allow us to understand this non-linear, dynamic system at a very high level of fidelity. To achieve a new, high-capacity architecture will require an aggressive effort to evaluate new ideas and approaches for air transportation and air traffic management, development of an enabling technology base and the development of a realistic transition strategy. Taken as a whole, this strategy will provide essential relief to ever worsening delays in the near-term while fundamentally resolving the air transportation challenges for the long-term.
Current ATC Modernization Efforts
While the addition of new airport infrastructure will be limited and costly, the existing system can be improved by leveraging technology advances in digital communications, precision navigation, and computers. Currently the FAA is replacing aging computers display and navigation equipment in an effort to modernize the infrastructure upon which the ATC architecture operates. Within that architecture, air traffic controllers need improved computer aids to help them plan and manage air traffic more efficiently. As an example, through the FAA Free Flight Program, the FAA implemented the NASA developed Center-TRACON Automation System (CTAS) at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, to support daily operations in all weather conditions, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. CTAS provides computer intelligence and graphical user interfaces to assist air traffic controllers in the efficient management and control of air traffic. The system has allowed a 10 percent increase in landing rate during critical traffic rushes. These improvements have translated into an estimated annual savings of $9M in operations cost at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.
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Most recently, NASA successfully demonstrated the ''Direct to'' decision support tool in the Dallas-Fort Worth Center. Direct to allowed controllers to easily provide conflict-free direct routes to airlines, saving significant time and fuel. This demonstration, performed over a two week period, worked flawlessly, with no software errors. Both controllers and pilots were impressed with the benefit and ease of use of the tool.
NASA and the FAA carries out its partnership based on an Integrated Plan for Air Traffic Management Research and Technology Development. The Integrated Plan describes how the two organizations combine resources and expertise to conduct research that realizes key, evolutionary improvements in the management and utilization of the NAS. The integrated research program comprises a total of over $500M in FAA and NASA resources over a six-year period (2001–2006). We also carry out closely coordinated research in aviation safety and, more recently, in the Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) program. The latter is aimed at proving technologies that can add capacity to the strained National Aviation System by using general aviation for transportation at the same safety levels as commercial aviation.
In the Air Traffic Management arena, NASA uses its unique technical expertise and facilities to develop advanced air traffic decision support tools, improve training efficiency and cockpit safety through human factors research, and develop new concepts for advanced communications, navigation and surveillance systems. The FAA defines system requirements and applies its operational expertise to ensure that the technically advanced airborne and ground equipment, software and procedures developed by NASA are operationally useful, efficient, safe and cost effective. Working together, we ensure the fastest and smoothest transition possible from the laboratory to operational benefit in the aviation system.
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The Integrated Plan provides a performance-based focus on the initiatives that comprise Free Flight Phase 1 and Free Flight Phase 2. Phase 1 will deploy core capabilities at selected en route and terminal Air Traffic Control (ATC) facilities by 2002. Free Flight Phase 2 expands Free Flight Phase 1 capabilities and will deploy additional key capabilities that have been identified as sufficiently mature and operationally beneficial by the FAA and RTCA (2003–2005). In support of Free Flight Phases 1 and 2, NASA is currently working on a suite of 16 technologies that will improve gate-to-gate air traffic management, increase capacity and flexibility, and overcome airport capacity constraints due to weather. Several of these technologies are integrated into the Center-TRACON Automation System described above.
NASA models indicate that these technologies fully implemented across the system would increase operational capacity by about 30 percent and reduce future predicted delays by about 50 percent. (Note: Currently, full implementation of the entire suite of technologies is not within the scope of the FAA Free Flight Program.)
Therefore, given the serious problems of capacity limitations and delay growth within the aviation system, it is absolutely critical to aggressively pursue this approach in the near term.
Revolutionary Approach to Air Traffic Management
The current system structure, where most passengers and cargo are carried by tens of air carriers through tens of airports, must be revised to permit the continued long-term growth of the system. The thousands of airports distributed across this country are a true National asset that can be tapped with the right technology and the right Air Traffic Management (ATM) system. Also, ''airspace,'' one of the nation's most valuable national resources, is significantly underutilized due to the way it is managed and allocated. Therefore, the airspace architecture of the future must increase the capacity of the Nation's major airports, fully tie together all of our Nation's airports into a more distributed system, and create the freedom to fly in a safe, controlled environment throughout all of the airspace. Not only will this allow the system to meet projected demand, it will also enable new transportation services and create new economic and social opportunity.
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One thing that will remain constant is that free market forces will drive the air transportation system. Therefore, the future system architecture should be flexible to respond to various transportation system possibilities. The airline industry should have the flexibility to move and expand operations to be responsive to transportation demands. This is the highest level guiding principle for the future ATM system. The next tier of system requirements are robustness (a system that can safely tolerate equipment failures and events such as severe weather) and scalability (the ATM system automatically scales with the traffic volume). One possibility for achieving scalability would be achieved by building key elements of the ATM system into the aircraft, so that as you add aircraft to the fleet the ATM system would automatically scale to accommodate them.
The system will likely be built on global systems, such as GPS, to allow precision approach to every runway in the Nation without reliance on installing expensive ground-based equipment, such as Instrument Landing Systems (ILS) at every airport. However, the robustness of the global communication, navigation and surveillance (CNS) systems should be such that the system can tolerate multiple failures and still be safe. This is a significant challenge upon which the new architecture depends.
If we are successful at meeting the challenge of a robust global CNS, then with precise knowledge of position and trajectory known for every aircraft, it will no longer be necessary to restrict flying along predetermined ''corridors''. Optimal flight paths will be determined in advance and adjusted along the way for weather and other aircraft traffic. This fundamental shift will allow entirely new transportation models to occur. For example, with precision approach to every airport in the U.S. and a new generation of smart, efficient small aircraft, the current trend of small jet aircraft serving small communities in a point-to-point mode could be greatly extended.
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Aircraft, ground and space-based systems will work together to automatically coordinate traffic and ensure conflict-free flight paths. Aircraft will have full knowledge of all aircraft in their area and will be able to coordinate through direct digital communication with other aircraft. The pilot will be able to look at his flight path at different scales—from a strategic view of the entire origin to destination route showing other aircraft and weather systems, to a tactical view showing the immediate surroundings and flight path over the next few minutes. Aircraft will employ synthetic vision—which uses advanced sensors, digital terrain databases, accurate geo-positioning, and digital processing—to provide a perfectly clear three dimensional picture of terrain, obstacles, runway, and traffic.
With greater automation and collaborative air-ground decision-making, the system can operate at maximum efficiency and will change the role of the air traffic controller to more of an airspace manager who will manage the traffic flows and system demand. The air traffic ''manager'' will have a full three dimensional picture of all aspects of the airspace system. The highly compartmentalized ''sectorization'' of the airspace would be largely eliminated. Through direct interaction with the three dimensional, high-fidelity representation of the system, they will dynamically reconfigure the airspace based on weather systems, equipment failures, runway outages, or other real-time problems. Intelligent systems will provide expert support to such decision making. This real-time airspace redesign will be uplinked to aircraft to recompute flight trajectories. They will also manage the allocation of scarce resources, such as runways when there are conflicts that cannot be resolved between aircraft directly.
Eventually, the entire system will be fully monitored for faults and other risks. The system will move from a paradigm of being ''statistically safe'' to real-time knowledge of risk and safety. In addition, with pilots and air traffic managers having full data and situational awareness of the system, a new level of collaboration can occur allowing them to work together to correct anomalous situations.
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The future system will truly be ''revolutionary'' in scope and performance, but it must also be implemented in a mode that allows continuous safe operations to occur, even in the face of unpredicted events. In designing the future airspace system, a systems engineering approach must be used to define requirements, formulate total operational concepts, evaluate these operational concepts, and then launch goal-oriented technology activities to meet requirements and support the operational concept.
This is an extremely complex problem. The system is dynamic and real-time. At the same time, system integrity is absolutely essential. It can't be turned off and it is highly interconnected. At the present time, we believe it will take a substantial public-private partnership to tackle such a large and difficult problem. We are currently examining innovative ways to partner with industry and the FAA to achieve these ends. We believe the payoff from a capacity, efficiency and safety perspective is absolutely enormous.
NASA Virtual Airspace Modeling (VAM) Project
As an initial step toward a future airspace architecture, NASA is initiating the VAM Project in FY02 as part of the ongoing Aviation System Capacity Program. The objective of the VAM Project is to develop and assess advanced system-level air transportation concepts and to conduct assessments addressing potential benefits, risks and limitations, and evaluate performance, safety, operations, and NAS infrastructure and transition challenges. An integral element is to develop the capability to model and simulate behavior of air transportation system operations to never-before-achieved levels of fidelity. This requires the development and validation of analytical and computational models and methods and the creation of a simulation environment that will enable investigation of complex advanced air transportation concepts developing a deeper understanding of human performance and interaction.
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Because of the non-linear, dynamic nature of the system, this is an absolutely necessary first step. A new architecture will be extremely complex and must be thoroughly understood to ensure efficacy and safety. NASA is initiating this project in cooperation with the FAA and industry. As we gain greater understanding of a future, flexible, high-capacity infrastructure, more effort will be needed to develop the required enabling technologies and to eventually implement the system.
Conclusion
NASA is a key partner in the future of the air transportation system. Through the unique talents and history of the Agency, we have become the National leader for research and technology for air traffic management. NASA is prepared to continue this leadership and to be a catalyst for positive change. We believe it is absolutely essential that the Nation take a long-term perspective and begin now to enable the high capacity, distributed system we need for the future. We look forward to supporting the Secretary of Transportation and the FAA Administrator in developing the future National Airspace System.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee. I commend you for taking on this issue, and appreciate the opportunity to testify today and describe our vision and the actions we are taking for the future of the air transportation system for this Nation.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Sam. Finally, we have John Hayhurst with us. He is President of Air Traffic Management at the Boeing Company. And he, as we know, generated great interest in air traffic control and has presented some exciting ideas. And we are very appreciative that you would be with us today to explain that to us personally. So, Mr. Hayhurst, you may proceed.
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Mr. HAYHURST. Thank you, Chairman Rohrabacher, Mr. Gordon and Members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss Boeing's concepts for the next generation air traffic management system. This Hearing is very timely. Last month, the FAA unveiled its Operational Evolution Plan to make capacity improvements in the air traffic system. Boeing fully supports that plan. But in the long term, there will not be enough added capacity to accommodate forecasted growth in aviation activity.
Boeing has a vested interest in expanding system capacity. More than 18,000 new commercial aircraft will be needed over the next 20 years. If the aviation system does not expand to accommodate this growth, that market for new aircraft will be substantially reduced.
