![]() ![]() In Houston, global positioning has allowed more direct routes and descent procedures into the area’s many busy airports. In many ways, NextGen is not next-it’s happening now. We are pulling out all the old equipment and putting in new equipment, new computer screens, software, new training and procedures throughout the system.” NextGen Today, NextGen Tomorrow Any work we do has to be done while the system is running. “To put this in context, there are 60,000 flight operations every day. “With surveillance we are upgrading the entire network, which was previously based on radar,” said Whitaker. In addition to communication improvements, NextGen upgrades will transform how air traffic controllers do the other major part of their job: surveillance. It is a 20-year, $20 billion effort akin to replacing a car engine while the car is racing down a highway. NextGen is a project of enormous scale that goes well beyond the communications component. With NextGen functionality in place, communication will be handled by text messages, allowing controllers to clear backlogs of airplanes much more quickly. It’s a very inefficient system that will be replaced by a digital system.” “You receive an instruction from air control and you read back the instruction to make sure you got it right and then you implement the instruction. ![]() “As a pilot, you are listening all the time for your call sign,” Whitaker said. Today, air traffic controllers would provide voice clearance allowing the pilot to go to a runway appropriate for the new wind direction. The pilot now has to land at a different runway. But it is a very big part of what you do when you fly.”Ĭonsider a pilot coming in for landing. Communication is not a big part of driving. As far as communicating, you use your turn signals, maybe your horn-maybe other types of communication in city traffic. “In a car your navigation is fairly simple. “Compare flying to driving a car,” Whitaker said. While NextGen will affect all three of those areas, several of the leading impacts will happen in communication. Now, Whitaker said, it’s time to make that infrastructure useful for the three basic things that happen during flight: surveillance, navigation, and communication. This past spring, FAA finished constructing ground infrastructure foundational to NextGen’s success. That’s the analogy for the Next Generation Air Transportation System- NextGen-that Michael Whitaker, deputy administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), gave recently as part of Volpe’s Transportation and the Economy speaker series. ![]()
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