[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE FUTURE OF AIR
TRAFFIC CONTROL MODERNIZATION
=======================================================================
(110-40)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
AVIATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 9, 2007
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
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35-922 PDF WASHINGTON DC: 2007
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia JOHN L. MICA, Florida
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon DON YOUNG, Alaska
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
Columbia JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
JERROLD NADLER, New York WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
CORRINE BROWN, Florida VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
BOB FILNER, California STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JERRY MORAN, Kansas
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington Carolina
RICK LARSEN, Washington TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
JULIA CARSON, Indiana SAM GRAVES, Missouri
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri Virginia
JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
DORIS O. MATSUI, California TED POE, Texas
NICK LAMPSON, Texas DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio CONNIE MACK, Florida
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa York
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr.,
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina Louisiana
MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia
JOHN J. HALL, New York MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
JERRY McNERNEY, California
VACANCY
(ii)
Subcommittee on Aviation
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois, Chairman
BOB FILNER, California THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
RICK LARSEN, Washington JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
NICK LAMPSON, Texas JERRY MORAN, Kansas
ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa SAM GRAVES, Missouri
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
JOHN J. HALL, New York SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin Virginia
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of TED POE, Texas
Columbia DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
CORRINE BROWN, Florida CONNIE MACK, Florida
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California York
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
DORIS O. MATSUI, California VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii JOHN L. MICA, Florida
VACANCY (Ex Officio)
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
TESTIMONY
Brantley, Thomas, President, Professional Airways Systems
Specialists.................................................... 35
Bunce, Peter J., President and CEO, General Aviation
Manufacturers Association...................................... 35
Dillingham, Ph.D., Gerald, Director, Physical Infrastructure
Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office.................. 7
Frederick-Recascino, Ph.D., Christina, Interim Provost and
Director of Research, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University..... 35
Leader, Charles A., Director, Joint Planning and Development
Office, Next Generation Air Transportation System.............. 7
Romanowski, Michael, Vice President of Civil Aviation, Aerospace
Industries Association......................................... 35
Scovel, III, Hon. Calvin L., Inspector General, U.S. Department
of Transportation.............................................. 7
Sinha, Agam N., Senior Vice President and General Manager, Center
for Advanced Aviation System Development, Mitre................ 7
Sturgell, Robert, Deputy Administrator and Interim Chief
Operating Officer, Air Traffic Organization, Federal Aviation
Administration................................................. 7
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Braley, Hon. Bruce L., of Iowa................................... 47
Carnahan, Hon. Russ, of Missouri................................. 50
Mitchell, Hon. Harry E., of Arizona.............................. 52
Salazar, Hon. John T., of Colorado............................... 56
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Brantley, Tom.................................................... 58
Bruce, Peter J................................................... 76
Dillingham, Ph.D., Gerald L...................................... 84
Frederick-Recascino, Ph.D., Christina............................ 135
Romanowski, Michael.............................................. 139
Scovel III, Calvin L............................................. 146
Sinha, Agam N.................................................... 166
Sturgell, Robert, and Leader, Charles, joint statement........... 173
SUBMISSION FOR THE RECORD
Brantley, Thomas, President, Professional Airways Systems
Specialists, response to questions from the Subcommittee....... 70
Dillingham, Ph.D., Gerald, Director, Physical Infrastructure
Issues, U.S. Government Accountability Office, response to
questions from the Subcommittee................................ 116
Leader, Charles A., Director, Joint Planning and Development
Office, Next Generation Air Transportation System, response to
questions from the Subcommittee................................ 189
Sturgell, Robert, Deputy Administrator and Interim Chief
Operating Officer, Air Traffic Organization, Federal Aviation
Administration, response to questions from the Subcommittee.... 195
ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD
Airports Council International-North America, written statement.. 203
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
HEARING ON THE FUTURE OF AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL MODERNIZATION
----------
Wednesday, May 9, 2007,
House of Representatives,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Subcommittee on Aviation,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Jerry
F. Costello [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Mr. Costello. The Subcommittee hearing will come to order.
The Chair would ask all members, staff, and everyone in the
room to turn off their electronic devices or put them on
vibrate.
The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on the
future of the air traffic control modernization program. I will
give my opening statement, recognize the Ranking Member, Mr.
Petri, for his opening statement, call on other members for
comments and remarks, and then we will get to our witnesses.
I welcome everyone here this morning to our hearing on the
future of the air traffic control modernization. A major part
of the Administration's FAA reauthorization proposal is to
overhaul and transform our ATC system.
Some have suggested that the Administration's proposal puts
the cart before the horse by emphasizing financing without
fully explaining the Next Generation Air Transportation System.
Today, the Administration will have the opportunity to explain
its vision for the future.
While I have differences with the Administration regarding
financing, I agree that the ATC system must be modernized. The
FAA's forecast that airlines are expected to carry more than 1
billion passengers by 2015, increasing from approximately 740
million in 2006. The Department of Transportation predicts up
to a tripling of passengers, operations, and cargo by the year
2025.
At the same time, the increased use of regional jets, the
emergence of low-cost and new carriers, more point-to-point
service, and the anticipated influx of very light jets, as well
as other new users such as unmanned aerial systems and
commercial space vehicles, are placing a new and different type
of stress on the system.
Under the current system, controller workload, radio
frequency, voice congestion, and the coverage and accuracy of
ground-based navigational signals impose limitations on
capacity. The NextGen plan that is under development will
consist of new concepts that rely on satellite-based
capabilities, data communication, information, and weather
capabilities that will support strategic decisions and enhanced
automation.
While it is imperative that Congress provide the funding to
make NextGen happen, NextGen is not just about financing. We
have learned from the past that the NextGen system must evolve
incrementally through sound contract management by the FAA,
coupled with vigorous congressional oversight.
Further, everyone should know that the major capital
requirements for NextGen will not entirely happen during this
reauthorization cycle. As I have stated in the past, the FAA is
requesting less capital funding during the three years of its
new proposal than the FAA requested in the first three years of
its last proposal.
Moreover, the Administration must get a better grasp on
long-term NextGen cost. Earlier this year, the Department of
Transportation's Inspector General reported that there are
still unknowns regarding NextGen's costs which will depend on,
among other things, performance requirements for new
automation, weather initiatives, and the extent to which the
FAA intends to consolidate facilities.
The IG has reported that in the past the FAA's major
acquisitions have experienced billions of dollars of cost
growth and years of schedule delays directly due to overly
ambitious plans, complex software development, changing
requirements, and poor contract management. The IG has also
stated that the FAA must articulate a strategy for how it will
mitigate past problems that have led to massive cost growth.
For many years, the Government Accountability Office has
consistently reported that failing to involve air traffic
controllers in the technology development process to resolve
tricky human factor issues has led to costly rework and delays.
The IG has noted that the need for focused human factors
research has important safety implications. Common sense would
suggest that the people that will be using and maintaining this
new technology should be involved in its development.
Therefore, I am concerned that the GAO is now reporting that no
current controllers or technicians are involved at the more
detailed planning levels for NextGen. I look forward to hearing
from our witnesses on this issue this morning.
In addition, it is clear that the Administration envisions
a major role for the private sector in the development and
implementation of NextGen. For example, the FAA intends to
structure its automated dependent surveillance broadcast
acquisition, which will be the primary ATC surveillance system
for the entire National Airspace System as a service contract
or lease. Further, while Congress debates whether to allow the
FAA to charge user fees, the FAA is considering allowing its
ADS-B vendor to charge fees for services. I think this approach
has serious implications, and it is time for Congress to engage
in this decision.
With that, I want to welcome all of our witnesses here
today, and before I recognize Mr. Petri, our Ranking Member,
for his opening statement or comments, I ask unanimous consent
to allow two weeks for all members to revise and extend their
remarks and to permit the submission of additional statements
and materials by members and witnesses.
Without objection, so ordered.
At this time, the Chair recognizes our Ranking Member, Mr.
Petri, for his opening statement or any comments that he may
have.
Mr. Petri. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
This Subcommittee first addressed the topic of today's
hearing, air traffic control modernization, nearly a quarter
century ago, during the first term of the Reagan
Administration. Since then, the Federal Government has spent
nearly $44 billion in taxpayer money on the quest to upgrade
the Nation's air traffic control system.
Until recently, the air traffic control modernization
effort has been plagued by cost overruns, scheduling delays,
and mismanagement. However, the FAA has vastly improved its
track record over the last few years. I would like to commend
the FAA Administrator Marion Blakey for her leadership and
efforts to get the bulk of our air traffic control
modernization programs back on time and on budget.
Under the leadership of Administrator Blakey and the former
Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Russell Chou, the air traffic
organization has started to resemble the performance-based,
value-driven organization that Congress envisaged. Both the GAO
and the DOT Inspector General found that air traffic
organization has made significant progress in meeting cost,
schedule, and performance targets for its major air traffic
control acquisition programs.
However, if we fail to sustain this progress and make
significant strides in modernizing our air traffic control
system over the next decade, then I fear a meltdown of our
Nation's air traffic control system is inevitable. Such a
meltdown would cripple our Nation's economy, which stands to
lose $30 billion annually due to people and products not
reaching their destinations within the time periods that we
expect currently.
The need for air traffic control modernization is
overwhelming. The FAA's recent forecast conference could not
have made it any clearer: air transportation demand is growing
and soon will be greater than today's system can handle.
According to the FAA, domestic air passenger traffic will
nearly double to 1 billion passengers annually by 2015 and
swell to 1.5 billion passengers by 2025. It is a testament to
the FAA's 50,000 employees that our air traffic control system
has and continues to be the largest and the safest in the
world. We must ensure that the system is modernized so that
this record is continued.
As we modernize, part of the benefit we expect will be the
cost savings and cost avoidance associated with the closure of
already outdated and redundant facilities. In light of
political opposition to such closures, as evidenced by the
reaction following FAA's proposal to consolidate certain radar
stations, or TRACONs, I am interested in looking at the
benefits of establishing a commission similar to the BRAC type
process at the Department of Defense--which was set up by our
colleague, Dick Armey, or at his suggestion some years ago--to
evaluate and recommend closures based on the best efficiency
and cost savings for the NAS.
I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses on the
current progress of the NextGen effort, as well as the plans
for the future. Over the past six years, there were 11
Subcommittee oversight hearings related to the FAA's NextGen
effort. As this effort moves forward, we must continue this
oversight on what is a very complicated but very necessary
effort.
So I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, as
modernization advances in the months and the years ahead, and,
with that, I yield back my time.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes
the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Boswell.
Mr. Boswell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
associate myself with what both you and Mr. Petri said. I don't
have a prepared statement, but I would like to say this to our
people sharing with us at the table. Talk to us straight about
what we really need. I hear all this talk about NextGen, but I
haven't seen anything that would make me think that we have
actually something that is moving, except we are talking about
it. Everybody would agree that we have to modernize and upgrade
and have more capacity. I think that is understandable, but I
don't hear any proposal that would make it sound like we are
actually at some step level of what we are going to put on the
table.
Also, I would hope that as you differentiate your
responsibilities, do we have adequate funding; is it working?