Last fall, Boeing committed to be part of the solution and formed a new business unit. We unveiled our concepts last month. The reception among stakeholders and others to our proposals has been very positive. We seek to build on the FAA's modernization efforts so that projected air traffic demand can be safely accommodated.
There are three broad features to our concepts. First, the next generation system will use trajectory management by synthesizing a variety of information about an airplane's position, altitude, speed and intended flight path to enable air traffic controllers and planners to more effectively manage more aircraft farther into the future. Today, the best source of this information, the flight management system of the airplane itself, is not accessible to controllers.
Second, a common information network will link system users and operators with real time information about aircraft trajectories, weather, air traffic flow and other conditions.
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Third, today's complex system of relatively small geographic sectors of airspace with strictly defined air flows will be replaced with a simplified, more open, managed flow configuration, allowing controllers to manage more aircraft.
The backbone of the system will be an innovative, global system of satellites that integrates communication, navigation and surveillance capabilities. Our proposed satellite infrastructure would enable worldwide coverage, allowing many areas of the world with insufficient infrastructure today to participate in a global integrated air traffic control system.
This Subcommittee knows that deploying a constellation of satellites will require significant investment. We do not yet have detailed cost estimates. But we know the cost of the infrastructure will be substantial. Boeing is willing to make the upfront investment if a business model can be created to enable a reasonable return on that investment. We believe that potential new public/private partnerships are possible to reduce risks and speed implementation of a new system.
Sufficient, dedicated radio spectrum is needed to enable that system to work effectively. This week, the FCC granted Boeing a Spectrum License. We want to thank the FCC for their confidence in Boeing's planned use of the spectrum and leadership in timely issuance of our license. We are working with the FAA and the FCC to ensure the use of this spectrum meets their requirements.
Our challenge to implementing a new system is the complex transition from today's system to a new operating paradigm. Boeing has outlined a three stage approach to introduce the next generation system. But much more work must be done to ensure that a comprehensive transition plan is developed. Research in this area will be important. NASA's Aeronautics Research Program should be robustly funded to support this effort. NASA's Advanced Air Traffic Technology Program has already changed the way many people think about what our air traffic system should become. NASA's planned follow-on program, AvSTAR, as Mr. Venneri describes, supports the path that we are following to design the next system. It is clear that Boeing and NASA are aligned in our thinking and approach to the capacity problem.
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The technical aspects of fielding a next generation system are challenging. But probably not nearly as difficult as achieving a consensus among the wide array of stakeholders with an interest in the future system. We are working to build that consensus. The way we design aircraft provides the model.
When we move beyond the conceptual stage, we form a working together team of important stakeholders to jointly develop the requirements for the aircraft and the technological means to fulfill those requirements. We had a tremendous success with this process when we designed our 777 airplane. We will soon have a kickoff of approximately 30 stakeholders to form our working together team to define the requirements for the next air traffic management system. Our plan is to have a system level set of technical requirements developed by the end of January, 2002.
We also know that we will need to have partnerships with government and others in the private sector to accomplish what is needed to field the next system. Discussions are already underway.
In conclusion, Boeing believes that it is absolutely essential to field a next generation air traffic system to ensure that aviation continues to power economic growth. We see a role for us in accomplishing this. But more importantly, we believe all the stakeholders must work together to develop with a sense of urgency a strong political consensus to do what must be done. And that is to develop enough aviation system capacity to meet growth and demand. Thank you very much.
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[The prepared statement of John Hayhurst follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN B. HAYHURST
Chairman Rohrabacher, Mr. Gordon and Members of the Subcommittee,
I greatly appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you today Boeing's concepts for the next generation air traffic management system. Our country needs a new air traffic management paradigm because our current system and the anticipated modifications to it, although significant, simply will not provide the long-term capacity needed to allow uninhibited growth in air travel and aviation related economic activity.
Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) unveiled its Operational Evolution Plan (OEP) to make capacity improvements in the air traffic system in order to reduce delays. We, at Boeing, fully support that plan and believe it is absolutely essential to address near term delay issues. In the long term, however, the FAA's OEP will not accommodate the growth in aviation activity forecast by government and industry alike.
This hearing is testament to your Subcommittee's recognition of this problem. I believe Science Committee Chairman Boehlert captured our nation's predicament very well last month when he said, and I quote, ''[The] FAA's own traffic forecasts predict that passenger enplanements will increase by 50% by the year 2012. I question whether FAA's plan. . .puts in place the infrastructure we'll need to meet this looming challenge.''
Boeing's Interest
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Boeing is in the process of orienting the company toward providing a wider array of services to our customers than we presently do. We also recognize that our core business, building and selling large commercial aircraft, must continue to grow and be healthy. To accomplish this, with its attendant jobs, exports, and overall economic impact, it is crucial that the aviation system be able to accommodate anticipated growth.
Boeing's Current Market Outlook 2001 forecasts the need for more than 18,000 new commercial aircraft over the next 20 years. We will have a substantial share of that market. However, if the aviation system does not allow increased movement and mobility above the levels that will be provided by the current FAA plan, that market for new aircraft will be substantially reduced accompanied by reductions in jobs, exports and overall national economic vitality. Safely expanding aviation capacity to allow unconstrained growth should be our nation's number one transportation priority.
Boeing's Air Traffic Management Concepts
Last fall, Boeing made a commitment to be part of the solution to the capacity problem and formed a new business unit with the same stature as our other business units such as Commercial Airplanes. We have already conceptualized a new way to manage air traffic which we made public last month. The reception among stakeholders and others has been very positive. Again, we do not propose this as an alternative to FAA's capacity enhancing plans. We are seeking to build on that work and activity so that projected air traffic demand can be safely accommodated.
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There are three broad definitive features to our concept: First, the next generation system will synthesize a variety of information about an airplane's position, altitude, speed, and intended flight path to enable air traffic controllers and planners to more effectively manage aircraft trajectories. The best source of information about an aircraft's path resides in the on-board flight management computers of modern airplanes. Such information is not available to controllers today. With this data and some computational tools, conflicts between aircraft paths will be recognized and resolved much further out in time than today's system allows. This will enable the safe reduction of the large amounts of buffer airspace around aircraft that is needed in today's system, significantly increasing capacity.
Second, the next generation system will have a common information network that links system users and operators with real time information about aircraft trajectories, weather, air traffic flow, and other conditions. Today, we have an FAA command center that allows controllers, dispatchers and users to communicate. All are working, however, from their own data, which has widely varying degrees of content, form, and detail making collaborative decision making more difficult. Today's approach of holding aircraft on the ground in distant locations until the weather blows over causes a ripple effect throughout the system resulting in even more delays and cancellations. With a common information network, dynamic, nimble rerouting of aircraft in less than ideal weather situations could be undertaken. Keeping airplanes flying would enhance capacity in these situations.
Third, we would see today's complex system of relatively small geographic sectors of airspace with strictly defined flows replaced with a simplified, more open, managed-flow configuration. A simpler airspace with fewer boundaries, coupled with a reduction of much of today's voice communications and vectoring, will result in more capacity because controllers will have the capability to manage more aircraft. Advanced tools associated with trajectory management through this redesigned airspace will enable this to be done safely.
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While the technical requirements and specific technological applications to accomplish these definitive features of our concept are still being developed, we believe that realization of this type of overall system can best be accomplished with an innovative, global system of satellites that integrates communication, navigation, and surveillance capabilities and functions. We believe that the on board flight management systems will become a critical source of the information used by controllers for detecting and projecting airplane locations. And we believe high speed, highly accurate data link type communications with greatly reduced voice communications will be the nervous system connecting the aircraft, the ground, and the satellites.
Our proposed satellite infrastructure would enable worldwide coverage with a superior, next-generation air traffic control system. This will allow many areas of the world with insufficient infrastructure today to participate in a global, integrated air traffic control system. General and commercial aviation in all parts of the U.S. and the world would benefit from improved safety and reliable operation. Such a seamless global air traffic management system would allow commercial passenger and cargo operations, the lifeblood of today's global economy, to flourish.
One issue that is critically important is that there needs to be a sufficient amount of dedicated radio spectrum to enable the system to work effectively. Four years ago, Boeing applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a license to use the 2GHz Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) portion of the spectrum. During those four years, no party has questioned the tremendous public interest benefits that would result from the granting of a license to Boeing. In order to ensure that a new air traffic management system is sufficiently robust to support a safer and much more efficient aviation system, it is imperative that Boeing be allocated sufficient spectrum so that future growth can be accommodated. We are working with the FAA and the FCC to ensure that the use of this spectrum meets FAA's safety of flight criteria. I solicit your support for Boeing's application to the FCC urging that it be granted without further delay.
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One challenge to implementing a new system is the complex transition from today's system to a new operating paradigm. This transition must ensure safe, efficient operations 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. Boeing has outlined a three-stage approach of gradually introducing the new features of the next-generation air traffic control system. Government and industry must do much more work, however, to ensure that a comprehensive transition plan is developed.
Finally, Boeing is willing to make the upfront investment in this infrastructure if a business model can be created enabling a reasonable return on that investment. This Subcommittee certainly knows that deploying a constellation of satellites requires a significant investment. We believe the Congress and the Administration should take an interest in potential new public/private partnerships to reduce risks and speed implementation of new capacity enhancements.
While Boeing has not developed its concepts to a point where we can make detailed cost estimates, we know that the cost of the next generation system will be substantial. However, we also know that the costs will not be as large the costs of delay and congestion if we do not move forward on the next generation system. The Air Transport Association estimates that the direct cost of delays to airlines exceeds $3 billion annually, and this does not include the indirect costs of lost time to passengers or the detrimental effects on business or general aviation.
Future Research Needs
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) aeronautical research program should be robustly funded if this country is going to realize the benefits of bringing the next generation of air traffic management systems on line. NASA's Advanced Air Traffic Technology (AATT) program has already changed the way many people think about what our air traffic system should become. I am here today to tell you that it has certainly been integral to Boeing's thinking about how to approach air traffic management in the future in order that there be enough capacity to accommodate growth.
NASA's planned follow-on program, the Aviation System Technology Advanced Research (AvSTAR) initiative, supports the path that we, at Boeing, are following to design the next generation system. It would start with ''system concept development'' in which requirements and architectural concepts would be comprehensively tested through modeling and simulation. Recognizing the importance of this approach, the AvSTAR initiative would develop ''virtual airspace modeling and simulation'' to achieve a robustness and fidelity that would enable an understanding of the tradeoffs in different architectural approaches. Finally, the third element of AvSTAR would define and develop the ''advanced core component technologies'' to meet our future air transportation requirements.
We are presently in discussions with NASA over the best mechanisms for Boeing to bring resources to this effort so that NASA's resources will go further and accomplish more. It is clear that Boeing and NASA are aligned in our thinking and approach to the capacity problem.
