The Aerospace Industry Association’s Dan Elwell testified before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure this week (press release, full text PDF), and called on Congress to fund NextGen investments through tax incentives as well as the Airport Improvement Program. Referring to the potential of NextGen technology to improve fuel efficiency, Elwell said:
At a time when [...]
Entries from October 2008
October 31, 2008
AIA to Congress: NextGen investment is a ‘no-brainer’
October 29, 2008
Explainer: Clean air turbulence
A great column in Forbes magazine about what clean air turbulence is, why it happens, why it’s hard to avoid, and how meteorologists might soon be able to do a better job of predicting it. No specific mention of NextGen, though the author makes the point that one of the problems today is the low-resolution [...]
October 29, 2008
CSC buys maker of ATC simulator software
Integration giant Computer Sciences Corp. has acquired Maryland-based Xavius Technology in order to raise its game in the field of air traffic control simulation (press release). Xavius, which released its first simulator in the late nineties as a standalone software product for the PC market, has since expanded into radar training, tower simulators, and ATM [...]
October 28, 2008
How will the presidential election affect air travel?
A fine column from Joe Brancatelli, former editor of Frequent Flyer magazine and current contributor to Conde Nast Portfolio, on how our next president might shape the airline industry. Brancatelli mentions NextGen, but also examines topics ranging from reform at the TSA, to currency policy, to open skies agreements, to possible re-regulation. An interesting sidenote: [...]
October 25, 2008
FAA’s Leverenz touts Alaska Airlines approach ’saves’
FAA Acting Deputy Administrator Ruth Leverenz spoke to the International Aviation Womens’ Association on Friday, and portrayed NextGen as the next frontier in a long line of historical breakthroughs. (Transcript here.) Also, she specifically highlighted Alaska Airilnes’ participation in an RNP program at Palm Springs International.
We are focusing deployment of RNAV and Required Navigation Performance, [...]
October 20, 2008
EXCLUSIVE: Embry-Riddle’s Christina Frederick talks to Fly NextGen about politics, next month’s big test, and why she’s nervous about a ‘huge FAA shakeup’
On November 18th, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University will host a demo of some key systems around ERAM (En Route Automation Modernization) and TMA (Traffic Management Advisor) at its NextGen test bed facility in Daytona Beach. It’s a high-profile moment for the University, which has been lobbying heavily for funds that will allow it to develop and [...]
October 20, 2008
NASA to fund radical thinking on the future of commercial flight
The aeronautics research arm of NASA has awarded $12.4 million in grants to six teams, who will develop advanced concepts for commercial aircraft that could enter service around 2035 (press release). The teams, which include industry giants like Northrop-Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon, as well as researchers from MIT, Purdue, Georgia Tech and Tufts, [...]
October 20, 2008
Presidential candidates’ views on FAA succession are vague, similar
The Aicraft Owners and PIlots Association (AOPA) asked the campaigns for both presidential candidates identical questions of interest to the GA community (link here). The last question was phrased as follows: “What specific qualifications will you look for when nominating an FAA administrator?”
John McCain: “The FAA is going to face some major challenges during the [...]
October 19, 2008
Taxiing SkyWest jet collides with truck at O’Hare; 3 injured
Three people were injured at Chicago’s O’Hare airport early Saturday when a city maintenance truck collided with a United Express CL-600 regional jet, operated by SkyWest Airlines. The plane was being piloted by two maintenance workers on a closed runway when the accident occurred; no passengers were on board. The truck driver was listed in critical [...]
October 19, 2008
FAA’s Victoria Cox: ‘We ain’t seen nothing yet’
FAA Senior Vice President for NextGen Victoria Cox has an editorial in the Fredericksburg (VA) Free Lance-Star newspaper.
The technology of NextGen is not our greatest challenge. Marshalling the support–including financial resources–necessary to build and implement NextGen is. Virtually everyone seems to agree that we need to do something to address the congestion and delay problems, [...]
October 17, 2008
FAA adds 3 new carriers to cockpit safety trial
The FAA has announced it will partner with three additional airlines for its upcoming cockpit safety initative, which focuses on Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) and Aural Alerting technology. (FAA fact sheet). The newly added carriers are Atlas Air, CommutAir and Shuttle America, and the three will receive a combined total of $1.7 million in return [...]
October 17, 2008
Domestic passenger traffic drops 3.5% in July
The U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics released its most current monthly data on passenger traffic today, and the picture is fairly grim. Total July traffic (year-over-year) declined 2.9%, but that number is a bit misleading because the international portion was up 1.3%. Looking only at the domestic passenger count, traffic was down 3.5%. (The complete [...]
October 17, 2008
Sensis nabs $131 million contract to install runway lights
It’s been a good month so far for Sensis. The East Syracuse (NY)-based tech integrator just landed an FAA contract to install runway status lights at 22 U.S. airports (press releases here and here). The initial job is priced at $131 million; two one-year options could extend that amount to $215 million. Last week, Sensis [...]
October 16, 2008
Earnings report: Q3 fuel costs hit airlines hard
Three of the nation’s largest air carriers reported stiff underlying quarterly losses on Thursday, with American Airlines parent AMR reaching profitability only through the sale of financial firm American Beacon Advisors. (Stories here and here.)
AMR said its third-quarter net profit amounted to $45 million, or 17 cents per share. [..]
Excluding the sale of American Beacon [...]
October 15, 2008
FAA to establish foothold in India
While it’s not exactly NextGen, the Times of India had an interesting item about the FAA’s efforts to establish closer ties with the aviation community in India. At this week’s India Aviation conference and expo in Hyderabad, acting Administrator Robert Sturgell announced that the agency will be dispatching a permanent representative to India for the [...]
October 15, 2008
Explainer: ACARS and its future
Among the many legacy networks that NextGen initiatives will presumably replace, the Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) stands out as especially anachronistic in a wifi- and WWAN-enabled world. This system, which uses 100- to 200- character “telex-style” messages for 2-way data transmission between commercial aircraft and airline operations centers, is slow, expensive, and [...]
October 14, 2008
Gloomy outlook for defense biz; contractors looking to IT, training, logistics
Monday’s Washington Post provides some good context around the economic conditions faced by large government contractors. The article’s subhead — “After Eight Boom Years for Spending on Military Equipment, Contractors Expect a Slowdown” — points to looming uncertainty in the defense sector, but also outlines alternative strategies being pursued by Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman [...]
October 14, 2008
Flight rerouting called ‘reckless’
The re-routing of four flights over North Carolina and Georgia is being investigated due to union allegations that an FAA manager ordered the move in violation of federal rules. The incident, which occurred at Jacksonville Center late last week, was first made public by NATCA (press release here) and later picked up by the AP. [...]
October 14, 2008
FAA’s troubled flight-plan system: an IT perspective
The corporate IT magazine ‘Baseline’ has a sprawling, somewhat uneven, but nonetheless fascinating article related to the spectacular August 26th system failure of the National Airspace Data Interchange Network (NADIN) site in Atlanta. One interesting tidbit: the existing mainframe hardware — in use continuously since 1988 — was actually first manufactured in the 1960s and [...]
October 13, 2008
One step at a time: Phase 2 of TFMS upgrade completed
It’s a baby step, but a step nonetheless. In this press release from Computer Sciences Corp., the tech giant reports it has completed an upgrade of the FAA’s Traffic Flow Management System. CSC says the system “integrates real-time weather and flight data from multiple sources, provides centralized communications, enhanced security, initial relational database constructs and [...]