Is the trust fund in that bad a shape and is it adequate to do
the things that we are talking about at this point based on
what we know, or is there a shortfall? Are we trying to use all
of this or are some people are advocating for doing everything
they seem to be able to think of doing to advocate for the user
fee. I think it is pretty clever what happened over in the
Senate. Pretty clever, trying to separate the general aviation
community, and I just don't want you to think that some of us
haven't noticed that. I would hope we don't go down that slope,
that we try to work out some feasible, reasonable, working
together to maintain the safety and to keep the economy of our
general aviation going, and not see situations where we just
turn that major source of our economy in this Country down like
we have seen it happen in other places around the world. So I
hope you include that in some of your remarks.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. We thank you.
The Chair, at this time, recognizes Dr. Ehlers.
Mr. Ehlers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief, but I
just want to go back some time. It is one of the few advantages
of being older, you know.
Back to 1956, when I was graduating from the University of
California at Berkeley, I was elected to the Sigma Psi Honors
Society. At the induction we had a speaker, a professor of
transportation, who outlined why this Nation needed an air
traffic control system to handle the transcontinental flights
or the intercontinental flights. He pointed out very clearly
and mathematically that, very likely, two heavily loaded
airliners would collide in midair somewhere over this Country
at some point in the next year, and in fact it happened. We all
remember the crash over the Grand Canyon. Two major airliners
went down with the loss of all lives. That was the beginning of
our good national air traffic control system.
I don't know why people tend not to react until the crisis
has occurred, but this is a good example why we have to have an
improved air traffic control system now, to avoid the tragedies
of the future.
I applaud the FAA for tackling this problem. I hope to give
them all the support possible. I hope they can develop a good
system that is workable for all classes of airplanes, at all
times, at reasonable cost, and I hope we can achieve those
objectives.
With that, I will yield back.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman and recognizes
the gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Salazar.
Mr. Salazar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Over the past several months, we have had multiple hearings
on FAA reauthorization. I would like to associate myself with
Congressman Boswell's comments on the importance of general
aviation and I believe the impact user fees would have on
general aviation. I appreciate that we are holding this hearing
today on the issue of future air traffic control modernization
and transformation of the NextGen.
Our Nation's air traffic management system must be
sufficiently updated to meet future needs, and I believe the
Administration has yet to provide concrete details on how
exactly it proposes to get there. While we wait, we continue to
have problems. Problems continue to arise and demand, I think,
immediate attention.
In Colorado, there has been a need to solve airspace
surveillance issues now because we didn't have time to wait for
the ADS to be implemented. The result was that the Colorado-
wide area multilateration system, which is funded by the State
of Colorado, will be maintained by the FAA after installation.
It solves our current problems for today, but it will be
upgraded to solve the problems of tomorrow when ADS is
functional and the aircraft are equipped to use this
technology.
The FAA should provide Congress with a comprehensive plan
to determine what specifically the NextGen system will entail.
Another instance of the FAA coming across as being, I believe,
a little less than forthcoming, is with their poorly defined
plan to realign, consolidate, co-locate, and close some of
their facilities and services. I do appreciate the FAA looking
to improve its cost control efforts, but I am concerned with
some of their proposed changes and whether it would do more
harm than good.
I have had numerous conversations with the FAA on the
matter of consolidating TRACONs. There have been rumors that
the FAA intends to co-locate or consolidate the public TRACON
either to Colorado Springs or Denver. I have also been informed
that the FAA is considering decommissioning the VOR at
Steamboat Springs. That is a very mountainous airport and I
have used the VOR to land there several times. Not only would
this reduce the approach options provided to pilots, but it
prematurely removes VOR without first having a suitable GPS
replacement.
I can understand the desire to cut costs, but I have
serious concerns, and I would hope that the panel today would
address those issues. I look forward to the testimony today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Costello. I thank you.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from California,
Ms. Matsui.
Ms. Matsui. Thank you, Chairman Costello and Ranking Member
Petri, for holding this important hearing on the future of the
Nation's air traffic control system, and thank you to today's
witnesses for providing testimony.
Everyone seems to agree that the current technology and
infrastructure that makes up the air traffic control system
will not be able to handle the surging growth that we are
expecting the next decade and beyond. So modernization needs to
happen and there is much at stake.
If we don't get this right, our constituents are going to
be waiting in more lines and sitting through more delays than
they have ever had to before, and the aviation system will not
be able to meet the Nation's demand. So this is a big challenge
with very significant consequences. That is why we are talking
about NextGen.
There is significant reason to be wary of this effort, as I
am sure will be discussed extensively today. The FAA has an
unimpressive history of cost overruns, schedule slips, and
program cancellations. We need to modernize the Nation's
aviation system, but we need to do it in a smart and cost-
effective manner. We are in a tightly constrained fiscal
environment, so we only get one shot at doing this right.
The FAA and its partners have put forth some intriguing
concepts that hold great potential to increase capacity and
efficiency. I am excited about these ideas, but we must
determine what is realistically achievable given the time line
and fiscal constraints that we are facing.
We are not going to be able to execute every great idea
that our scientists and engineers come up with. We need to
filter out what is pragmatic and realistic. We have certainty
about the need to increase capacity and to modernize. We have
much less certainty about how to do it.
I understand that with an enterprise of this scale and
magnitude, you are going to have setbacks and adjustments are
going to be made. That is why it is important that we are
pragmatic in planning this effort so we are not sitting here in
five or ten years talking about how much money we wasted or how
far behind schedule we are. This modernization is just too
important for that to happen.
I look forward to working with all my colleagues and all
the agencies involved to make this modernization effort a
success that transforms the Nation's aviation system for the
21st century.
With that, I would like to thank the witnesses for taking
the time to be with us today. I look forward to your testimony.
I yield back my time.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
For final opening statement or remarks, and then we will go
to our first panel of witnesses, the Chair recognizes the
gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Carnahan.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
and the Ranking Member holding this hearing.
I am really very proud of our Nation's long history in
aviation innovation. After completing his first pilot training
class in 1924, Charles Lindbergh began flying a mail delivery
route from Lambert-St. Louis Field, the airport that Chairman
Costello and I use to go home on weekends still today. His
famed aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis, was named after the
city that I represent.
While I am proud of our Nation's aviation history, I
recognize that significant changes to the National Airspace
System are necessary to accommodate the increased demands from
the system. NextGen, which the Joint Planning and Development
Office is producing, will allow our aviation community to
continue to grow and maintain its economic strength. However,
it is important for JPDO to recognize that the multi-billion
price tag on NextGen will require intense oversight and cost
controls. I don't believe this Committee, or anyone in this
Congress, will allow billions of taxpayer dollars to be
improperly spent.
The JPDO does not have a flawless track record. Though
progress has been made, the GAO still classifies NextGen as
high-risk. I assure you this Committee will be watching closely
over NextGen. I look forward to hearing from you today and
working with the Chairman and Ranking Member as we go forward.
Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman.
At this time, we will hear from our first panel. I will do
very brief introductions. Our first witness will be Mr. Robert
``Bobby'' Sturgell, the Deputy Administrator and Interim Chief
Operating Officer, Air Traffic Organization, Federal Aviation
Administration; Mr. Charles Leader, the Director of the Joint
Planning and Development Office, Next Generation Air
Transportation System; Dr. Gerald Dillingham, the Director of
Physical Infrastructure Issues, U.S. Government Accountability
Office; the Honorable Calvin Scovel, the Inspector General for
the U.S. Department of Transportation; and Dr. Agam Sinha, who
is the Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Center
for Advanced Aviation System Development.
We would now ask all of our witnesses to summarize their
statement in five minutes, if they possibly can. We will have
your entire statement submitted and it will appear in the
record.
At this time, the Chair recognizes Mr. Sturgell.
TESTIMONY OF ROBERT STURGELL, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR AND INTERIM
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, AIR TRAFFIC ORGANIZATION, FEDERAL
AVIATION ADMINISTRATION; CHARLES A. LEADER, DIRECTOR, JOINT
PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT OFFICE, NEXT GENERATION AIR
TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM; GERALD DILLINGHAM, PH.D., DIRECTOR,
PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY
OFFICE; THE HONORABLE CALVIN L. SCOVEL, III, INSPECTOR GENERAL,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; AGAM N. SINHA, SENIOR VICE
PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, CENTER FOR ADVANCED AVIATION
SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT, MITRE
Mr. Sturgell. Good morning, Chairman Costello, Congressman
Petri, members of the Subcommittee. I am Bobby Sturgell, the
Deputy Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration and
the Interim Chief Operating Officer for the Air Traffic
Organization. I appreciate including our written statement into
the record and I am glad to be with you here today to discuss
the topic that many have recognized is of utmost importance and
urgency, that is, the FAA's plans to modernize and transform
our air transportation system so that we are prepared to meet
the significant traffic demands expected in the future.
Mr. Chairman, our case for change is compelling. I know you
know that civil aviation accounts for nearly $690 billion in
direct and indirect contributions to the U.S. economy and is
responsible for 10 million jobs and $343 billion in wages. No
doubt, we all want these benefits to continue and improve, but
our air transportation system is, in many ways, a victim of its
own success.
Even as we have created the safest, most efficient system
in the world, our system is hitting the wall. Flight delays
have increased each of the last three years and, as the summer
travel season gets underway, we expect the problems to get
worse; and these problems won't go away in the future.
We are forecasting a billion passengers by the year 2015
and we expect a doubling or possibly tripling of air traffic by
the year 2025. Moreover, we have to anticipate the unique
challenges that come with a new generation of air traffic
vehicles, such as very light jets, unmanned aerial systems, and
commercial space launches. The exact quantity and composition
of these vehicles are not, however, fully predictable at this
point.
While all of this growth is exciting and good, it brings
with it the problem of congestion. Congestion robs the family
of precious time, it limits the freedom of our citizens, and it
puts a drag on our increasingly global economy.
The delay in dollars? We are estimating that commercial
aviation could see an annual loss of $500 million for every
minute of scheduled block time, the time which refers to that
from gate-to-gate for the airlines.
The cost to the whole country? Today's tab stands at $9.4
billion a year due to commercial passenger delays, and that
number could climb as high as $22 billion by the year 2022.
Our current system simply isn't scalable to handle these
challenges, this kind of growth. Research done by the FAA has
shown that our current air traffic system, using that system,
controllers could not handle a 25 percent increase in air
traffic, which is the amount that we expect in the 2015 to 2017
time frame. That is why we need the Next Generation Air
Transportation System, a full-scale transformation that takes
into account every phase of the process: air traffic control,
airports, the environment, the military, and homeland security
requirements.
The NextGen system will be a much more automated and
flexible system than the one of today. Navigation and
surveillance will be more precise. Pilots and operators will
know the location of other aircraft operating in the system.
Air traffic control of individual airplanes will evolve into
air traffic management and control by exception and aircraft
flight paths will be trajectory-based to provide optimal
routing.
To implement this transformation, we are already moving
forward with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B)
and System Wide Information Management (SWIM), two of NextGen's
core backbone technologies.
Of course, we recognize that these programs are only part
of the process. NextGen encompasses many programs and
components, all of which need to be properly integrated and
aligned. That is why we are turning to a proven management
vehicle, the Operational Evolution Partnership, the OEP, which
we have been using for many years.