Boeing's Next Steps
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The technical aspects of fielding a next generation system are certainly challenging, but probably not as difficult as achieving a consensus among the wide array of stakeholders that must be a part of and have ownership in the future system. We are working to build that consensus. I believe this hearing contributes to that process.
Beyond the political consensus building that is needed, we are approaching our initiative to design the next generation air traffic management system in much the same way that we approach the design of an aircraft. When a new aircraft design is ready to move beyond the conceptual stage, we form a team of Boeing people, potential customers, and other important stakeholders to jointly develop the requirements for the aircraft and determine technological means to fulfill those requirements. At the most basic level: What is the needed range? How many passengers? What markets will it serve? We call this a Working Together Team. We had tremendous success with this process when we designed our 777 series of aircraft.
At the end of this month, we will have a kickoff with approximately thirty stakeholders including users, operators, equipment/service providers and regulators to form a Working Together Team to define the requirements of the next generation air traffic management system. Our plan is to have a system level set of technical requirements developed by this Team by the end of January 2002. We will keep this Subcommittee informed of our progress.
Beyond the Working Together process to develop system requirements, Boeing knows that it will need to have partnerships with government and others in the private sector to accomplish what is needed to field the next generation system. Discussions are already underway.
Conclusion
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Returning to my starting point, Boeing believes it is absolutely essential to field a next generation air traffic system to ensure that aviation continues to power economic growth. We see a role for us in accomplishing this, but more importantly we believe all stakeholders must work together to develop, with a sense of urgency, a strong political consensus and will to do what must be done: develop enough aviation system capacity to meet growth and demand.
Thank you very much. I will be happy to respond to your questions.
PRIVATIZATION
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much and Boeing, obviously, is the biggest player on the block when it comes to aerospace and —I would think that your company, taking a keen interest in this—could play an important role in bringing the consensus of other players together. Perhaps even more so than some elected officials maybe at the local level and other areas where there are other factors at play. Let me ask a little bit about the idea of privatization and where we can bring more commercialization into the air traffic control system. Is there any—I would ask all witnesses to respond, do you see this as a moment of rich opportunity for commercialization of what used to be a function that had to be done by government? Or are we always going to face the fact that parameters are dictated by the fact that government must be involved?
Mr. HANSMAN. I think that the issue of privatization is somewhat separate from the issue of the capacity. In the sense that the things that limit our capacity are the ways we operate the system and things that come in from safety requirements, runway capacity. So privatization provides an opportunity, perhaps, to transition technology more quickly into the system. But we really have to struggle with this issue that has been raised about how we can transition. And it is not clear to me that privatization would change that. In fact, there will have to be some government role and oversight from a safety perspective.
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Mr. ZAIDMAN. I was afraid you would ask the government representative that. But I think the jury is still out, frankly. I know in the intermediate and, in fact, mid to long term, our direction is toward a performance based organization, an outline asked for by the Congress in our authorization legislation and the former President Clinton's executive order asking us to form its base organization within the government.
Other governments are moving toward privatized air traffic control. The UK, Canada, Germany, and I think that really bears watching by the whole community, to see how successful that transition is. And I think we will learn from that experience.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. How about it, Sam?
Mr. VENNERI. Well, the—I think it is an interesting question we need to evaluate in terms of the government private partnership. I have looked at the European and Canadian's story. Not impressed with how they run their system. And that is from the standpoint that we have a different air transportation—it is not all airlines in this country. There is a large role for general aviation. So the first question that comes to mind is, what is the system for?
Clearly, they have priced the general aviation aspect of flying. Personal air mobility out of business in Europe. It is clearly airline dominated, airline pricing scheme being passed on to the average ticket buyer. The Canadian system, likewise, has similar problems. That is to say we shouldn't look at it in this country, but this country is unique in what we allow in air mobility and how people take our mobility as a personal choice of freedom.
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Nevertheless, this private partnership, government, industry, I think we need to look at it beyond just who runs the system. How do we finance? How do we insert technology? And I think Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, 3 companies in particular, have some ideas about how things should change.
So I think that is worthy of further evaluation and looking at government partnerships that cannot just deal with privatization, but the whole idea of life cycle costs and not just focus on the operations of being a private entity. Safety is what I would get concerned about, in terms of pricing people to make decisions that would compromise safety.
AIRLINE TICKET TAX
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Right now, the air traffic controllers and the operation that they have, this is paid for out of the tax on airplane tickets? Is that right?
Mr. ZAIDMAN. Some are paid directly through the trust fund. We have a trust fund, which is both a tax on fuel and ticket and others are paid from direct government revenues toward the operation of FAA. So it is a mixture of both.
Mr. HAYHURST. I would like to go back to your point about privatization. From our viewpoint, the short answer is no, that privatization of the operation of the system is not needed. The longer answer is that part—public/private partnerships to develop expanded capacity in the system is what is, frankly, more important. And it is less relevant whether it be operated with today's fine compliment of controllers or ones that would be employed by someone other than the Federal Government.
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Well, thank you very much. Mr. Gordon?
FUTURE ROLE OF PILOTS
Mr. GORDON. All of the future visions for the air traffic management that you have described today will only succeed if we have skilled personnel in place when those future systems come on line. I would like to ask a question or a few questions regarding our focus on one key group. And that is the pilots.
Mr. Venneri, how does NASA see the pilot role evolving? Are we talking about an intuitive traffic management system that pilots can pick up? Or does NASA need to develop pilot training methods so that pilots will understand how to use the technology safely?
Mr. VENNERI. I think that is an interesting point. And the answer, distinctly, is the latter what you suggested. I think if you look at the accident rate among the non-airlines, it is a factor of 10 worse than what the accident rate is with the scheduled airlines. That is clearly a safety issue of a large segment of people that use movement in the system. And I think we need to think in terms of not just pilot training, but instilling decision-making as part of that training.
The reason for the accidents are not skill level. It goes at understanding operations within the system. And I think we need to think in terms of programs that actually are 21st century thoughts of how we integrate pilots and airplanes and the human machine aspects of the intersection of the management, of the pilot within the system and the air traffic controllers. So I think we have a long way to go to improve upon a safety record that hasn't really improved much in the last 20 years.
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PILOT TRAINING
Mr. GORDON. And Mr. Zaidman, I am told that in the present market, a First Officer can advance to the Captain's seat in 5 to 7 months. And that is a promotion that used to take 5 to 7 years. Has the FAA factored pilot experience and training into its plans for increasing the capacity of the national air space system and do we need to change the way we train pilots in the future?
Mr. ZAIDMAN. Well, I think pilot training will have to evolve with the changes in the system. We are very concerned about what we call cockpit or crew resource management. How humans interact with the system. Either on the airplane or with the ground. The decision making. Looking out of the window, as opposed to looking at machines. And we have also found similarities with our controller workforce. Both pilots and controllers really want to be the decision maker. They want the ability to make final decisions and they want tools to give them suggestions on where to fly and how to fly.
So it is a very cooperative relationship between the human and machine. However, over time, I think what we will see is machines making more of the decisions and humans reacting to them, rather than what is currently in place. So the training is going to need to evolve. One of the critical factors for us is understanding the human factors. People don't like change. People need to feel comfortable with their roles. And, frankly, the technology often outpaces the human factors, our ability to understand. But they do have to work in tandem, both the growth and the development of the air traffic system and the training which supports not only the pilot end, but the controller end, as well.
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TRANSITIONING PILOTS TO A FUTURE A.T.M. SYSTEM
Mr. GORDON. And Professor Hansman, what needs to be done to make sure that pilots can successfully transition to a very different air traffic management system. What kinds of resources will be needed to prepare pilots to fly safely in the air traffic management system of the future?
Mr. HANSMAN. I think that the issue is associated with how we transition the system. The processes we have right now, particularly for air transport airplanes are very good at training the pilots. We have highly trained pilots that do proficiency checks. So I think that it will not be difficult to do that. It is really more going to be a problem of how do you transition the system when half of the airplanes are equipped, half of the airplanes aren't equipped? And that really becomes an issue that falls back more on the controllers than the pilots because they have to deal with this mixed fleet. So I think that—I am not as worried about the problem on the pilot side as I actually am on the controller side.
Mr. GORDON. Thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Now, we will go to Dr. Weldon from Florida.
TODAY'S A.T.M. SYSTEM
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has been a very interesting presentation. I want to thank all of the witnesses. I apologize for missing your presentation, Mr. Hansman. But I will read your testimony.
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I have an avionics manufacturer in my district and I have talked to some of the people in their Research and Development Department and they—and I think you have all kind of alluded to this, that if the traffic volume is going to go up and up as anticipated, that more of the control needs to go into the cockpit. Is that basically what you are saying?
Mr. HANSMAN. Yes. Let me——
Mr. WELDON. Just because it is too hard to have a guy sitting somewhere and following all these planes.
Mr. HANSMAN. Let me explain——
Mr. WELDON. To have all of them engaged.
Mr. HANSMAN [continuing]. A little bit about how the system works today. The way we do ground-based control, the controllers are actually giving steering commands to the airplane.
Mr. WELDON. Right. Right.
Mr. HANSMAN. And even in the best radar environments, we are only getting an update every 4.2 seconds. So it actually takes a controller 8 to 12 seconds to know that an airplane has turned. And in non-route sectors, we only get updates every 12 seconds. So it is sort of like driving your car only looking out the window every 4 seconds or every 12 seconds. As a consequence, we have to keep the airplanes pretty far apart because we don't have enough control authority to do that.
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Mr. WELDON. That is what they were saying to me.
Mr. HANSMAN. Yes. In addition, we don't do much about controlling when the airplane arrives. So when an airplane takes off in Los Angeles heading for Dulles, the system doesn't really know when that airplane is going to arrive. It is what we call an open loop system. It just deals with it. Unless there is a requirement to close it down.
So it is possible to use—put more control authority in the airplane, give a little bit more responsibility. You can shift to systems, for example, where you say arrive at the approach fix to Dulles, you know, at 12:22:32 p.m. And the airplanes could do it. So it is really how do we take advantage of the resource that we have in the onboard equipment. But how do we get there from the system we have today?
Mr. WELDON. Anybody want to add to that?
Mr. HAYHURST. Our view is not that it is a matter of more or less control authority in the airplane. I think for us, what we see as being able to enhance the system is to provide the information that is available in the airplane to the controllers, as well as the pilots.
Today, when a commercial airliner flies across the country, the airline files a flight plan. The flight plan is available to the controller. If the take off is actually 2 or 3 minutes after the intended—the time shown in the flight plan, there is no real update available to the controller because he has the original flight plan.
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On the other hand, the flight management computer, which is in every modern commercial airplane, continuously calculates the position of the airplane all the way to the point of touchdown. And it adjusts for the fact that there may have been a vector off the intended route or the winds maybe——
Mr. WELDON. Wind speed. Yes.