In the past, the OEP successfully provided a midterm
strategic road map for capacity increases that extended 10
years into the future. The new OEP has an expanded scope,
beyond just capacity, and will include strategic milestones
through 2025 as we go forward with NextGen. The FAA will use
the OEP to plan, integrate, and implement NextGen in
partnership with the private industry.
Charles Leader will discuss more about our efforts towards
NextGen, so let me just close by saying that we are at a
crossroads today. The system is at capacity and it must be
transformed. If we fail to act, we will be left with gridlock
in the skies. The world recognizes the problem. Europe is
already moving ahead with SESAR, their version of NextGen, and
they have the funding to do it. If we fail to act, the world
will look to someone else for leadership, not us. Someone
else's technologies and standards will pave the way if we
don't. By funding and building NextGen, we can keep America at
the forefront and avoid gridlock.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to answering
questions from the Committee.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Leader.
Mr. Leader. Good morning, Chairman Costello, Congressman
Petri, and members of the Subcommittee. My name is Charles
Leader, and I am the Director of the multi-agency Joint
Planning and Development Office. I appreciate accepting the
written comments into the record.
I think you will agree that the United States has the
safest and most efficient air traffic control system in the
world. It handles a staggering amount of traffic each day that
includes passenger flights, air cargo, military operations,
unmanned aerial vehicles, and space launches.
But as capable as it is, we are already seeing the limits
of the current system. Delays and cancellations are growing,
and unless we begin to transform the system now, the problems
are only going to get worse. The issues concerning the future
capacity and flexibility of the national air transportation
system are matters that the House and this Committee understand
very well.
In 2003, Vision 100, the FAA reauthorization, chartered the
Next Generation Air Transportation System Initiative and
established the Joint Planning and Development Office. NextGen,
as envisioned by Congress, is a steady, deliberate, and highly
collaborative undertaking aimed at the long-term transformation
of our national air transportation system. It is a
transformation which I am pleased to say is already underway.
NextGen, while representing a continuum of research,
investment, and implementation activities, can be more easily
explained if it is broken out into its three major phases. Each
one represents a key period in NextGen's development.
The first phase focuses on the development and
implementation of certain key NextGen foundational technologies
and capabilities. These initiatives represent our current
programs; they are the foundation. This phase also includes the
essential research and development needed to support the future
development of NextGen.
The second phase builds on this foundation to begin
critical implementation of NextGen capabilities. This is where
many aircraft in the fleet will begin to operate using onboard
NextGen tools. This will allow greater expansion of the RNP/
Area Nav capabilities, net-enabled weather, advanced data
communications, and the development of the critical
infrastructure to support Trajectory-Based Operations.
The third phase will be a maturation of our core NextGen
capabilities into an operational nationwide system. This is
where the aviation services are managed and operated in a way
that achieves the NextGen transformation across the entire
system.
Implementation of NextGen has already begin. Two programs,
both foundational technologies, are critical in this first
phase of NextGen and were mentioned by the Deputy
Administrator. They are the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-
Broadcast and System Wide Information Management Systems. Both
of these programs are funded and already underway. ADS-B relies
on GPS and is critical in developing NextGen's satellite-based
navigation and control capabilities. SWIM is developing our key
networking capabilities and will establish the critical
networking infrastructure.
I want to make a point about SWIM and network enabled
operations. The Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and
the FAA have each contributed $5 million this year to fund the
real-time demonstration of this capability. Each of these
programs and the capabilities they represent are essential in
beginning the transformation of our current air traffic control
system from one that relies on voice communication and ground-
based surveillance to one that is satellite-based, network-
enabled, and uses advanced digital capabilities.
By its very nature, this kind of initiative needs to use a
portfolio-based approach. In other words, the approach has to
be one that allows the JPDO to integrate a wide range of
research initiatives and investments. That is why some of the
most important products of the Joint Planning and Development
Office have been its three key planning documents: the Concept
of Operations, which went out for final review last month; the
Enterprise Architecture, which will be released next month; and
the Integrated Work Plan, which will be released for comment in
July.
I have copies with me of these documents to demonstrate
that they are real and substantial in the detail in which they
approach the future.
The JPDO was developing NextGen by carefully developing
data and using the appropriate models to evaluate the benefits
resulting from this investment. If carefully managed, the
NextGen program will bring tremendous benefit to our Nation.
I look forward to answering the Subcommittee's questions.
Thank you.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes Dr. Dillingham.
Mr. Dillingham. Thank you, Chairman Costello, Mr. Petri,
members of the Subcommittee.
My statement today discusses the studies that we have
underway for this Subcommittee on FAA's modernization program
for the current air traffic control system and JPDO's efforts
that are aimed at transformation to the future air traffic
control system.
With regard to the current modernization program, during
the last few years FAA has made significant progress in
implementing business management practices in acquiring ATC
systems. Our work has shown that FAA has also improved the
management and operational efficiency of the current system
through cost savings, outsourcing, and consolidation. When
compared to the years before the establishment of the ATO,
these are significant achievements for the FAA.
We view these accomplishments as positive, but not
necessarily sufficient for the agency to effectively manage the
transformation to NextGen. We continue to keep the
modernization program on our list of high-risk programs. We
believe that additional work needs to be done to fully address
past cost, schedule, and performance problems that FAA
previously experienced in acquiring systems, as well as to
institutionalize those processes that caused the recent
turnaround in the program.
FAA's immediate challenge is filling two key leadership
positions. The Administrator's term ends in September and the
Chief Operating Office of the ATO left in February. This means
that, within the next six months, FAA could have vacancies or
acting officials in positions that for the last five years were
occupied by its most significant change agents.
With regard to the future ATC systems, a near-term
challenge is to determine whether FAA has the technical and
contract management expertise that will be required to
implement the numerous complex systems that will be a part of
the transformation to NextGen. To the extent necessary,
personnel and skill sets that are not available within the
agency must be acquired in a relatively short time, since the
acquisition of NextGen technologies has already begun.
Another near-term challenge is to identify which
organizations will fund and conduct the R&D and demonstration
work that, prior to restructuring of its aeronautical research
portfolio, had been conducted by NASA. FAA's R&D Advisory
Committee has estimated that it will cost nearly $100 million
annually in additional funding and delay NextGen by five years
for FAA to develop the necessary infrastructure and assume the
previous NASA R&D.
During the course of our reviews, we also heard a
considerable number of concerns from stakeholders about the
productivity and pace of JPDO efforts. To its credit, JPDO
officials are currently implementing changes in structure and
operations at the JPDO that are intended to improve the
effectiveness of the organization.
Although JPDO has made some progress in developing its key
planning documents, including the Concept of Operations,
Enterprise Architecture, and an Integrated Work Plan, some of
these documents are nearly a year behind schedule. If this kind
of schedule slippage continues, it will become increasingly
difficult for JPDO to maintain its credibility and the
participation of the aviation community.
Our work has also identified some organizational issues
that, if not addressed, could seriously jeopardize JPDO's
chances of success. As we told this Committee last year, we
believe that, because JPDO lacks authority over the key human
and technological resources of its partner agencies,
institutionalizing the collaborative process would be critical
to JPDO's success. JPDO has been working for two years to
establish a Memorandum of Understanding which would define the
roles and responsibilities of the partner agencies. To date,
the Memorandum has been signed by only three of the partner
agencies.
The frequency of leadership turnover at JPDO and the NGATS
Institute has also raised concerns about the stability of the
organization and the future of the initiative. During its three
years of existence, JPDO has had three directors, and there
have been two directors of the NGATS Institute. I believe that
JPDO must immediately identify and address the factors that
have contributed to the frequent turnover its senior
management.
Additionally, the Senior Policy Committee, which was
established to provide high level advice and policy guidance to
JPDO, has met just three times over the last three years, and
not at all during the past year. JPDO also has a continuing
challenge in ensuring involvement of all key stakeholders. As
we testified last year, active air traffic controllers and
technicians are not currently involved in NextGen planning.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, in closing, I
want to emphasize that ATO and JPDO have both achieved much in
their short existence, but both organizations are facing some
very serious challenges. Meeting these challenges is time
critical and will require the joint efforts of the Congress,
the partner agencies, and the private sector.
Thank you.
Mr. Costello. We thank you, Dr. Dillingham.
Mr. Scovel.
Mr. Scovel. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Petri, Members of
the Subcommittee, we appreciate the opportunity to testify on
progress to date with the JPDO and efforts to develop NextGen.
While there is considerable controversy about how best to
finance FAA, there is almost universal agreement on the need to
modernize the NAS to meet the forecasted demand for air travel.
Mr. Chairman, our work shows that the transition to NextGen
is a complex, high-risk effort. Much work remains to align
agency budgets to make the JPDO an effective multi-agency
vehicle, and actions are needed to help FAA successfully
deliver new capabilities.
Today I will cover three major areas; the first is progress
and problems with ongoing modernization projects.
At the request of this Subcommittee, we are tracking 18
projects with a combined cost of $17 billion. We do not see the
massive cost growth seen in the past. This is due to FAA's
effort to re-baseline efforts and segment investment decisions.
However, there are projects, such as FAA's Telecommunications
Infrastructure Program, that are at risk of not achieving
expected benefits.
Second, JPDO's progress to date in coordinating and
aligning research. In our recent report, we found that there
was considerable coordination among JPDO participating
agencies, but little or no alignment of R&D plans, and this is
still the case today. We also found that the JPDO's integrated
product team leaders had no authority to commit parent agency
resources. We concluded that a more product-driven approach was
needed.
To its credit, the JPDO has announced a number of changes
to be more product-driven. This includes revamping its
integrated product teams as working groups. There are four key
mechanisms for alignment that are in progress, but they need to
be completed.
First, NextGen's enterprise architecture. The JPDO's
efforts to develop an overall blueprint for NextGen will help
set goals and support investment decisions. However, the
architecture documents we have reviewed to date lack sufficient
detail to support investment decisions. This is very much a
work in progress.
Second, NextGen's R&D plan. The JPDO does not yet have an
R&D plan that can guide various agency research efforts over
the next several years. It expected to publish such a plan this
summer.
Third, NextGen's memorandum of understanding, or MOU. For
more than a year, the JPDO has been working to reach agreement
on an MOU. To date, this agreement has not been signed by all
participating agencies.
Fourth, NextGen's Integrated Budget document. The JPDO is
working with OMB to develop an integrated budget that provides
a single business case for NextGen efforts. This is expected to
be complete in time for the fiscal year 2009 budget cycle.
Finally, there are actions needed to reduce risk and help
shift from planning to actual implementation.
Action item one: FAA needs to develop realistic NextGen
cost estimates and quantify expected benefits. FAA's current
estimates suggest that the Agency will require $15.4 billion
for capital projects from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2012.
This includes $4.6 billion for NextGen initiatives.
There are considerable unknowns with respect to performance
requirements for new automation systems and data link
communications, to key cost drivers. Also, work remains to set
transition benchmarks for when new procedures, new ground
systems, and aircraft need to be equipped to realize benefits.
Industry has asked FAA for a service road map that specifies
when aircraft need to be equipped and what benefits will be
obtained.
Action item two: FAA and the JPDO need to develop
approaches for risk mitigation and systems integration. The
central issue focuses on what will be done differently from
past modernization efforts with NextGen initiatives.
Action item three: FAA needs to review ongoing
modernization projects and make necessary cost, schedule, and
performance adjustments. This is critical because NextGen
planning documents suggest that billions of dollars will be
needed to adjust ongoing programs like ERAM.
Action item four: FAA needs to develop a strategy for
technology transfer. This is important for the JPDO because the
law envisions new capabilities developed by other Federal
agencies or the private sector being transitioned into NAS. We
recommended that the JPDO use technology readiness levels to
help assess maturity of systems and reduce development times
and costs.
Action item five: FAA needs to conduct sufficient human
factors research to safely support anticipated NextGen changes.
History has shown that insufficient attention to human factors
can increase the cost of acquisition and delay much needed
benefits. FAA understands the importance of these items and is
in the process of developing a plan that identifies roles and
responsibilities for human factors work. Given the scope of
changes envisioned, this remains an important watch item for
the Committee.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I would be
pleased to answer any questions you may have.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes Dr. Sinha.
Mr. Sinha. Good morning, Chairman Costello, Congressman
Petri and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting
me to participate in today's hearing on the future of air
traffic control modernization. I appreciate the inclusion of
the full testimony in the record.
We all remember the summer of 2000, when delays in the
system were at a very high level and were the subject of
frequent stories in the popular press and on the evening news.
The impact of unfortunate events of September 11, 2001 led
to lower demand levels, and during the next few years there was
a significant reduction in delays. However, demand has
returned; it is at or above where it was in 2000 in many
locations, and so are delays. Total delays in the National
Airspace System, the NAS, were 9 percent higher in 2006 than in
2000, and 2007 is worse. Through April, total delays system-
wide are 12 percent higher than in the corresponding period in
2006, and nearly 75 percent of all airport delays occur at just
7 airports: Chicago O'Hare, Newark, Atlanta Hartsfield, New
York LaGuardia, New York JFK, Philadelphia, and Houston.
There have been significant improvements in the National
Airspace System since 2000. In addition to several new runways,
I will point to new procedures such as Area Navigation, or
RNAV, departures at Atlanta that are saving users $30 million
to $40 million annually today. These RNAV procedures are based
on the ability of the aircraft to navigate prescribed paths
accurately and reliably.
The next level in this process is called Required
Navigation Performance, or RNP, procedures, which is one of the
key elements of the future system. RNP allows aircraft to fly
even more precise paths with assurance. In Alaska, RNP
procedures are used today to fly instrument approaches safely
in some of the most challenging geographical terrains. These
just illustrate some of the improvements since 2000.
A MITRE study for the FAA showed that the growth in air
traffic demand is projected to lead to a doubling of delays at
the Nation's busiest airports by 2015, compared to 2000, if
none of the planned improvements are made to the NAS. Currently
planned improvements, however, are projected to maintain
average delays nationwide at 2000 levels. However, delays at
many key congested locations across the NAS will continue to be
a challenge, such as in the northeast corridor, the New York
area, Philadelphia area, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
The JPDO has identified the NextGen capabilities beyond
those in current FAA plans and budgets and the research
required to help them. While some of the operational
capabilities needed for NextGen require research, the good news
is that the fundamental technologies and procedures--for
example, satellite navigation, Automatic Dependent
Surveillance-Broadcast, air-to-ground data link, and RNP
procedures--are known and are available to build a scalable
system that can help mitigate congestion in the mid-term (circa
2015) and be a stepping stone to achieve NextGen capabilities.
FAA and MITRE have developed and conducted human-in-the-
loop experiments of a portfolio of NAS improvements of
particular note, targeted around the middle of the next decade
and termed Performance-based Air Traffic Management. The idea
behind this concept is to start changing the roles of flow
managers, controllers, aircraft operators, flight planners, and
dispatchers. It will require additional automation capabilities
in the ground system, new avionics capabilities in the
aircraft, air-ground data communications, and common
situational awareness such as that provided by System Wide
Information Management.
A key element of the challenges of implementing operational
improvements on the road to NextGen is that the implementation
must be done from a portfolio perspective (i.e., all the
necessary components must be in place). For example, air-ground
communications is a key element of using the automation
capabilities of the aircraft and the ground system.
The evolution of the NAS must not focus exclusively on FAA
ground system capabilities. The future NAS needs to consider
and capitalize on the role that the aircraft can play and the
capabilities it can provide. Air-ground data communications
capabilities can permit ground automation systems to
communicate with onboard flight management systems and can
reduce controller and pilot workload. Improved navigation and
flight management systems can enable aircraft to fly with
greater precision and can increase airport, terminal area, and
en route airspace capacity. Advanced cockpit displays and
automation aids may permit aircraft to separate themselves from
one another safely and efficiently, possibly at closer
separations.
As the JPDO and FAA, together with their government
partners, continue to develop the necessary details of the 2025
NextGen concept of operations, it is important for the aviation
community to move ahead now with the implementation of the
known fundamental technologies and procedures. This needs to be
truly a community effort because it requires changes in
aircraft and air traffic systems together with procedures and
airspace changes. Only through moving ahead now can we meet the
challenges of the mid-term and be well on our way to having the
full capabilities of NextGen by 2025.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my summary. I would be happy
to answer any questions that the Committee may have.
Mr. Costello. We thank you for your testimony.
I am going to ask a few questions and then call on other
members as well.
Mr. Leader, in your testimony you indicate that the
Enterprise Architecture will be completed and released next
month. Is that correct?
Mr. Leader. Yes, sir, that is correct.
Mr. Costello. You have heard Dr. Dillingham testify, both
in his written testimony and what he testified to today, that
many of the reports that JPDO promised to deliver were at least
a year behind in many cases. That, of course, is a concern, but
my concern is more not so much with delay, but it is how
comprehensive will the Enterprise Architecture be. In other
words, you heard the IG's testimony. I have his written
testimony in front of me where he says the architecture
documents we have reviewed to date are lacking sufficient
detail to support capital investment decisions and that the
JPDO expects to complete another version this month.
So my first question is what Mr. Scovel testified to, what
he has seen so far it would not justify or support capital
investment decisions. What we are going to receive next month,
will that change his opinion and, in fact, will it be in detail
to the point where we will know what we are getting and where
we are going?
Mr. Leader. We believe that it will, sir, that it will be
of sufficient detail.
Mr. Costello. What do we expect to receive in this
Enterprise Architecture report that Mr. Scovel has not seen up
to this point?
Mr. Leader. I am not aware at this time, sir, exactly what
version of the Enterprise Architecture he has most recently
reviewed.
Mr. Costello. Mr. Scovel, would you answer that, please?
Mr. Scovel. We have reviewed several versions of the
Enterprise Architecture Plan, sir, and it is our conclusion
that, as our statement indicates, it does lack sufficient
detail. It is very much a template, a plug-in-the-box matrix.
What we would prefer to see is a linking of the Enterprise
Architecture Plan with the R&D plan. Once the R&D plan is made
known as well, I think then the Congress will have a better
idea of what some of the cost factors may be, and I know that
is of ultimate concern to this Committee.
Mr. Costello. And the R&D that Mr. Scovel refers to, is
that the road map that you have talked about?
Mr. Leader. Yes, sir. We call it the Integrated Work Plan,
and I believe that it more accurately serves the purpose that
the Inspector General is seeking than does the Enterprise
Architecture.
Mr. Costello. And we are going to get the Enterprise
Architecture next month and we are going to get this other
document when?
Mr. Leader. Well, sir, to review the time line, the
Enterprise Architecture will be released on June 23rd, the
updated Concept of Operations will be released on June 1st, and
the initial baseline draft of the Integrated Work Place will be
released on July 31st for review within the community.
Mr. Costello. So by the end of July, both the industry, the
Congress, and everyone should have a clearly defined plan of
what the FAA intends to build and how they intend to build it?
Mr. Leader. Yes, sir, what constitutes the Next Generation
system.
Mr. Costello. And will it in fact define both time
requirements, cost, and other scenarios concerning
implementation?
Mr. Leader. Yes, sir, to the extent that we can do that
now. The fidelity is obviously much greater in the first three
to five years than it is in the twentieth year.
Mr. Costello. You have heard Dr. Dillingham testify today,
and also has testified before this Subcommittee in the past,
and he has made points about the air traffic controllers and
technicians not being involved in the working groups. You have
heard me mention in my opening statement that it is common
sense to involve those who are going to be running the system
and working the system in making decisions at the early stage,
before you lay out the plan. Tell me why the controllers and
the technicians have not been at the table in working groups to
review as we are going along and to give their input, as
opposed to, what I understand, they are called in from time to
time to give their opinion.
Mr. Leader. We believe, sir, that controller input has been
sufficient to----
Mr. Costello. That wasn't my question. My question was why
are they not at the table like everyone else, in the working
group. I understand they are called in from to time and
``consulted.'' If they are going to run the system and work on
the system, why aren't they a part of designing the system?
Mr. Sturgell?
Mr. Sturgell. Sure. Mr. Chairman, I just want to talk about
this broadly. We do value----
Mr. Costello. And I want to talk about it specifically.
Mr. Sturgell. And I will get specific. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
We do routinely involve controllers and technicians as
subject matter experts on projects and we know that user
involvement is critical to the air traffic system today and as
well as to the NextGen efforts. NATCA, the air traffic
controllers union, currently has a seat on both our ATMAC and
ATPAC advisory committees, which are air traffic management and
air traffic procedures advisory committees. We are very pleased
that the new president has indicated that he would like to
participate as a member of the Institute Management Council
with the JPDO, and he has also indicated an interest for
controllers to potentially be co-leads on these working groups,
and Charlie can talk more about how the industry plans to
select co-leads.
I would also say, you know, specifically, there are some
examples at headquarters. We have 15 certified professional
controllers on three working groups for the en route automation
program. Places like Houston Center we have three certified
professional controllers on the Houston airport airspace design
project. Salt Lake City, we have got one full-time, four part-
time, again on ERAM and four on TMA. So there is active
involvement with the controllers, both controllers and NATCA
itself.
As far as the OEP, NATCA does have a seat on the OEP. They
have not been at it in recent meetings. I would welcome them
back and I would welcome adding PASS to the OEP associates team
in a similar capacity, as having a representative seat, because
we do intend to use that as the implementation process as we go
forward, just the way we have used it in the past for capacity
projects.
Mr. Costello. The other issue that I want to touch on as
well--I have several other questions, but I will go to other
members and then come back.
For Mr. Leader and for you, maybe Mr. Sturgell, Dr.
Dillingham again--and you heard Mr. Scovel point out about the
partnerships trying to bring agencies that are involved, and
you have been working on this for two years and only have, I
guess, a commitment out of three agencies. Can you tell me is
that ongoing, is it progressing? Where are we involving other
agencies?
Mr. Leader. Well, sir, it is my understanding that within
Department of Homeland Security, that earlier this week the
Memorandum of Agreement was forwarded from the General
Counsel's Office to the Deputy Secretary's Office for
signature. It is my understanding that in the Department of
Defense is it likely to be signed this month, upon official
appointment of the Air Force as the executive agent to handle
NextGen issues within the Department of Defense.
Mr. Costello. Mr. Scovel, you indicate in your testimony
that the FAA needs to articulate a strategy as to how to
mitigate past problems that led to massive cost overruns and
unanticipated costs. I would like you to explain and elaborate
a little bit more on that, if you will.