Mr. HAYHURST [continuing]. A bit stronger than were originally assumed in the flight plan. And it is making that best available information available to the controllers, which we think would have a more significant impact than addressing more command authority in the cockpit versus——
Mr. WELDON. Right now, the FAA doesn't have that data continuously off the flight computers. Correct?
Mr. HAYHURST. Nor does anybody else.
COCKPIT TECHNOLOGY
Mr. WELDON. Nor does anybody else. Now, there is some healthy costs if you are going to have that kind of data transmission constantly associated, you know, with installing it on all these airplanes. Any—another thing I am concerned about, you know, I can see how you could implement this kind of sophisticated telemetry—continuous telemetry for the commercial side. Because you can just spread those costs out amongst the ticket buyers. But how do you bring the general aviation community and, as well, the corporate community in the loop on all this?
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And another concern I have is, you know, I can see installing a satellite based system, you know, we launch rockets in my district, so that is music to my ears. More satellites in space. But I don't know how you could get rid of the Legacy systems because you would have all of the general aviation and the airlines that can't—and some of you alluded to this in your comments. They can't afford to install the new systems. And, as well, the corporate—and corporate is exploding. I mean, it is the biggest growth area, as I understand right now, in terms of sales, is corporate. And some of the commercial airlines are starting to try to get into the corporate side. And how do we handle the costs associated with bringing them—I see—I have got the red light. I am sorry I hit you with a lot of questions. You can comment. I can't just—I can't ask you anymore questions because I have the red light. But you can respond.
Mr. ZAIDMAN. Well, if I may, Dr. Weldon, I think that is exactly right on. It is just not technology. It is the operational environment, the economics, the political environment.
I think we all are saying we want better collaboration between the technology in the air and the technology on the ground. But there are other things we can do between that before we get there.
By 2004, for example, FAA intends to reduce the separation standards, the vertical standards from 2,000 feet. Right now, the altitude assignments are based on 2,000 foot increments in the upper flight levels, where air carriers normally fly. And 2004, we will propose to implement a rule where that is reduced by half, which effectively, then, doubles, if you will, the amount of airspace that is available. That doesn't require sophisticated technology. It requires better altimetry. But that is just one example of how we can approach the problem incrementally.
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I think in the long-term, it will have to be a business decision or a political decision to require such equipage in the cockpit. But that is going to be very, very difficult.
Mr. VENNERI. Actually, when you talked about the avionics industry, that is to one bright spot here. Go back 10 years. Have you ever thought you would see multi-functional displays showing up in average general aviation or corporate jets? It is the innovation in our industry that is bringing LCD technology that has these cockpits looking like a glass cockpit of a 777 at 1/10 the cost. So the ability to develop this aircraft in this system, whether it is a 777 or a Gulfstream business jet or a high performance single engine or an Eclipse business jet that we hope to see flying in a few years. That ability to do that, to develop this electronic cocoon around the airplane so that it is not just a radar hit on a target, but the airplanes talking to each other, sending information out to each other and providing not data, but knowledge to the pilot, knowledge to the controller about where those state vectors are going. And then letting the flight computer, in effect, recommend knowledge to all parties and self-separate and expand.
I actually think that vision is achievable. If—and look at the progress that has been made just over this past decade and where we are going with bringing the cost of electronics and the issues forward. So I think there is a lot of research to be done. There is a lot of technology change states. And there will be a mixed fleet of intelligent and non-intelligent airplanes. And dealing with that transition where you have that mixed fleet is part of some of the studies that have to be evaluated, which we are proposing to do.
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Chairman ROHRABACHER. Sort of like a fleet of intelligent or non-intelligent politicians and taking the country one way or the other. But we have one of the more intelligent politicians with us now who came from an education background. And Mr. Etheridge has added a lot to this Subcommittee with his educational background. And he may proceed now.
FAA R&D BUDGET AND NOISE MITIGATION
Mr. ETHERIDGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope I ask an intelligent question. Let me thank you for this Hearing. This is a very important topic. But also thank our panelists, because I think they have shed a lot on it.
Let me take the question a little different way, if I may. In a recent FAA report, they estimate that the additional runways will be needed about a 55 percent increase as it relates to the national airspace system for capacity. But a GAO survey of the airport managers found that h of the busiest airports, that their biggest problem is noise. Dealing with the public, the noise issues around them. At present, FAA spends about 12 percent of it's airport improvement budgets or about $300 million a year on noise abatement and mitigation in and around the busiest airports. And a lot of the foregoing facts considering that FAA R and D Advisory Committee characterizes the FAA environment and energy R and D budget as grossly under funded at about 7 million. And the current NASA annual research budget for aircraft noise is only 20 million.
Having said that, my questions are as follows. Does the Federal Aviation R and D budget provide sufficient resources for long-term research that really would deal with the increasing capacity and the safety of our national airspace system at a time when it is growing? Because we have got the problem. Because if we don't deal with these issues, we can't get to where we are going to be.
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And are these revolutionary concepts—are there revolutionary concepts that ought to be explored more vigorously than is now possible within the existing budget?
Mr. ZAIDMAN. Well, I will give you the answer I usually give. That we think the President's budget is sufficient. I mean, we can always use more. I think the FAA——
Mr. ETHERIDGE. Then I want the other folks to answer, too.
Mr. ZAIDMAN. Okay. All right. I think the FAA is in a position to take applied research and introduce it into the airspace system. Frankly, I think other entities, both public and private, I will include NASA in that, are in a better position to look at the longer term and develop those technologies where FAA can—we are more operationally based, can utilize that.
So we have, generally, a, like you said, the $7 million line item in our R and D budget, which totals about $190 million total for noise. This year is going to be very interesting because there is a significant difference between the Senate 2002 report and the House 2002 report on the noise budget. The House, I believe, at a $20 million level. So we are anxious to see how that conference works out.
Mr. HANSMAN. I think your comments are right on target. I think that noise is a key problem. And really, what we are doing is inadequate. There are some near term things and we really need to be working innovative ideas for the future. And, you know, this is a perfect kind of area of sort of seed research where people could be really trying new ideas that might really impact the system. It is not just jet airplanes. It is helicopters, you know, and the whole spectrum.
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Mr. ETHERIDGE. Anyone else want to comment?
Mr. VENNERI. Well, the—our quiet aircraft program, which you alluded to, is really looking at an integration of the propulsion and vehicle together. Noise comes from various sources. It is not all engine noise. And it is really airframe and vehicle.
One of the things we have an opportunity and a concern about is—and we look at the average fleet. By 2010—and let me just talk about commercial transports. The average age is going to be 23 years of the typical airplane age. That means there is going to be a lot of airplanes bought in replacement of the fleet planes.
Now is the time to put the technology change state in place because this is not going to happen overnight. And there will be a continuous mixed fleet of airplanes in the usage. So it is not going to be an overnight fix. But we need to look at a technology base today that fundamentally will change the system concepts of engines and airframes coming together.
All you have to be is sitting in an airplane and listen to when the flaps and landing gears come out. You hear noise. That noise propagates down to the community. And so what we are looking at is the investments that we need to do with companies like Boeing, with Pratt, Whitney and GE. We will do the high risk, innovative research. Where we are running short on is the ability to translate that into risk mitigation totally that a private company called GE, Pratt or Boeing, will put that technology in those airplanes that are going to be built in the next decade.
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Those airplanes will be replaced. The concern that we have is the fact that that is not lost on the folks across the Atlantic. So they have an aggressive program, almost duplicating our efforts to also look at these future airplane replacements. So we are being as aggressive as we can. I think it is up to us and NASA to market this to the administration and point this out to where the needs are.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. It is the intent of the Chair that Ms. Jackson Lee would have her time period for questions. And then, closing statements from myself and the Ranking Member, then to adjourn the Hearing. Ms. Jackson Lee, you may proceed.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the witnesses very much for their presentation. I am always interested in the practicality and the applicability of science. I think it is important because the consumers and the American people look to us to make science relevant. This Hearing is relevant to me having recently spent 8 hours in the Newark Airport. And I am only symbolic of the millions of Americans who face this on a daily basis.
Professor Hansman, I think it is important to show this map. It is almost equal to one of the worst nightmares one could have, after eating those delicious pizzas that don't take a lot of science to do. I also note in your report or your testimony and I think it is important to note these numbers. Is that you note in figure 1, say April or August of 2001, it seems that the delays are upwards of 45,000 or about that. Your chart number 2, figure 2, shows that you have had upwards of 140,000 cancellations in the year 2000. These are the startling numbers that I think and hope that this Committee will be able to focus on and work with NASA.
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I happen to believe that the 19, I guess, in the '80's, layoffs of a number of our expert air traffic controllers is one of the most devastating things that ever happened to us. And I do think we are facing either an aging of air traffic controllers and/or a shortage. But my concern is how we can relate science, 21st century science, to responding to this nightmare. And my interest—and I would appreciate your analysis, is the viability of using NASA more extensively.
As I notice in your testimony, you have relayed the fact that the FAA has difficulty in doing research, either because of the amount of time they spend, the amount of dollars they have. And I, frankly, think that any Agency can take more dollars for research. Because out of research comes applicability and comes practicality.
IMPROVING NASA'S EFFECTIVENESS IN AERONAUTICS
What I would like to hear from you is how the—how NASA—and I always make the argument that NASA's strength is what it can generate that consumers can consume. How can NASA be more effective on these issues of delay and cancellation with respect to its technology? I know that the witness has spoken to it, but what is your perception of how NASA can be more utilized? Because if there is ever a constructive utilization for an Agency that has access to space, I think it would be dealing with air traffic control and the movement of passengers throughout the country and cargo.
Mr. HANSMAN. Let me say that over the past few years, NASA has really taken this on as part of its mission. And is working hard, you know, in this area. And as I note in the comments, the relationship is pretty good between NASA and the FAA. They are really helping out, as well as Mitre in other location.
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It is sort of difficult—the people in the frontlines, not so much Steve, but the people that are out there on the frontlines are dealing with the day to day problem. And it is hard to get them to actually clearly, you know, send their requirements down to NASA. So NASA ends up sort of looking at the system, people like me do the same thing sort of from the outside, saying, well, you know, looks to us like, you know, if we had some satellite based communications, it would, you know, help out in trajectory based management.
And so you sort of infer it. And then you develop a technology and hope it goes up the pipeline. Some of the technologies have, as Sam noted, have been included into the FAA's plans. But I think we could do a better job at really having sort of the frontline part of the FAA really work and sort of—on sending their requirements down. And then the real challenge for the FAA and NASA in the Boeing proposal is to have a process to assure that once the technology is developed, it will get into the system without being shortstopped. So——
Ms. JACKSON LEE. In lies the crux of my questioning. I want you to sort of expand on that. I think we need to be the problem solvers. And I think the match between FAA and NASA is a good match. Can you, if you will, focus in more on how you can translate that operational frontline information to get it to NASA, so NASA can be an intimate part of the direct flow of information and then in the resolution aspect. What do we need to put in place for that?