Mr. Scovel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think our view here
rests on the fundamental necessity for FAA and the JPDO to
determine what skill set mix will best position the JPDO in the
NextGen effort in order to solve problems that have been
identified with past modernization programs. Our exhibit in
this regard would be the WAAS program, I think, where the
program was conceived and laid out initially in 1998 for a cost
of roughly $824 million. Due to problems with identifying what
level of skill sets and the degree of technical proficiency
would be needed in order to certify that system as safe, FAA
reached that conclusion late and decided it needed to resort to
academic and industry experts because it didn't have those
skills in-house.
As a result, we now face a situation with WAAS, which was
supposed to be completed in 2001, where the program is still
ongoing. It may be completed next year. The total cost has now
risen to $3.3 billion. That is a program, sir, where FAA wasn't
able initially to determine what skill set would actually be
needed, and it was a critical one when it came to certification
for safety.
There will be similar situations, perhaps not specifying
certification, but where JPDO and FAA will need to identify
from the beginning what skill sets will be needed to see a
program through to completion. That would be our fundamental
take-away point on that one, sir.
Mr. Costello. It looks to me like you want to respond, Mr.
Sturgell.
Mr. Sturgell. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. We are in the process
now of contracting with the NAPA to have them provide us an
assessment of the appropriate skill set and mix we need as we
go forward with NextGen.
I would also like to point out that we have made
significant progress in controlling our capital programs. I
think one of the things we are trying to do as we go forward
with NextGen is to really settle on the development issues, do
the proper amount of demonstrations, and mature a program to a
much greater degree than we had done in the past when we
started programs before development, etc., determine how much
it was going to be, and then ran into problems early on which
escalated costs.
So I think that will help. I think segmenting programs has
helped. We are doing a lot on the training side with our
program managers and, you know, we still have work to do to
keep improving this process.
Mr. Costello. The Chair recognizes the Ranking Member, Mr.
Petri.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
I have a couple questions. First, Mr. Sturgell, could you
describe how the implementation of NextGen will affect service
and the accessibility of the system to small communities and
airports?
Mr. Sturgell. I think the NextGen system is going to be a
great value to small community airports and to the general
aviation community as a whole. One of the current technologies
that we see as part of NextGen is WAAS, the Wide Area
Augmentation System. I mean, there are, I believe, over 4,000
airplanes now equipped with that system. We are putting 300
approaches a year, and all of those, or the majority of those
approaches are going after airports that generally serve
smaller areas and that don't have precision landing capability
today.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
In his testimony,--I think I would like both Mr. Dillingham
and you to respond--Mr. Dillingham expressed concern about
turnover of personnel in the past and how that could affect the
progress going forward. Could you comment on that and what, if
anything, can be done to minimize that problem?
Mr. Sturgell. Well, turnover is always a concern. I have
worked with the Administrator now for five years. I think she
has done a tremendous job at the agency. Russ Chew is a good
friend and did a great job as well, and I think has actually
helped us attract a lot of interest into the position and the
ability for great candidates to come and want to be part of the
FAA, want to be part of this transformation. We also have very,
very capable leaders throughout the organization, one of them
sitting to my left today, the vice presidents of the Air
Traffic Organization, all very capable, senior executives,
seasoned, know the business well.
So our focus has been to integrate the processes and
improvements into the culture at the FAA so that, regardless of
where we are in the leadership at the top ranks, things like
cost-effectiveness, benefit-cost analysis, proper planning are
all ingrained at the agency.
Mr. Dillingham. Mr. Petri, I agree with what Mr. Sturgell
said, but clearly when you have had a situation where you have
been in existence three years and you have had three different
directors, as in the JPDO, and when the NGATS Institute has
been formed for about three to four years and you have had two
directors at this point, our concern is credibility, as well as
leadership. If you expect the industry to send the best and the
brightest to work on this very complicated and important
initiative, I think they would be interested in the stability
of the leadership and the organization.
We think that, in addition to that, it is true that there
is leadership below the senior management level, but at the
same time directions do come from the top. The point that we
made is that we have a situation that is developing where the
leaders of the change that we are pointing to in terms of
progress for FAA--Mr. Chew, Administrator Blakey--those people
will be gone and, because of the calendar, we may have even a
different Secretary of Transportation. All the leaders in this
area are going to possibly be changing, and we are at a
critical point. This is the point where we move from sort of
planning to implementation. So we think that, one, as far as
the Institute is concerned, where private sector people are
being involved, we need to find out why the turnover. We need
to find out why the turnover at JPDO so that we can prevent
that from just continuing and having a revolving door.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. That is an area that obviously
requires further work.
One last question during my time to both Mr. Dillingham and
Mr. Scovel. It may have been covered a little bit by some other
testimony, and it is having to do with the wide range of
estimates of cost of the program. I think they vary between $15
billion and $22 billion for the infrastructure and $14 billion
to $20 billion for the avionics equipment. I guess we are going
to get a more precise road map shortly, but could you comment
on that? Is that an unusual range or should that be a red flag?
Mr. Dillingham. Mr. Petri, from our perspective, we think
that when you are talking about a total range of $13 billion,
that is a pretty wide range. We think that when the planning
documents are final, we would hope that there would be a better
idea of what the actual costs would be, and particularly, as
Mr. Leader has said, in the near term a much finer point would
be put on the cost of NextGen.
Mr. Scovel. Mr. Petri, we think NextGen expenses between
this year and 2012 are fairly well defined. With the need to
fund ADS-B and SWIM and the $4.6 billion total for these fiscal
years that FAA intends to request, we think those are fairly
certain. Beyond 2012, however, we see considerable murkiness
both in terms of the cost to industry in order to equip to take
advantage of NextGen and also the cost to FAA and the
Government on its side of the equation.
As we have seen in past modernizations with FAA, costs can
escalate; certainly, schedules can slip. We think for those
reasons, as well as the rest of the financing picture, that a
wide range, as has been suggested by FAA, is probably the best
we can do at this point, and until we are closer to 2012 and
get a better feel for how JPDO's research and development plan
is progressing, we probably can't do any better than what we
have.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr.
Carnahan.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
panel here today. I had a couple of questions, and I will try
to get through these quickly.
One of the cornerstones of NextGen appears to be data
communications, and this technology would replace much of the
voice communication system between controllers and pilots, but
it appears likely to decrease the controllers' workload. But at
our March 13th hearing, FAA Administrator Blakey told me, in
response to a question, that the controller workforce would not
be decreased after implementation of NextGen. My question for
Mr. Sturgell is how can the FAA take a position that the
controller workforce would not be reduced if their workload
appears that it would be reduced?
Mr. Sturgell. I would just say two things. First, we have a
10-year controller workforce plan that we have just recently
released a month or two ago; it is our third update, I think,
at this point. We are going to be hiring and increasing this
workforce over the next 10 years, and that plan does take into
account the modernization programs as we see them.
The second thing is the goal, I think, from our perspective
at the end of the day is that, with traffic growing the way it
is, what we are looking to do is, as the Administrator said,
increase the productivity of the workforce to be able to handle
more flights. You know, the growth is essentially going to
require this workforce to continue as we have laid it out in
the 10-year plan.
Mr. Carnahan. Thank you.
I also wanted to ask about the multi-agency transition to
NextGen that may potentially leave some users in the dust. FAA
estimates on equipment cost to convert to new technology range
anywhere from $7,000 to $30,000 for general aviation aircraft.
Does FAA plan on exempting some general aviation users from
mandated conversions, for example, turbo prop aircraft? And do
you feel these costs are reasonable for general aviation?
Again, back to Mr. Sturgell.
Mr. Sturgell. I think that does account for why we have a
broad range and the user costs at the moment. It is going to
depend on equipage as we go forward, and a lot of that will be
addressed in the rulemaking process in terms of the proposals
laid out and the comments we get back from the community.
I also think, though, that to the extent that equipage is
going to be required, a lot of these costs should decreased
just based on a volume perspective. As more avionics are
produced for specific systems, the market tends to drive the
price down.
Mr. Carnahan. And, finally, I wanted to direct this
question to Mr. Leader or any others that wanted to jump in on
this, and that is with regard to human factors involved in the
transition. The planning for NextGen should not just involve
installing computers and launching satellites; it really
impacts hundreds of thousands of people whose jobs involve the
National Airspace System. The GAO and the DOT IG have reported
that JPDO has not done enough to evaluate how pilots and
controllers will be affected. What will the JPDO do to address
this deficiency and how is your agency addressing human factors
in this transition?
Mr. Leader. Human factors, sir, is of critical importance
to the system. As you are aware, with the increase in
situational awareness, both the flight crews and the
controllers will have access to more information than they have
today, and the human factors research to ensure that they are
able to productively use that while maintaining the safe
operation of the system is very important to us. It is one of
the priorities we have established with NASA in our
collaborative R&D planning.
Mr. Carnahan. All right.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr.
Coble.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Additionally, I want to
associate my remarks with yours and the distinguished Ranking
Member's opening comments.
Good to have the panel with us.
Dr. Dillingham, I think you are one of the most frequent
visitors we have had. It is good to have you back on the Hill.
If we keep inviting you up here, you will be picking your mail
up here.
Mr. Dillingham. Yes, sir.
Mr. Coble. Good to have you back.
Mr. Sturgell, the Ranking Member, I think, put this
question to you. I have been in and out on the phone, but
regarding the implementation of NextGen, how it would affect
the rural and small communities, and I believe your answer was
favorable.
Mr. Sturgell. That is correct.
Mr. Coble. I am very interested in this because I have at
least two of those airports that would fall into this category.
Let me ask you this. As I say, I have been in and out, and I
don't think it has been asked. To Mr. Sturgell, Mr. Leader, or
Dr. Sinha, if you will, lay out the differences between today's
system and the proposed modernization (a); and (b) how will
modernization affect frequent fliers, that is, people who fly
maybe a couple times a week, and there are many people who do
this.
Mr. Sturgell. I think the second answer is probably the
most important in that the goal at the end of the day is to
create a system that is not going to impede the economic growth
of the aviation industry or this Country's economy as we go
forward. In order to meet the forecasted air traffic demand we
see on the horizon, what we are trying to do is keep delays
down and to keep the system's ability to move people at the
same or greater pace than we see Americans wanting to travel.
Mr. Coble. And as safely as is done now, I am sure.
Mr. Sturgell. Certainly, that is the number one
consideration in all of this, safety and then efficiency.
In terms of--others can pitch in, but the simplest way, in
my mind, to describe how the Next Generation system is
different from today's system goes back to the fact that it is
going to become a much more automated system and it is a system
that is going to take us from where we are today in terms of
air traffic control of individual airplanes to a role where
both controllers and pilots are involved in the air traffic
management. We do also want to take advantage of the
capabilities in the airplanes today, which we are not currently
doing.
Mr. Coble. Any others want to weigh in?
Mr. Sinha. Thank you, Congressman. I would like to make a
couple of comments regarding the changes from now to the
NextGen system.
The key words that come to my mind are that the future
system is still going to be human-centric, so there will be
people involved both in the aircraft and on the ground, but it
will be automation-intensive. There will be lots of routine
tasks that the humans do today that the automation can do
easier and faster. So you will see a trend of some of the roles
of the humans changing in the system. The other element of the
change that we will be seeing is that it will be a lot more
aircraft-centric. The capabilities in the aircraft are going to
be, compared to today, phenomenal, in terms of the accuracy and
the information that they can have available. So you will see
those two as major changes.