Mr. HANSMAN. You know, I think you have——
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Your suggestions.
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Mr. HANSMAN. You know, it is—you really have to work to compel the people in the frontlines as part of their job to be thinking the 10, 20 year time frame, not just what are we going to do by Wednesday. And then that is a tough struggle because they are going to tell you, I have got to do what I have got to do to deal with Wednesday because all these people are complaining that they are getting delayed. So that is—it is a real tension.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Or maybe some aspect that is articulated out of FAA that is practical, but directly related to gathering the data and making sure that NASA gets it.
Mr. HANSMAN. And I think, you know, giving NASA and, you know, research people kind of access to the problems just to observe what would help. It is not always easy to get in there and observe, just because they don't want you in the way. So that—I mean, that is another——
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, I see my light is on. I would like to pursue this with NASA and I would ask if they would, in light of the timing, and I appreciate the work you all have done. Provide me with some additional insight as to how you think the communication of data, which really helps you in designing the solutions, could be effectuated. We would like to help on that. I, particularly, am interested in that and would hope that we could focus on that to provide assistance.
Chairman ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Ms. Jackson Lee.
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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you.
Chairman ROHRABACHER Ms. Jackson Lee is a very active member of the Subcommittee and always adds a lot of energy to every Hearing that she attends.
I would like to thank you. Mr. Gordon, do you have any last minute thoughts?
Just a few thoughts from the Chairman and that is the air traffic control system is certainly an important part of air traffic management, but perhaps, there is going to be some fundamental changes in aviation technology, as well.
We had a Hearing about a month ago on a vertical take off, vertical landing aircraft that is now being developed in San Diego. It is a jet and is called a DP–2, and promises to take off and land like a helicopter with vectoring thrusts that will go 600 miles an hour for 5,000 miles without refueling. And has tremendous potential. But if that happened, we wouldn't need all the long runways and the whole traffic control system would be totally different. The landing would be like that. You wouldn't have to worry about the noise problem.
And so there may be some breakthroughs in aviation technology that could actually affect some of the problems that we have been talking about today, in terms of runways, in terms of noise and other types of problems that we have to overcome in order to have a very efficient air traffic system in the United States.
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So I thank you all very much. Subcommittee Members may request additional information for the record. And I would ask that other members who are going to submit written questions do so within 1 week of this Hearing date. With that said, we are now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:10 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX 1: Biographies
BIOGRAPHY FOR ROBERT JOHN HANSMAN, JR.
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Room 33–303, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139–4307 USA; Voice: (617) 253–2271; Fax: (617) 253–4196; rjhans@mit.edu; http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/www/people/rjhans/bio.html
Education
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MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Cambridge, MA
Ph.D. in Physics, June 1982. Thesis under Professor Walter Hollister, ''The Interaction of Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Waves with Atmospheric Water Droplets and Applications to Aircraft Ice Prevention.''
M.S. in Physics, May 1980. Thesis under Professor George Bekefi, ''Reflexing in a Relativistic e-Beam Diode.''
CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, NY
A.B. Magna Cum Laude in Physics & Distinction in all Subjects, June 1976.
Member
Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, American Physical Society, U.S. Congressional Aeronautical Advisory Committee, FAA Research and Development Advisory Committee, NASA AATT Executive Committee, Soaring Society of America (Director), Soaring Safety Foundation (Director), American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (Associate Fellow, Atmospheric Environment Technical Committee, Regional Director), American Meteorological Society, Society of Automotive Engineers, Human Factors Society, Aeronautical Flight Measurements and Techniques Working Group, Editorial Board Air Traffic Control Quarterly and Journal of Aircraft.
Experience
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MIT DEPARTMENT OF AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS, Cambridge, MA
1982–present
Faculty member in the fields of Flight Safety, Flight Information Systems, Instrumentation, Aviation Meteorology, Human Factors, Air Transportation.
Head of the Division of Humans and Automation.
Director of the Aeronautical Systems Laboratory.
Director of the International Center for Air Transportation.
FLIGHT EXPERIENCE—4800+ hours: Commercial, Multi-Engine, Glider Airplane, Helicopter, Instrument and Flight Instructor Ratings. Graduate of the Union Alpen Selelflugschule (Neideroblarn, Austria). Extensive mountain and instrument flight experience. Engineering, Production, and Meteorological Flight Test Experience.
Awards
1998 Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching.
1994 AIAA Losey Atmospheric Sciences Award.
1990 OSTIV Diploma for Technical Contribution.
Federation Aeronautique Internationale Gold and Silver Awards with Two Diamonds.
1986 Presidential Young Investigator Award.
Esther & Harold E. Edgerton Professorship 1985.
Boeing Professorship in Aeronautics & Astronautics 1984.
1986 AIAA Award for the Best Paper in Thermophysics.
Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics.
Soaring Society of America, Exceptional Service Award 1989.
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Region 1 Soaring Champion 1980 and 1990.
1984 NASA Astronaut Selection Finalist.
Patents
''Microwave Ice Prevention System,'' U.S. Patent #4365131 issued December 21, 1982.
''Method and Apparatus for Measurement of Ice Thickness Employing Ultrasonic Pulse-Echo Technique,'' U.S. Patent #4628736 issued December 16, 1986.
''Method and Apparatus for Monitoring Liquid Volume/Mass in Tanks,'' U.S. Patent #4729245 issued March 8, 1988.
''Optically Indicating Surface De-Icing Fluids,'' U.S. Patent #5039439 issued August 13, 1991.
''Method and Apparatus for Detection of Ice Accretion—Remote IR Techniques,'' U.S. Patent #5313202 issued May 17, 1994.
Single Antenna GPS Aircraft Attitude Indicator, U.S. Patent Allowed, December 1999.
Video Production
''MIT Video Series on Measurement'' (author, co-producer, and presenter):
''Introduction to Measurement''
''Calibration, Accuracy and Error''
''Measuring Dynamic Variables''
''Contact Temperature Measurement''
''Infrared Temperature Measurement''
''Distance, Velocity and Acceleration''
''Mass, Force, Strain, Torque, and Pressure''
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''Measurement''
''Fluid Quantity and Flow''
Recent Publications (past 5 years only):
(with S. Schroll), ''Experimental Investigation of Contamination and Adhesion Failure of Type 2 Ground De-Icing Fluids,'' AIAA–96–0392, AIAA 34th Aerospace Sciences Meeting, January 1996.
(with D.J. Orr), ''Spectral Analysis and Experimental Simulation of Ice Accretion Roughness,'' AIAA–96–0865, AIAA 34th Aerospace Sciences Meeting, January 1996.
(with S. Vakil and A. Midkiff), ''Preliminary Results of the Experimental Evaluation of a Prototype Electronic Vertical Situation Display,'' 8th European Aviation Safety Seminar, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, February 1996.
(with E. Bachelder), ''Issues in Simultaneous HMD Display of Multi-Reference Frames for Helicopter Applications,'' Paper 2736–23, SPIE Conference 2736: Enhanced and Synthetic Vision, April 1996.
(with E. Johnson), ''Multi-Agent Flight Simulation with Robust Situation Generation,'' AIAA–96–3553, AIAA Flight Simulation Technologies Conference, July 1996.
(with A. Pritchett, R. Barhydt, and E. Johnson), ''Flight Simulator Testing of Cockpit Traffic Displays Using Robust Situation Generation,'' AIAA–96–3554, AIAA Flight Simulation Technologies Conference, July 1996.
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(with A. Pritchett), ''Experimental Study of Collision Detection Schema Used by Pilots During Closely Spaced Parallel Approaches,'' AIAA–96–3762, AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference, July 1996.
(with T.J. Pierce), ''Pedagogical Development of the MIT Video Series on Measurement: A Model for University Interaction with Industry,'' 1996 ABET Annual Meeting, October 1996.
(with A. Pritchett), ''Variations Among Pilots from Different Flight Operations in Party Line Information Requirements for Situation Awareness,'' Air Traffic Control Quarterly, Vol. 4 (1), 29–50, January 1997.
(with J.-P. Clarke), ''Systems Analysis of Noise Abatement Approach Procedures Enabled by Advanced Flight Guidance Technology,'' AIAA–97–0490, AIAA 35th Aerospace Sciences Meeting, January 1997.
(with K. Breuer, B. Torres, and D.J. Orr), ''Heat Transfer Measurements on Surfaces with Natural Ice Castings and Modeled Roughness,'' AIAA–97–1018, AIAA 35th Aerospace Sciences Meeting, January 1997.
(with National Research Council), Aviation Safety and Pilot Control: Understanding and Preventing Unfavorable Pilot-Vehicle Interactions, McRuer, D., Committee Chair, Committee on the Effects of Aircraft-Pilot Coupling on Flight Safety, Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1997.
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(with J. Kuchar and E. Johnson), ''Human Centered Development of Information Systems and Decision Aids in Advanced Air Traffic Management Systems,'' Modelling and Simulation in Air Traffic Management, Bianco, L., Dell'Olmo, P., and Odoni, A., Eds., Springer-Verlag, Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany, 169–184, 1997.
(with E. Bachelder), ''Enhanced Spatial State Feedback for Night Vision Goggle Displays,'' Paper 3058–23, SPIE Aerosense 1997, Conference 3058: Head Mounted Displays II, April 1997.
(with R. Barhydt), ''Experimental Studies of Intent Information on Cockpit Traffic Displays,'' Ninth International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, April 1997.
(with A. Dershowitz), ''An Exploration of Options in Value Based Aeronautical Decision Making,'' Ninth International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, April 1997.
(with A. Pritchett), ''Pilot Non-Conformance to Alerting System Commands,'' Ninth International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, April 1997.
(with A. Pritchett), ''Experimental Studies of Pilot Performance at Collision Avoidance During Closely Spaced Parallel Approaches,'' Ninth International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, April 1997.
(with E. Bachelder), ''Enhanced Spatial State Feedback for Night Vision Goggle Displays,'' U.S. Naval Air Warfare Center Situational Awareness Symposium, June 1997.
(with J. Kuchar, A. Pritchett, J.-P. Clarke, S. Vakil, and R. Barhydt), ''Integrated Human Centered Systems Approach to the Development of Advanced Air Traffic Management Systems,'' FAA/Eurocontrol 1st International Air Traffic Management R&D Seminar (ATM 97), Saclay, France, June 1997.