In terms of getting there, I think the human-in-the-loop
experiment that we have done with the controllers has shown
that doing business as usual is not an option. Even in some of
the heavier traffic areas, 25 percent growth is not going to be
possible with the current way of doing business. So even the
controllers are saying we need something different.
Mr. Leader. Yes, sir. I would just add that when we achieve
the level of automation that is planned in the NextGen system,
one major difference is that we will be able to manage the
individual trajectory of all the aircraft that are flying under
control of the National Airspace System on an individual way,
and we will be able to adjust those flight trajectories after
the departure of the aircraft to react to developing weather
conditions.
Today, weather results creates about 70 percent of the
delays in the system, and being able to more realistically
react to an evolving weather condition dramatically reduces
delays. And in the process of doing so, our initial modeling
shows that the system-wide savings for users of the airspace
will be in the tens of billions of dollars, mostly in fuel, but
obviously having dramatic impact in the reduction of emissions
into the environment.
So things will be dramatically different and the benefits
will also be dramatic.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, gentlemen.
This may have been touched on as well, but with the
automation coming on, I presume inevitably it will reduce the
number of air traffic controllers. Or will it?
Mr. Sturgell. Well, as we look out over the 10 years, we
have laid out the hiring plan for our air traffic controller
workforce during that period of time, and we see it increasing.
Our view is that that level of controllers will be able to
handle that much more additional traffic which we see coming
into the system.
Mr. Coble. I got you. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr.
Lipinski.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just to briefly comment on the last question that Mr.
Sturgell was addressing, I want to echo some comments by the
Chairman and Mr. Carnahan. I want to make sure that we do have
an adequate number of air traffic controllers, well trained air
traffic controllers as the system moves forward.
I wanted to move on to another question with Mr. Scovel. In
your written testimony you state that the most urgent concern
facing terminal automation is how quickly the FAA can replace
aging displays at four sites: Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis,
and Denver. Can you talk about this?
Mr. Scovel. Thank you. Yes, we can. This is an item of
great concern to my office, and it really dates back as well to
the implementation of the STARS program, because when STARS
came on and then reached its roadblock, if you will, when costs
began to rise and the program was curtailed to leave open over
100 facilities that lacked terminal modernization, it was
identified both by FAA and by my office that four key
facilities--Chicago, Denver, St. Louis, and Minneapolis--would
be left with aging display equipment which really put
controllers at a disadvantage and quite possibly had safety
implications, and that with this aging equipment in place, a
series of software upgrades were not possible to be installed.
We believe, thanks in part to our effort and FAA's budget
request, that funds are now available to the FAA to replace two
of those four systems. They have not yet been replaced, but the
Congress had made those funds available specifically to FAA for
that purpose. In the continuing resolution, in fact, additional
funds have been made available.
Where we take issue, however, is with the fact that FAA has
really lost an advantage when it came to executing a contract
for the replacement of those aging displays at the four
locations because in accepting the industry's offer between
Raytheon and Lockheed Martin to enter into a joint contract for
the replacement of these displays and the time that was lost in
negotiating with the contractors and bringing that contract to
fruition, in the meantime, the displays remained in place and
software upgrades were not installed. We would urge FAA to
continue to make all due progress, all due haste in this regard
because when the funds are on their books and those facilities
are still lacking the terminal upgrades that are necessary and
the safety implications are indeed involved, then time is of
the essence.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Scovel.
I just want to move on, with the limited time I have left,
to ask Mr. Sturgell, Mr. Leader, and Dr. Dillingham anything
that you can tell me about efforts to harmonize NextGen with
the European SESAR project that is now going on.
Mr. Sturgell. I think we have done a lot in the area of
harmonizing with the Europeans. The Administrator has worked
with Mr. Barron; we have an agreement in place with them. We
are working on current demonstrations or other things we can do
to make sure we are going to be harmonized going forward. We
are doing similar things on the other side of the continent
with countries like China.
You know, the goal at the end of the day is an
interoperable air traffic system for the users.
Mr. Lipinski. Anyone else want to comment on that?
Mr. Dillingham. Yes, Mr. Lipinski. I think one of the
questions that is often asked of us by this Committee is who is
ahead in terms of SESAR versus the U.S., and I think, when you
look at implementation, it is clearly the U.S. You have heard
testimony this morning about some NextGen technologies already
on the books to be implemented--ADS-B, SWIM, and some of the
RNP--so clearly, we are ahead in terms of implementation.
Mr. Lipinski. Mr. Leader?
Mr. Leader. Yes, sir. I would just point out that we have
interactions with the European community on a number of levels.
We have technical interchange meetings that happen fairly
regularly to discuss common technical issues that we have. We
have a joint task force with the European Commission working on
the harmonization of the two systems and we have, from
EuroControl, a full-time liaison assigned to the FAA.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. Thank you. Just as a side note, I would agree
with Dr. Dillingham. A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to
sit down with some of the folks from EuroControl, and I would
agree with you, Dr. Dillingham. While I think that in your
testimony, Mr. Sturgell, you indicated that they have their
funding in place, there is a commitment for funding, but I
would agree with Dr. Dillingham, with his statement.
At this time, the Chair recognizes the former chairman of
this Subcommittee, my friend from Tennessee, Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you for calling this hearing on this very important subject.
All of the witness, I think, have given us very informative and
very helpful testimony. But I think Inspector Scovel hit the
nail on the head when he said a few minutes ago that our
ultimate concern in this Committee has to be the cost.
I heard a speech one time by Charlie Cook, the political
analyst that is so respected on both sides of the aisle. He
said he didn't think that anybody could really comprehend any
figure over a billion dollars. And we talk about these figures
almost like they were nothing. But I would guess that if we
were able to bring a billion dollars in $1 bills in this room,
it would boggle our minds at how huge the amounts are that we
are talking about.
So I am getting at a couple of things. In our briefing
paper, it says in June of 2005, the GAO reported that to date
the FAA has spent $43.5 billion for ATC modernization. And I
remember hearings of six and seven years ago and so forth.
These projections on these increases in passengers were almost
exactly the same then as they are now. We were told that all
this money we were spending was going to have us prepared for
these big increases. Yet today we hear that the system is at
its capacity and how bad the problem is. I don't doubt that.
Then it says in May of 2005, the Department of
Transportation Inspector General reported that 11 major FAA
acquisitions experienced cost growth totaling $5.6 billion and
9 had schedule slips ranging from 2 to 12 years. Looking toward
NextGen, the DOT IG stated that the FAA needs to articulate a
strategy for how it will mitigate past problems that led to
massive cost growth.
Now, what I am wondering about, Mr. Sturgell and Mr.
Leader, you have heard Mr. Scovel talk about certain action
items. Do you agree with his action items, and what are we
doing to make sure that five or ten years from now, we are not
going to be having another hearing in front of this
Subcommittee and hear about these massive cost growths and
slippages, slippages ranging from 2 to 12 years? Are you
putting some penalties or incentives in some of these
contracts? What is happening?
Mr. Sturgell. We are using some of those things, and
specifically, the current en route automation and modernization
program for all of our centers includes those types of
incentives for the contractor. That program is currently our
biggest one and it is on budget and on schedule.
Mr. Duncan. Do you feel that you are doing these action
items that Inspector Scovel mentioned?
Mr. Sturgell. I think largely we are. I can't sit here and
say what the specific ones are. I would just say that during
this Administrator's tenure, we have worked very closely with
the Inspector General's office to help resolve what these
longstanding concerns about the management of the capital
programs. As they both testified today, we have made a lot of
progress in the last four or five years or so in this area. And
it is something that we continue to be focused on.
We have met our targets now for several years in a row, we
are on track this year, we know how important it is going
forward to have programs to be on cost, on schedule, meeting
the metrics. So we are looking at ways to come up with better
metrics, to help manage these programs, better training, more
up front in terms of research, development, demonstrations,
things that will help us stay on the track record we have had
for the last couple of years.
Mr. Duncan. Mr. Leader, anything you want to add?
Mr. Leader. No, sir, except to say that in the planning
phase, we are structuring the approach to very much continue
what the FAA is currently doing in terms of both leveraging
existing technologies, particularly those that have been
developed by the Department of Defense that are appropriate for
us to build on, and also to extensively use demonstrations and
flight trials to mitigate risk before we begin any major
acquisition.
Mr. Duncan. My time is running out, but the understatement
of the hearing was when Dr. Dillingham, whom we all respect so
much, he said that this $13 billion in variation on these cost
estimates was pretty big, or something to that effect. We were
briefed about that also, and Ranking Member Petri talked about
that.
Do you gentlemen have cost estimates? Do you also see those
huge variations in cost estimates and are you doing something
to bring them down or do you think we have been given sort of
incorrect information about that?
Mr. Sturgell. Mr. Duncan, those are our cost estimates, and
I would just say any corporation looking out 20 years from now,
it is very tough to nail down things with precision. I think
our estimates are in line, though, with what the Europeans are
estimating, which is a good gauge for us as to where we are.
And then as we get closer, we are much more precise. We have
got $4.6 billion for the next five years laid out very
specifically in several plans about where we are going to spend
that money and on what. As we go forward, these things will get
much more precise.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. I thank you.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Iowa, Mr.
Braley.
Mr. Braley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Scovel, I want to follow up on one of the comments you
made earlier. It was also addressed in your written testimony,
where you stated that the most urgent concern facing terminal
automation is how quickly the FAA can replace aging displays at
four large sites that are particularly critical to the national
airspace system, and quite frankly, very important to my
personal airspace: Chicago, Denver, St. Louis and Minneapolis,
which I fly through frequently.
Can you explain in a little bit more detail the magnitude
of the problem that situation presents to our air traffic
system that depends so heavily on those connecting hubs in the
midwest?
Mr. Scovel. I can in general terms, and I would be happy to
provide you with a more specific answer. But as a caveat, I
must note that I am not a technological whiz to begin with.
But it is my understanding, sir, that these four sites,
because those terminal displays have not been replaced in a
timely fashion, software upgrades have not been able to be
installed at those four sites. And those pose a conceivable
safety risk.
Right now, those sites, terminals at those four sites have
a black and white display. It is my understanding that with the
replacement of the displays at those sites and with the
accompanying software upgrades that can then be installed, the
controllers who are working on those machines at that point
will then be able to have a much clearer picture on air traffic
that they need to control safely over their airspace.
Mr. Braley. Last weekend, I toured the air traffic control
facility at my home airport in Waterloo, Iowa. I was amazed at
the range of equipment and the age of the equipment that was
there for the air traffic controllers to use. Is that something
that is systemic across the entire system, or is it more
heavily concentrated in the regional airports? What is your
understanding of that situation as a general proposition?
Mr. Scovel. I believe it is systemic. My basis for that
conclusion would relate not only to my response to your
question relating to terminal displays at the four main centers
that you mentioned, but also to the situation that had to do
with the STARS program, and Members of this Committee are well
familiar with that, I believe. STARS began as a program that
initially would cost less than a billion dollars and would
upgrade control displays at 170 facilities, cost growth and
schedule slips required the program essentially to be curtailed
at a cost of about $1.4 billion and with less than 50 sites
serviced. That means that over 100 other controller sites still
have older equipment. I daresay that is the reason why you saw
the equipment that you did.