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(with S. Vakil), ''Human Centered Development of Information Systems and Decision Aids in Advanced Air Traffic Management and Flight Management Systems,'' Paper No. 844, International Ergonomics Association 13th Triennial Congress (IEA '97), Tampere, Finland, June/July 1997.
(with S. Vakil), ''Predictability as a Metric of Automation Complexity,'' Human Factors & Ergonomics Society 41st Annual Meeting, September 1997.
(with E. Bachelder), ''A Methodology for State Feedback Perception Measurement Applied to Rotorcraft Night Vision Goggle Displays,'' 16th IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference, October 1997.
(with J. Kuchar, J.-P.Clarke, S. Vakil, R. Barhydt and A. Pritchett), ''Integrated Human Centered Systems Approach to the Development of Advanced Cockpit and Air Traffic Management Systems,'' 16th IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference, October 1997.
(with A. Pritchett), ''Pilot Non-Conformance to Alerting System Commands During Closely Spaced Parallel Approaches,'' 16th IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference, October 1997.
(with S. Vakil), ''Functional Models of Flight Automation Systems to Support Design, Certification, and Operation,'' AIAA–98–1035, AIAA 36th Aerospace Sciences Meeting, January 1998.
(with J. Deyst and R. Kornfeld), ''Single Antenna GPS Based Aircraft Attitude Determination,'' Institute of Navigation National Technical Meeting: Navigation 2000, Long Beach, CA, January 1998.
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(with R. Kornfeld and J. Deyst), ''Single-Antenna GPS-Based Aircraft Attitude Determination,'' Navigation: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, Vol. 45 (1), 51–60, Spring 1998.
(with O. De Weck and D. Miller), ''Adaptive Technique for Radiation Pattern Shaping of Parabolic Mesh Antennas: A Low Cost Application of SMA Actuators in Spacecraft,'' ACTUATOR 98, Bremen, Germany, June 1998.
(with H. Idris, B. Delcaire, I. Anagnostakis, W. Hall, N. Pujet, E. Feron, J.-P.Clarke and A. Odoni), ''Identification of Flow Constraint and Control Points in Departure Operations at Airport Systems,'' AIAA–98–4291, AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference, Boston, MA, August 1998.
(with K. Amonlirdviman, T. Farley, J. Ladik, and D. Sherer), ''A Distributed Simulation Facility to Support Human Factors Research in Advanced Air Transportation Technology,'' 1998 Fall Simulation Interoperability Workshop, Orlando, FL, September 1998.
(with M. Endsley and T. Farley), ''Shared Situation Awareness in the Flight Deck—ATC System,'' 17th IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference, Seattle, WA, October/November 1998.
(with R. Kornfeld and J. Deyst), ''Preliminary Flight Test of Pseudo-Attitude Control Using Single Antenna GPS Sensing,'' 17th IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference, Seattle, WA, October/November 1998.
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(with S. Vakil), ''Analyzing Mode Transition Matrices,'' 17th IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference, Seattle, WA, October/November 1998.
(with S. Vakil), ''Operator Directed Common Conceptual Models for Advanced Aircraft Automation,'' 17th IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference, Seattle, WA, October/November 1998.
(with National Research Council), Maintaining U.S. Leadership in Aeronautics: Breakthrough Technologies to Meet Future Air and Space Transportation Needs, Pipes, R. Byron, Committee Chair, Committee to Identify Potential Breakthrough Technologies and Assess Long-Term R&D Goals in Aeronautics and Space Transportation Technology, Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1998.
(with M. Endsley, T. Farley, L. Vigeant-Langlois, and K. Amonlirdviman), ''The Effect of Shared Information on Pilot/Controller Situation Awareness and Re-Route Negotiation,'' FAA/Eurocontrol 2nd International Air Traffic Management R&D Seminar (ATM 98), Orlando, FL, December 1998. Also presented at FAA/Europe Workshop on Human Machine Interaction, Toulouse, France, April 1999.
(with H. Idris, B. Delcaire, W. Hall, I. Anagnostakis, E. Feron, and A. Odoni), ''Observations of Departure Planning Processes at Logan Airport to Support the Development of Departure Planning Tools,'' FAA/Eurocontrol 2nd International Air Traffic Management R&D Seminar (ATM 98), Orlando, FL, December 1998.
''Characteristics of Instrumentation,'' Chapter 1 in The Measurement, Instrumentation and Sensors Handbook, Webster, J., Editor, CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL, 3–10, January 1999.
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(with L. Vigeant-Langlois), ''Pilot Information Needs and Strategies for Operations in Icing Conditions,'' 10th International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, Columbus, OH, April 1999.
(with T. Farley, M. Endsley, and K. Amonlirdviman), ''The Effects of Shared Information on Pilot-Controller Situation Awareness and Re-Route Negotiation,'' 10th International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, Columbus, OH, April 1999.
(with J. Deyst and R. Kornfeld), ''Single Antenna GPS Information Based Aircraft Attitude Redundancy,'' 1999 American Control Conference, San Diego, CA, June 1999.
(with L. Vigeant-Langlois), ''Human-Centered Design Considerations for In-Flight Remote Sensing Icing Avoidance,'' Fourth International Airborne Remote Sensing Conference and Exhibition, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, June 1999.
(with S. Vakil), ''Approaches to Mitigating Complexity-Driven Issues in Commercial Autoflight Systems,'' 3rd Workshop on Human Error, Safety, and System Development (HESSD '99), Liège, Belgium, June 1999.
(with H, Idris, I. Anagnostakis, B. Delcaire, J.-P. Clarke, E. Feron, and A. Odoni), ''Observations of Departure Processes at Logan Airport to Support the Development of Departure Planning Tools,'' Air Traffic Control Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 4, 229–257, July 1999.
(with R. Barhydt), ''Experimental Studies of Intent Information on Cockpit Traffic Displays,'' AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, Vol. 22, No. 4, 520–527, July-August 1999.
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(with M. Endsley, and T. Farley), ''Shared Situation Awareness in the Flight Deck-ATC System,'' IEEE AES Systems Magazine, Vol. 14, No. 8, 25–30, August 1999.
(with S. Atkins), ''Calculating Dependent Surveillance Update Rates by Modeling the Time-Dependence of Information Value,'' AIAA–99–4145, AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference, Portland, OR, August 1999.
''The Effect of Shared Information on Pilot/Controller and Controller/Controller Interactions,'' Workshop on Advanced Technologies and their Impact on Air Traffic Management in the 21st Century (ATM '99), Capri, Italy, September 1999.
(with L. Vigeant-Langlois), ''The Influence of Icing Information on Pilot Strategies for Operating in Icing Conditions,'' AIAA–2000–0365, AIAA 38th Aerospace Sciences Meeting, January 2000.
(with T. Reynolds), ''Analysis of Separation Minima Using a Surveillance State Vector Approach,'' FAA/Eurocontrol 3rd International Air Traffic Management R&D Seminar (ATM–2000), Napoli, Italy, June 2000.
(with H. Davison), ''The Effect of Shared Information on Pilot/Controller and Controller/Controller Interactions,'' FAA/Eurocontrol 3rd International Air Traffic Management R&D Seminar (ATM–2000), Napoli, Italy, June 2000.
(with I. Anagnostakis, H. Idris, J.-P. Clarke, E. Feron, A. Odoni, and W. Hall), ''A Conceptual Design of a Departure Planner Decision Aid,'' FAA/Eurocontrol 3rd International Air Traffic Management R&D Seminar (ATM–2000), Napoli, Italy, June 2000.
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(with Vigeant-Langlois, L.), ''Pilot Information Requirements for Improved In-Flight Icing Decisions,'' 9th AMS Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology, Orlando, FL, September 2000.
(with T. Farley, K. Amonlirdviman, and M. Endsley), ''Shared Information Between Pilots and Controllers in Tactical Air Traffic Control,'' AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, 23, No. 5, 826–836, September-October 2000.
(with Vigeant-Langlois, Laurence), ''The Influence of Icing Information on Pilot Stratetgies for Operating in Icing Conditions,'' Journal of Aircraft, 37, No. 6, 108–113, November-December 2000.
(with Murman, E.M., and Clarke, J.-P.), ''Aircraft System and Product Development: Teaching the Conceptual Phase,'' AIAA–2001–0866, AIAA 39th Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, NV, January 2001.
(with A. Pritchett), ''Performance Based Measurement of Situation Awareness,'' Chapter 11 in Situation Awareness Analysis and Measurement, Garland, D., and Endsley, M., Eds., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Mahweh, NJ, January 2001.
''Complexity in Aircraft Automation: A Precursor for Concern in Human-Automation Systems,'' National Forum: The Phi Kappa Phi Journal: When Technology Fails, (in press) February 2001.
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(with Kornfeld, R., Deyst, J., Amonlirdviman, K., and Walker, E.), ''Applications of GPS Velocity Based Attitude Information,'' (in review) AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics.
(with Vakil, S.), ''Approaches to Mitigating Complexity-Driven Issues in Commercial Autoflight Systems,'' (in publication) Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier Science.
BIOGRAPHY FOR SAMUEL L. VENNERI
73841d.eps
Samuel L. Venneri was appointed Associate Administrator for Aerospace Technology in February 2000, while retaining his previous position as NASA's Chief Technologist. In the combined position, Venneri is the Administrator's principal advisor on Agency-wide technology issues. Under Venneri, the Office of Aerospace Technology is charged with developing integrated, long-term,innovative Agency-level technology for aeronautics and space. Venneri will also be responsible for developing new commercial partnerships that exploit technology breakthroughs, and for establishing and maintaining technology core competencies at the NASA Centers.
Appointed to Chief Technologist in November 1996, he reported directly to the NASA Administrator. He served as the principal advisor and advocate on matters concerning Agency-wide technology policy and programs. As Chief Technologist, Mr. Venneri also chaired NASA's Technology Leadership Council, whose members consist of the Enterprise Associate Administrators, the Chief Engineer and Chief Information Officer, the Comptroller and NASA Center Directors.
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Before being named Chief Technologist, Mr. Venneri served as Director of the Spacecraft Systems Division in the former Office of Space Access and Technology. In that position, he was responsible for the planning, advocacy and direction of all spacecraft and advanced instrument research and technology activities within that office.
Mr. Venneri started his career at NASA in 1981 as a Program Manager in the Materials and Structures Division, Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology. He was responsible for the technical direction, management and coordination of programs in spacecraft design technology, structural dynamics, computational analysis and design methodology and aircraft and engine materials and structures technology. Mr. Venneri was named Director of that office in 1984.
Prior to joining NASA, Mr. Venneri was an aerospace consultant with Swales and Associates, and principal engineer with Fairchild Space Electronics. In those positions, he worked in a variety of areas relating to spacecraft structural design and analysis as well as launch vehicle systems.
Mr. Venneri received his B.S. in aerospace engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 1969, and M.S. in engineering science from George Washington University in 1975.
BIOGRAPHY FOR JOHN B. HAYHURST
John Hayhurst is president of Air Traffic Management. The organization was established under Hayhurst's leadership to provide an integrated solution for a new traffic management system. He was appointed to this position in November 2000 and also was named senior vice president and a member of the Boeing Executive Council.
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Previously, Hayhurst was vice president of Business Development for the Commercial Aviation Services business unit of Boeing Commercial Airplanes Group (BCAG). He was responsible for developing opportunities for BCAG to expand its successful airplane and information services businesses, and its worldwide customer support presence, through the creation of customer solutions.
Prior to this assignment, Hayhurst served as vice president and general manager of 737 programs, with responsibility for the design and production of the Boeing 737 family of airplanes. In addition, he was general manager of the BCAG Renton, Wash., production site.
Before that, he served as vice-president—The Americas, and was responsible for the Boeing business relationships with airline customers in North America and Latin America and for the sale of Boeing commercial airplanes to customers in those regions.
Hayhurst joined Boeing in 1969 as a customer support engineer. He held positions of increasing responsibility related to commercial airplanes, and in 1987 was promoted to vice president of Marketing. In this position, he played a significant role in the launch of the Boeing 777. Subsequently, he was responsible for leading the teams planning the design, development and manufacture of aircraft larger than the Boeing 747. Then he served as vice president–general manager of the Boeing 747–500X/600X Program.
A native of West Virginia, Hayhurst holds a Bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from Purdue University. He received a Master's degree in business administration from the University of Washington in 1971. In 1998, Hayhurst was awarded an honorary doctorate in engineering by Purdue University.
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APPENDIX 2: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
Questions submitted by Chairman Rohrabacher to Prof. John Hansman
1. Which agency—NASA or FAA—should appropriately bear the cost of studying, researching and developing a new Air Traffic Management System?
NASA's emphasis should be on the research side addressing the core issues of current and future ATM systems. This should include fundamental studies do develop a deep understanding of ATM systems dynamics, development of new technologies and innovative concepts, environmental issues, human factors, reliability analysis, system engineering and modeling.
FAA's emphasis should be on the development side, building on the research done at NASA and elsewhere (FFRDC's, Europe, and Industry). FAA also has a research role in addressing questions in support of unique FAA mission requirements.
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NASA and the FAA should jointly collaborate in identifying long-term needs and opportunities in ATM.
2. Does privatization of the air traffic management system enter into FAA's equation as it develops the next generation system? Is privatization necessary or desirable?
Other than slowly forming and staffing the Air Traffic Organization as well as contracting some specific functions and equipment leases, the FAA does not appear to formally consider privatization as part of the future calculus. Privatization has some desirable characteristics in terms of more rapid technical and capital transition as well as some potential advantages in labor management however privatization is probably not necessary for the modernization of the system. There are major concerns regarding the tension between safety and capacity in a privatized system.
3. Does FAA envision a future air traffic management system similar to the one proposed by Boeing, with satellites providing communications, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) coverage? Can ground-based systems provide equivalent functionality at a lesser cost?
The Boeing plan is consistent with the FAA published operational concepts but suggests a much swifter transition to satellite based CNS services. In places where ground-based infrastructure is in place (and paid for), the costs to continue to provide those services are generally lower than the costs of developing and implementing a new satellite based infrastructure. In places where the infrastructure is less developed (e.g., remote and developing regions) then the costs of a satellite based infrastructure is generally lower than an equivalent ground-based infrastructure. It should be noted that some retention of ground-based infrastructure is desirable from a redundancy standpoint. The integrity requirements imposed to attempting a ''sole means'' CNS system would significantly increase the technical difficulties and cost.
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4. In this country, congestion has been a fairly recent phenomenon. Have other countries or regions had any experience wrestling with congested traffic in their air space, and if so, how have they coped? Are there any ''lessons learned'' that can be applied here?
Europe and the northern oceanic regions have also had congestion problems. Generally congestion has emerged in the wake of airline deregulation so the problems first emerged in the U.S. and Europe. There are also some point congestion problems emerging in Asia. While there are clearly lessons to be learned from the overseas experience the specifics of the key constraints tend to be different. For example in the U.S. the key constraints tend to focus around the airports and terminal areas where as in Europe the key constraints tend to be associated with enroute airspace and national boundary transitions. Understanding the key constraints is critical to understanding the most viable solution strategies. On the research side, the U.S. and Europe are collaborating in this area.
5. The European Union recently announced an ambitious 20 year program to coordinate among its member states the financing—and research and development—of next-generation aircraft and air traffic control systems. With respect to Air Traffic Management, if the EU pursues these initiatives, how likely is it that U.S. leadership will be eclipsed? Can the Europeans proceed to develop and impose a new system in Europe without U.S. concurrence?
The U.S. position of leadership in Aeronautics in general and ATM specifically is at risk. Some in Europe argue for a strategy of dominance in aviation by means of a Strategic Research Agenda. Others argue for a more collaborative approach to insure ''global interoperability''. This is particularly important in ATM where the airlines and airframe manufactures desire to be able to operate throughout the world with the same CNS systems. We are beginning to see signs that Europe is proceeding without U.S. concurrence in some ATM issues such as splitting of the aviation VHF communications in Europe.
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6. Will there come a time in the next 10 to 20 years where government may have to impose some form of slot allocation at hub airports as a tool to manage capacity and keep chaos out of the system?
First, subsequent to the tragedy on September 11, 2001 I believe that, in synchronization with the economy, the traffic demand will recover and that capacity issues will remain an area of concern.
Hub airports are less likely to require slot allocation than non-hub airports such as New York, La Guardia. Airlines have an incentive to manage their schedules to a reasonable level of delay since they internalize the delay costs in their own operation and penalize themselves if the schedule cannot be reliably executed. In non-hub airports with multiple operators, if there is a perceived market, there is less incentive to schedule unreasonably since the delay costs are spread among the other operators (i.e., externalized).
Potential sources of chaos in the system are not fully understood because of the complexity of the dynamics of the air transportation network. This is the type of issue which should be investigated further at the fundamental research level.
To what degree will runways now under design or construction help alleviate congestion in the system?
The runways currently under design or construction will have a limited impact in terms of congestion relief. Most of the planned runways are not at the locations which have acute runway deficiencies (e.g., BOS, LGA) but rather at airports which already have large concentrations of traffic. Airlines are likely to respond to these runway capacity increases by increasing flight concentration at peak times. This may increase flight availability and reduce costs but would increase congestion.
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Can, and should, carriers be required to manage schedules to avoid overburdening a hub airport with a wave of flights?
This will happen naturally. It is in the best interest to manage the schedules to maintain bank integrity at their hubs. They will schedule to stay within the delay tolerance of the market.
Questions submitted by Mr. Gordon to Prof. John Hansman
1. Is there a gap between the technology readiness level at which NASA programs end and the level required for FAA to consider implementing the technology in the air traffic management system? If so, what remedies are available?
There is currently no gap in the NASA Technology Readiness Level target for major ATM programs (TRL–6, System/Subsystem model or Prototype Demonstration in a relevant environment) and that which the FAA can consider for implementation. Several of the components of the Free Flight Phases 1 and 2 demonstrate this.
There does appear to be a timing gap which exists in FAA's ability (funding) to conduct the initial implementation readiness steps and conduct the technology transfer as programs reach the final stages of technical readiness. In many cases the research may bell be completed, and the researchers moved to other programs before the technology transfer can be funded which slows implementation and increases costs.
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2. What is the nature and level of research investment by NASA and FAA to reduce the future impact of aircraft noise?
NASA has an ongoing Quiet Aircraft Technology Program with aggressive noise reduction targets. I understand that the projected funding for this program is $20 M per year over five years. The FAA does not directly do research in aircraft noise but does conduct research work on noise certification and noise impact analysis (i.e., noise models). In FY 01 the FAA investment is $.0678 M in contract resources in this area. In the FY 02 President's Budget, the FAA is requesting $3.968 M for similar but accelerated work.
3. What would be the impact on the national airspace system capacity if essentially silent transport aircraft (noise at the level of background noise in an urban area) were to be developed? What kinds of research and what level of resources would be needed to develop the technology for such aircraft?
The mechanism for increasing national airspace system capacity through noise reduction would be to make airports and airport expansion more acceptable to local populations. If this could be done for aircraft and/or helicopters it would obviously have a major impact. However, the technical challenges are significant. Even if the engine noise could be completely eliminated (unlikely), the aerodynamic noise from the airframe can be significant. Clearly approaches such as the NASA Quite Aircraft Technology Program should be pursued but we should also continue to seek out and support innovative ''out of the box'' approaches.
4. Has the FAA advisory committee made any attempt to estimate the level of resources needed and the broad priorities required over the next 10 years in the national R&D portfolio to support the development of an air traffic management system that will meet the demands projected to be placed on it? If so, what has it concluded?
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In my opinion, the FAA Research & Development Advisory Committee has not made a comprehensive assessment of the resources needed and broad priorities required for the national R&D research portfolio in ATM. Because of the FAA's short-term operational focus, the committee has tended to be reactive and address emergent issues and short term resource deficiencies. I believe that the committee is interested and concerned about the longer-term issues but there is some ambiguity about who has oversight of the long-term national ATM strategy. The national research portfolio currently is distributed among the FAA, NASA, DOD and FFRDC's such as MITRE CAASD. Within the FAA, oversight responsibility for ATM research is further clouded by shifting of some R&D activities within the F&E budget and the formation of the performance based Air Traffic Organization.
5. For several years the FAA advisory committee has strongly recommended increased environmental research by the FAA.
Would you explain the advisory committee's concerns and their perception of FAA's response?
It is my recollection that the concerns were for both the FAA and NASA environmental research budgets. At the time, the NASA environmental activities were being challenged and the committee wanted to communicate the importance of environmental issues particularly as they impact airport capacity. I understand that the FAA expressed support for the importance of the NASA research program. The FAA's research in the environmental area is mostly focused on specific FAA responsibilities such as modeling to support environmental statements, regulatory factors and international environmental standards. The REDAC Environmental Subcommittee did recommend a specific study to assess the status of progress towards national environmental goals. It is my understanding that the NRC is currently conducting this study for the FAA.
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If FAA continues to under-fund environmental research, what in your opinion will be the result with regard to airspace system efficiency and capacity?
Environmental issues may become the dominant constraining factor on the air transportation system. Airport growth may be restricted. International standards are likely to be set by other countries which may not address U.S. concerns.