Mr. Braley. One of the topics that was critical to a number
of the presentations I reviewed had to do with the critical
role of human factors research as we move into Next Generation.
In your statement, you talked about the FAA identifying a
variety of issues that will require additional human factors
work, increased automation and new technologies and the impact
they have on flight crew workload, the effect that changing
roles and responsibilities have on safety, alerts and
information displays a pilot needs to safely oversee conflict
detection and resolution and automation failure. I would just
like to present this question to the panel as a whole, but are
we talking about human factors analysis that is going to go on
the front end evaluation of how these systems are designed,
human factors analysis of how they play out in a simulation
environment before they are fully implemented, and then human
factors follow-up as the NextGen gets rolled out? Or what type
of human factors emphasis are we looking at here?
Mr. Scovel. I will defer in a moment to Mr. Sturgell and
Mr. Leader on aspects of your question, sir. But at this point,
let me say that our belief is that human factors, research and
involvement, specifically in the case that you mentioned, by
controllers, and also by flight crews, because of course, they
are going to be involved, when some of the responsibility for
separation of aircraft in-flight will shift from the ground
control facility to the cockpit with ADS-B and other
technological improvements, that human factors research needs
to include those elements of the workforce, controllers and
flight crews.
We would also make a point, and I don't know that, I know
it is made in our testimony earlier, in our written statement,
but I don't know that it has been made on the record verbally,
and that has to do with the involvement of NASA. Both OIG and
GAO have pointed out that NASA intends to essentially curtail
its research in the JPDO area. They intend to focus more on
fundamental research. In the past, NASA has devoted great
effort, time and money to human factors research. And if we see
NASA withdrawing from the type of research that can be readily
applied by the JPDO to the NextGen effort, then it leaves open
the question of what will happen with that human factors
research. Who will do it, how will it be managed, how will it
be paid for, what guarantees can we get as to its accuracy?
Mr. Dillingham. Mr. Braley, I think the short answer to
your question is that in all three cases, before, during and
after, clearly when we have a system that is going to shift
from, as Mr. Sturgell said, from air traffic control to air
traffic management and automation, it is going to be very
important that the human factors element be very much involved
in this. It is also one of the reasons why we think it is
important that the controllers and the technicians and the
pilots and all the people who are going to be involved have a
part in developing and planning the system.
Mr. Leader. Yes, sir, I agree. We are looking in the long
term, working with NASA on both the human factors issues but
also on failure mode recoveries. Because in the automated
system, that is a critical part, obviously, of the safety. But
today we have human factors work going on within the FAA's
research efforts specifically up at Atlantic City. There are
today human factors experiments taking place to deal with the
near and mid term issues that transformation of the system will
create.
As well, I would suggest that Dr. Sinha might want to say
something about the human factors work that MITRE-CAASD
currently has underway here in the Washington area.
Mr. Sinha. Mr. Congressman, if I might, I think I would
like to differentiate the different types of human factors
analysis. One is the fundamental research in human factors in
terms of creating the principles of human factors. But I think
equally important is what I would call applied human factors.
And I think that really, just like safety, it has to be built
in from the beginning. You can't add human factors at the end
or you can't add safety at the end.
So I think again, the short answer is in all phases. And
some of the research that we are doing, we do bring in
controllers who are qualified to work the sectors, to help us
both with the ideas and the pilots in the simulation as well as
in the demonstrations that we do. We agree that it is very
critical. And to me, the proof of the pudding is really in the
applied human factors.
Mr. Braley. Thank you.
Mr. Costello. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
Oklahoma, Ms. Fallin.
Ms. Fallin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Gentlemen, we appreciate
all your great work on this subject and helping us transform
our air traffic control system.
I was interested in your comments about the human factor. I
was thinking about the general aviation pilots. And with the
Next Generation system that we are talking about, and you
mentioned, someone mentioned earlier about the cost of the new
avionics that will go into the general aviation planes could be
anywhere from $7,000 to $30,000 possible guess cost for the
electronics. But the human factor of learning a new system when
you are just a recreational pilot and trying to fly, I was
thinking back on, I am just a couple hours away from getting my
license. I used to fly old 182s. My agency I worked for bought
a new 182 that had all the new avionics like electrical,
computer equipment and I was just lost when I was that.
So I was thinking about the pilots coming online with the
Next Generation system, have we got an idea of how complicated
it is going to be for the recreational pilots and what type of
learning curve there will be for the human side of things?
Mr. Sinha. Let me comment from the experimentation side of
how we are doing that. First of all, I would like to state that
when we talk about avionics and when we talk about changes, not
everything applies to everybody. So for the commercial pilot to
be flying into New York is definitely way different than the
recreational pilot flying out in the midwest with really nobody
else bothering them, so to speak.
So when we talk about the avionics and the avionics
equipage, it is very dependent on what is it that you are going
to be doing with your aircraft. So for the air transport
quality avionics, yes, that is going to be much more
sophisticated and they will have to go through the training,
just like they do today. For the recreational pilot, actually
again the changes will not be that phenomenal.
We will, I think, Mr. Sturgell talked about WAAS, the wide
area augmentation system, that does give you a capability, for
example, to have precision approaches where you haven't had it
before. So that would require some training. But again, I don't
think it is going to be unsurmountable.
Ms. Fallin. That is good to know. I have one other question
on the air traffic controllers. We have talked a lot about the
increased travel in the United States and projections on that,
and the aging workforce of the air traffic controllers and the
need for more of them. But how will the Next Generation system
and the learning curve, once again, on the human factor for the
air traffic controllers, how much extra training, do you have a
plan in place, have you started thinking about what their needs
will be as they try to learn this new system we are talking
about?
Mr. Sturgell. I think we have started doing that, and that
is one of the things we did with MITRE last year in terms of
performance-based air traffic management and the changes in the
controller's role. And all of that, we will certainly be
including them today as we do and going forward as well.
Ms. Fallin. Are you expecting they are going to have a lot
more to learn in this new system? Or is it going to be
relatively general basic concepts?
Mr. Sturgell. It is a different role. We are very focused,
it is one of our highest priorities, on the whole retirement
issue and staffing of the facilities and the hiring process. It
is a new generation of controllers that we will see coming in
over the next decade. It is probably a generation that is much
more familiar with technology and computers than folks that
were born 30, 40 years ago or whatever.
So I think this is a workforce that has seen a lot of
change before. It is a workforce that is probably going to see
a lot of change as we go forward. But it is a workforce that
responds to changes. And I think it is going to be a better
job, more exciting job for the controller workforce in the
future as well.
Ms. Fallin. Thank you very much.
Mr. Sinha. If I might add just a comment on that. I think
it is going to be different type of training. And the way I
characterize it is the difference in computer dexterity between
myself and my kids. They just take to it like fish to water and
they are there. So a lot of the training that will be done will
be a lot more sophisticated in terms of the simulation based
training or intelligent tutoring system. As an example, we have
implemented the system that Mr. Sturgell talked about in
Indianapolis. These are real controller trainees today. They
are absolutely delighted with the way that it is being done and
they will not go back to the older system of training.
So back to the Playstation 2 generation that is coming
online, I think that is a big advantage.
Ms. Fallin. Sounds like it might be a new marketing and
recruitment tool for you.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentlelady.
At this time the Chair recognizes the distinguished
Chairman of the full Committee, Chairman Oberstar.
Mr. Oberstar. This is a very important hearing, yet another
one in a long series that Chairman Costello and Ranking Member
Petri are doing and the Com aviation. What puzzles me, and Mr.
Leader, I want to have your explanation of this, that we keep
hearing and getting vignettes of information about the FAA
planning to have the ADS-B vendor to actually operate the
system in charge of fee for its service. Is that what is in the
works? Either one of you, Mr. Sturgell, Mr. Leader, toss a
coin. Decide who is going to answer.
Mr. Sturgell. The contract, as we are putting it forward,
Mr. Chairman, is a services performance-based contract. It is
not unlike us purchasing electricity today or purchasing
telecommunications today. I think to probably try and help
clarify this, we're looking at a service-based contract where
the service provider would provide this particular service.
At the same time, that service provider could, for example,
contract directly with an operator to provide an additional
service through that same mechanism. It is not unlike what we
do today internationally with communications. We contract today
with a company called Airinc overseas to provide international
communications services between the FAA and the user of the
system. At the same time, that user also contracts directly
with Airinc to provide other capabilities outside of the FAA's
needs. For example, a United Airlines needs to talk to a United
dispatcher, that would be a service Airinc could provide to
them.
That is the way the ADS-B contract is being set up. It is
not unlike things we do today. I think it gives the Government
a lot more flexibility. It also reduces our capital costs. It
gives us, I think, better flexibility to react to future
increases. And I think it puts more risk on the vendor in terms
of delivering the capability.
Mr. Oberstar. Aren't you hanging a great deal of the future
of air traffic management on the ADS-B technology?
Mr. Sturgell. We do see ADS-B as one of the backbone
technologies of the NextGen system as we go forward.
Mr. Oberstar. Now, you don't, you use the technology of
STARS in the same manner? Nor the DSR in the en route system?
Mr. Sturgell. We have systems today that we have bought,
own and operate, and we have things today that we have
purchased through services or other transaction agreements. It
is a model that has worked very successfully for us today. It
gives us both a good, robust private and public sector
involvement. That is kind of the model we see going forward as
well.
Mr. Oberstar. Who is the primary vendor on the ADS-B?
Mr. Sturgell. There are three teams that are competing for
that contract. It has not been awarded yet. The leads----
Mr. Oberstar. Who are the three?
Mr. Sturgell. The three leads are ITT, Raytheon and
Lockheed Martin.
Mr. Oberstar. Okay. And when do you anticipate making a
final decision?
Mr. Sturgell. We anticipate awarding that contract by the
end of the summer, end of August is what we're looking at.
Mr. Oberstar. And what protections are you planning to
build into the contract? For example, against, you have a
primary and then you said that the primary contractor could
engage a secondary contractor. What safeguards are in the
proposal you intend to float as an IFB, I assume, for
protection against acquisition by a non-U.S. entity? What
protections against performance problems?
Mr. Sturgell. Mr. Chairman, I can just speak generally. We
do have those types of performance problem protections built
into a lot of our contracts.
Mr. Oberstar. Will you submit those for this Committee?
Mr. Sturgell. Yes. I was going to offer that we could bring
the program office and come up and brief you more specifically
about what we are looking at for that contract.
Mr. Oberstar. Is there specific protection against sale or
acquisition of this to a foreign interest?
Mr. Sturgell. I can't speak specifically on that right now.
I'd have to follow up with you on it.
Mr. Oberstar. If you are banking the future of air traffic
control management on a technology system that is going to be
not owned by the FAA and sequentially contracted to a secondary
vendor and then subject to acquisition by a foreign interest,
then the future of aviation in the United States is, I think
precarious.
Mr. Sturgell. I appreciate the concerns. I am sure we have
protections built in. I just don't know them specifically off-
hand. The FAA will own the data that is being provided through
this service and this contract.
Mr. Oberstar. But not the technology itself, not the
hardware?