6. The FAA R&D advisory committee was created by statute to review all FAA R&D activities and report annually to the FAA director on whether the major R&D activities of FAA are appropriate to meet the research needs and objectives identified by the advisory committee. A substantial portion of the funding in FAA's Facilities & Equipment account is for R&D activities. Does the advisory committee review the R&D programs funded under the Facilities & Equipment account, other than those recently moved from the RE&D account, and if not, why not?
The REDAC attempts to review the FAA F&E programs which contain a significant research programs (e.g., The Safe Flight 21 Program, The Runway Incursion Reduction Program and parts of the Free Flight Phase II Program). As stated above there is some confusion as to when elements within the F&E budget move from the R&D phase to the implementation phase and are beyond the purview of the REDAC.
ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
Responses submitted by Steve Zaidman, Associate Administrator for Research and Acquisition, Federal Aviation Administration
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1. Which agency—NASA or FAA—should appropriately bear the cost of studying, researching and developing a new Air Traffic Management System?
The FAA and NASA have a good relationship and complementary roles with respect to research and development of a new Air Traffic Management System.
FAA, as service provider, determines user needs and defines concepts, requirements, and plans, like the NAS Architecture. FAA pursues promising research and development (R&D) where there is a critical mass of expertise and/or useful facilities. NASA is one of those key sources, along with Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, universities, private-sector and international organizations, such as Eurocontrol.
The development of the systems and procedures, to place research into operational use, is led by the FAA.
2. Does privatization of the air traffic management system enter into FAA's equation as it develops the next generation system? Is privatization necessary or desirable?
The FAA is proceeding with the formation of an Air Traffic Organization (ATO). This structure is consistent with the existing policy and statutory guidance from Congress and the Executive order issued by former President Clinton. We believe that the ATO approach is the most desirable and effective means of developing the Air Traffic Management (ATM) system.
3. Does FAA have an end-state Air Traffic Management system that is building toward? If so, how would you describe it, and notionally how long will it take us to get there?
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The National Airspace System (NAS) captures the evolution to the system by identifying the transition steps to meet the 2015 concept. The Architecture identifies new operational requirements and projects the need for research and system development. The Architecture, as in the FAA's Operational Evolution Plan, captures all activities—training, procedures, and airspace design—required to achieve critical transitions.
Like most long-range plans, they are periodically refined to respond to changing conditions. The out-year limits beyond 2010 should be viewed as planning horizons, rather than ''end-states.'' Aviation evolves to meet demand—there is no end-state.
4. Some countries have already privatized their air traffic management, with services provided by for-profit entities. To what degree does this complicate reaching consensus on developing a universal ATM model? Absent direct authority by their respective governments, would the marketplace likely be sufficient to bring these for-profit entities into the mainstream?
For profit entities, whether here or abroad, are considered as equivalent to private sector vendors. As such they effectively are contractors. This does not necessarily complicate reaching universal consensus. However, it does mean that the FAA must conduct business in a different manner than it has in the past. Marketplace forces could be expected to significantly influence future ATM designs. Evidence to date indicates that both government and private entities are converging on a common vision of the ATM's future.
5. Does FAA envision a future air traffic management system similar to the one proposed by Boeing, with satellites providing communications, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) coverage? Can ground-based systems provide equivalent functionality at a lesser cost?
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The FAA has accepted and incorporated the use of satellites for navigation into its architecture. User and FAA requirements for satellite-based surveillance and communication alternatives have not been identified to date. Until these needs are established and analyses conducted, no commitment for or against satellite alternatives can be made.
Satellites and ground-based systems can provide equivalent functionalities over land, with satellites providing additional functionality over oceanic airspace. For navigation services potential costs savings for satellites as opposed to land based navigation aides exists, but this is highly dependent on the rate to which users will transition their avionics equipage. For communications and surveillance the FAA has not conducted cost analyses, similar to that navigation; however, there would be substantial costs to the users to equip their aircraft for satellite surveillance and communications.
Even though the FAA began working on the civil aviation use of satellite navigation 20 years ago, there continue to be lingering concerns among the user community about the integrity and reliability of the system. As a result, costly ground-based navigation services are planned to remain in place for much longer than originally envisioned. While satellite-based concepts hold great promise of expanding operational capabilities at lower cost, transition planning should consider past experiences and lessons learned.
6. Fundamentally, arc there critical distinctions between the Boeing vision of future Air Traffic Management with that of FAA, and if so, what are they?
There are no distinctions on what should be implemented operationally over the next 10 years. Differences arise in the technology applied to achieve the change beyond about 2010. There is heavy emphasis on satellites in the Boeing proposal for communications and surveillance. The FAA and the user community have not evaluated the safety, security and economics of their approach and will do so when mere details are available.
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ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
Responses submitted by John B. Hayhurst, President, Air Traffic Management, The Boeing Company
1. What is the cost associated with the purchase and installation of data-link and flight management systems to be installed in aircraft as part of the next-generation Air Traffic Management system? Does Boeing have a notional idea of the cost to install such a system on a large jet transport? A business jet? Military transports? A small generation aviation four-seat aircraft?
Can existing fleets of aircraft be retrofitted in a cost-effective manner?
Under agency cost/benefit analyses, is it possible that the cost of equipping aircraft with computers and guidance systems may cause FAA and NASA to pull back from fielding a fully enhances system?
Is it contemplated that relatively inexpensive general aviation aircraft can continue to operate throughout the system using a more basic suite of instruments, or would they be restricted from certain areas?
Answer:
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At this time, Boeing does not have detailed cost information related to the purchase and installation of data-link and flight management systems for the categories of aircraft (large jet transport, business jet, military transport and general aviation four seat aircraft) in question. Much more work must first be done in developing system level performance requirements, refining the operational concepts to meet these requirements, and then evaluating specific technologies such as data-link and flight management systems through trade studies before the costs of specific subsystem components can be accurately estimated. Boeing is currently leading an extensive, near-term effort involving over 30 different stakeholder organizations to define these system level requirements.
The issue of aircraft equipage, potential equipment retrofits for existing fleets, and their associated costs are extremely important to all users. Boeing's system design philosophy will be to incorporate as much existing equipment as practical to improve the affordability to users. Approximately 65% of the existing commercial jet aircraft fleet are equipped with modern FMS systems. Many of the non FMS-equipped commercial jets may approach the end of their economic life before a new system is implemented further reducing fleet retrofit requirements. In addition, Boeing assumes that any new system architecture will need to accommodate several classes of users that will have varying levels of equipage based on their specific needs. In all cases, Boeing assumes that user benefits must be quantifiable and exceed user investment costs. Boeing also recognizes that users will need a sufficient transition period to efficiently procure and install any required equipment as well as train personnel to use new equipment and procedures.
Fielding a ''fully enhanced system'' will require significant planning and commitments by regulators, operators and users. In order to get necessary stakeholder support, each class of users must be offered a positive value proposition where the benefits derived from investments in new equipage in terms of safety, access, and efficiency will exceed the cost to that user.
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Boeing contemplates that inexpensive general aviation aircraft will be offered a relatively low-cost equipment option. Boeing envisions that this level of equipage will afford general aviation users equal or greater access to airspace and airfields than exists today and will significantly improve their ability to takeoff and land on unimproved airfields in less than ideal whether conditions. The system must also continue to accommodate aircraft that have no equipment upgrades for at least some period of time, although these aircraft may continue to have access limited in congested airspace.
2. If fully implemented, does the Boeing proposal offer world-wide coverage?
Utilizing the Boeing system, would it be possible for small, unsophisticated airports to receive state-of-the-art, precision ATM services without much upfront expense?
Answer:
Yes. Boeing's satellite-based Global Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance System (GCNSS) concept will provide approximately the same area of coverage as today's GPS network.
Yes. Boeing's design philosophy is to allocate more of the hardware and software infrastructure within the GCNSS and Common Information Network so that minimal new equipment will be required both on the aircraft and the ground monitor stations. This design philosophy is intended to address affordability requirements for system users and ground operators in places with little or no existing infrastructure.
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3. Does Boeing plan to formally sit down with FAA and spell out its proposal in detail? If so, when might this occur?
Answer:
Boeing has already begun to discuss these concepts with the FAA. The FAA is participating with other stakeholders in a Boeing led process to design system requirements as set out in answer #1 above.
4. Fundamentally, are there critical distinctions between the Boeing vision of future Air Traffic Management with that of FAA/NASA, and if so, what are they?
Boeing has invested a substantial sum to create and staff its Air Traffic Management line of business, and will soon be taking steps to further refine system requirements. In parallel with this effort, FAA and NASA are beginning to gear up a collaborative effort. At what point does it make sense for the parties (FAA/NASA and Boeing) to sit down and talk to each other in earnest?
Answer:
Boeing considers its concepts as complementary to the FAA's Operational Evolution Plan (OEP). The differences are 1) Timeframes: The FAA's OEP is a 10 years plan intended to address relatively near-term capacity needs. Boeing's concepts intend to address capacity needs over 20+ years. 2) The Boeing concept is intended to make more extensive use of satellites providing communication, navigation, and surveillance capabilities and global coverage. The OEP focuses primarily on domestic airspace and utilizes GPS satellites and signal enhancements only for navigation. 3) Boeing proposes a higher level of integration of the various elements of the FAA system than does the current OEP.
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Boeing is already talking with both the FAA and NASA. We are in the process of establishing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with NASA and a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRDA) with the FAA to share data and collaborate in a more substantive way.
5. How difficult would it be to integrate the Boeing Air Traffic Management proposal into the existing system? Is it a complement to—or a replacement of—the existing system?
How difficult would it be to transition the existing FAA system to the model proposed by Boeing? For a period of time, would it require aircraft to carry two sets of navigation and communications radios?
Answer:
One of the major challenges to implementing our concepts will be transition issues. The Boeing proposal is complimentary to the OEP as currently planned by the FAA.
Boeing will make every effort to avoid duplicity of equipment and utilize existing equipment. In some cases, there will inevitably be a period of overlap where some dual equipage is necessary. In some cases this may provide an additional level of redundancy to better meet safety and performance objectives during transition.
6. Does Boeing propose to build and operate an Air Traffic Management system, or is it making an unsolicited offer to design and build the system, while retaining FAA as operator of the system?
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Answer:
Boeing's concepts are technical in nature and not dependent on any particular business model such as privatization. Boeing envisions that a new global public/private partnership may be needed to develop and implement the global satellite infrastructure. This type of partnership may require significant private investment and risk sharing between government and industry partners. The capabilities of the GCNSS could be provided on a global basis to the FAA, other civil aviation authorities, or other entities operating air traffic control systems, such as NavCanada.
(Footnote 1 return)
Aviation Delays, Congressional Research Service, November 22, 2000.
(Footnote 2 return)
NASA's investment in aeronautics R&D has suffered huge cuts in recent years. For FY01 they spent approximately $400 million, down from $1 billion in FY94.