Mr. Sturgell. This technology is being used worldwide. The
Canadians are moving with it, Australia is moving it system-
wide.
Mr. Oberstar. Yes, I understand, Canada is moving it and
Australia is moving it and Europe. We just had, in the
beginning of April, we had a very intense review of EuroControl
and European aviation safety, safety oversight agency. I just
say once again that the Southern California TRACON handles more
air traffic than all of Europe combined. Don't tell me about
all these other countries and systems that are so great and
wonderful. I heard about Norway a few years ago. Norway has
about as much air traffic as Minneapolis St. Paul. You are
dealing with a huge system here.
And I hear Lockheed is one of the competitors for this. We
had an 11 hour, I am sorry, until 11:30 at night, a nine hour
hearing on Lockheed's mismanagement of the Coast Guard's
Deepwater program, one where, very similar to what you are
proposing here, self-certification, where they are going to
operate this system, going to contract it out to them, they are
going to run it and you are going to pay a fee for it. What has
happened with the Deepwater program is that the taxpayer is
paying a huge cost. They are going to have to scrap nine ships
that were perfectly fine until the Coast Guard allowed this
contract out and let Lockheed and Grumman Boat Division mess
them up, not take advice from anybody else, self-certify.
I don't want to see that happen to our air traffic control
system. These are not like airplanes that the airlines rent, in
effect, from GE Leasing, or now Boeing Leasing or Airbus
Leasing. You are charting the future of air traffic control in
America. You have a huge responsibility on your hands. And we
have to make sure it is done right.
Thank you.
Mr. Costello. I thank the Chairman.
To follow up on the point that Chairman Oberstar made, Mr.
Scovel, let me ask you about the RNP routes system. The FAA is
relying on a third party to help design the RNP routes, as you
know. Further in Section 410 of the reauthorization proposal
that the FAA submitted, it would expand the authority of the
FAA to non-Government third parties to develop new procedures.
I wonder if you might express your current concerns and any
thoughts you may have on the RNP third party design and
expanding the authority of the FAA to give non-Government
authorities third party jurisdiction and procedures?
Mr. Scovel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My staff has not had time to study this question in detail,
but our initial take on it was that this represents a
considerable delegation on the part of the FAA Administrator of
her powers regarding RNP currently, which are to develop,
implement and maintain RNP. Currently, third parties are
limited only to the development of one-third of that equation.
As I understand the proposed legislation, the Administrator
proposes to expand third parties' powers to include not only
development but also implementation and maintenance of RNP.
As a general matter, we have concerns, and I think these
echo perhaps some of those that Mr. Oberstar was just making,
when it comes to contracting out or privatization or
outsourcing. While some of these questions are certainly policy
matters for the Congress, as an Inspector General, our concerns
have to do first of all with maintaining a strong Federal role
for establishing performance requirements.
Secondly, Mr. Oberstar mentioned certification. We would
maintain that that too is a matter of concern for us,
especially when certification has to do with safety, as RNP
ultimately will.
Finally, we see a continued need for agency oversight. And
not the kind of oversight, certainly, that my office, as an
office Inspector General, would provide. While we can go in and
in great detail through a program audit for a specific period
of time conduct a detailed examination of a program, what is
necessary in these outsourcing or privatization efforts is the
kind of oversight that the Agency itself must maintain. It must
be a daily, persistent, consistent degree of oversight that
really removes the Agency from the role of partner with its
contractor and places it in the role of watchdog.
If those three concerns are satisfied, then it truly is a
policy matter for the Congress. And as an Inspector General, I
am happy to leave those decisions to you.
Mr. Oberstar. Will the Chairman yield?
Mr. Costello. Yes.
Mr. Oberstar. The Inspector General is bringing an
extremely important refinement on the issue and the delineation
of the details of oversight that he spelled out we should
review from the record and incorporate that into our thinking.
I want the FAA to take particular note of those concerns.
That is exactly what I am talking about. Not end of the
road, the Inspector General usually comes in when a program is
well down the line and sees whether it has been performed
properly. FAA is doing it day to day. That is what your
distinction is, and I think that is extremely important.
Mr. Costello. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to be clear, Mr. Leader, before we conclude this
panel and go on to the second panel, it is my understanding
from your testimony that at the end of June we can expect to
get the enterprise architecture. And by the end of July, we
will have the integrated work plan. At the end of July, when we
have both of those plans together, I believe that you, in
answer to my question, you said that it will clearly define and
it will be a comprehensive plan defining both time lines, cost
and the program development policy implementation. Is that
correct?
Mr. Leader. Yes, sir, with the caveat that as we coordinate
it with our partners agencies, it will continue to be refined.
But it is the baseline for the planning going forward.
Mr. Costello. But you believe that both the enterprise
architecture and the integrated work plan will be completed by
the end of July? They will be comprehensive and they will
answer the questions about cost time lines and how the system
will be implemented?
Mr. Leader. Yes, sir.
Mr. Costello. Very good.
Unless there are other members who have questions, Ms.
Fallin? Do you have any further questions? Chairman Oberstar?
Mr. Oberstar. May I just ask, I intended to, I didn't want
to extend the time, but Dr. Dillingham, for his observations on
my concerns.
Mr. Dillingham. Good morning, Chairman Oberstar. We have
the same concerns that you have. We echo the concerns that the
Inspector General in fact voiced. We are particularly concerned
with, particularly if you talk about ADS-B or more for ADS-B in
terms of security, we think it is important that it is in fact
the FAA that will certify and license the contractor for ADS-B.
But we are concerned that we preserve the rights of the Federal
Government, particularly where security is concerned.
At the same time, Mr. Oberstar, we think that we wouldn't
just out of hand dismiss the possibility of some contracting
out. Because at this point, it is not clear to us that the FAA
has all the resources it needs to do all the things that it is
chartered to do. But it needs the oversight and it needs
careful scrutiny to the extent that it does do some contracting
out in this way.
Mr. Oberstar. A lesson from the past to be observed in the
present and into the future. In the 1960s and into the 1970s
and the mid-1980s, the relationship between FAA and IBM in the
development of air traffic control technology was such that you
could not tell where FAA left off and IBM began or vice versa.
For a while, when IBM was the giant uncontested, that was
somewhat accepted practice. But as other technology and other
firms with that capability came forward with services and
equipment and software to offer, and challenged that leadership
role, and we began to see that FAA was losing its objectivity,
FAA was losing its innovative ability separate from that of
IBM, and too strong a dependence on one vendor because a
detriment to the diversification of the FAA air traffic control
technology.
When we had eventually what I called at the time a
meltdown, when FAA/IBM, IBM/FAA proposed technology standard
was going to cost maybe $2 billion or $3 billion more, maybe
not really be achievable, is when finally the Inspector
General, GAO at the time was of great service to our
Subcommittee, gave us the reaffirmation of the concerns and
fears that we had, that are now being repeated again. This idea
of Section 410 of the reauthorization proposal to designate
non-Government third parties the ability to develop aircraft
operating procedures, that is back to the IBM nexus. That is a
major concern that I have, a lesson that we learned painfully,
that we created some distance and separation and keep FAA in
the position of being the overseer, as Inspector General Scovel
said, day to day, hands on management.
Thank you.
Mr. Costello. I thank the Chairman, and would just, as a
side note, add on the Science Committee we have seen a similar
relationship between NASA and some of the contractors that they
have relied on and work with on a day to day basis, and lose
objectivity and oversight. The same is true with the Department
of Defense as well. We have had example after example. That is
why I have major concerns about contracting out and losing
objectivity and oversight. That is one of the reasons why I
have made the point many times that we have to be aggressive in
our oversight to make certain that the agency is doing its job
and we closely scrutinize their responsibilities.
With that, I thank all of our witnesses here today, and we
will note to Mr. Sturgell and Mr. Leader that we have a few
other questions, one of Dr. Dillingham and a few of you that we
will submit in writing and ask that you answer them in writing.
We thank you for your testimony today, and look forward to
seeing you again.
I will now call on our second panel to come forward,
please. As the second panel is coming forward to be seated, let
me introduce our witnesses.
The first witness is Peter Bunce, who is the President and
CEO of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. Next is
Dr. Christina Frederick-Recascino, the Interim Provost and
Director of Research at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University;
Tom Brantley, the President of the Professional Airways Systems
Specialists; and Dr. Michael Romanowski, who is the Vice
President of Civil Aviation, Aerospace Industries Association.
We appreciate all of you being here today and look forward
to hearing your testimony just as soon as you get seated. We
would make note that your testimony in its entirety will appear
in the record and would ask each of you to summarize your
testimony. We would call on Mr. Bunch, you first, sir.
TESTIMONY OF PETER J. BUNCE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, GENERAL
AVIATION MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION; CHRISTINA FREDERICK-
RECASCINO, PH.D., INTERIM PROVOST AND DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH,
EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY; THOMAS BRANTLEY,
PRESIDENT, PROFESSIONAL AIRWAYS SYSTEMS SPECIALISTS; MICHAEL
ROMANOWSKI, VICE PRESIDENT OF CIVIL AVIATION, AEROSPACE
INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION
Mr. Bunce. Chairman Oberstar, Chairman Costello, Ranking
Member Petri, thank you for inviting me to testify before the
Subcommittee today. And thank you for entering my full
statement into the record.
On behalf of our 60 member corporations and the thousands
of employees throughout the U.S. and the world, I applaud this
Committee for taking the initiative to have a hearing on this
critical issue of transformation. Despite the many differences
that exist between general aviation and the major airlines, the
regional airlines and the cargo folks dealing with funding of
the system, there is nothing that we agree more on and nothing
that binds us all together as much as the critical need for
transformation.
Mr. Chairman, just last week the Senate took critical steps
toward the implementation of NextGen with the introduction of
S. 1300, the Aviation Investment and Modernization Act of 2007.
Although GAMA has significant concerns over the bill's
inclusion of a $25 user fee, we do applaud the Senate for its
work in strengthening JPDO in addressing critical needs for
NextGen.
Likewise, we know every member of this Committee is deeply
concerned about the pace and planning for NextGen and know that
your focus on this issue will bring about positive change.
Mr. Chairman, the JPDO was designed as part of Vision-100
legislation to leverage the institutional and technical
knowledge of many Federal agencies involved in the
transformation process. Unfortunately, many of these
relationships, so desperately needed for JPDO and NextGen
success, have failed to mature. We believe that in order for
the JPDO to be successful, some fundamental structural changes
are necessary. Greater authority needs to be given to the JPDO
director, to include being a major player on the FAA's Joint
Resources Council.
Clearly delineating the reporting lines for the JPDO
director is important, both up the chain and for those that
work for him. And also increasing the Government-wide support
for NextGen to include not only signing the memorandums of
understanding, but working to make positive change to their
budgets, R&D approaches and a sharing of personnel with the
JPDO.
And finally, to abandon the stovepipe approach that FAA
acquisition processes are used within the OEP to be able to
take a more systems-wide look at acquiring the system that we
need to perform in NextGen.
But structural changes alone won't fix the problem. We
strongly encourage Congress to work with industry and push the
JPDO, the FAA and the Department of Transportation and other
participating Government agencies to clearly define what they
intend to build and how they intend to build it. This
comprehensive plan defining both time and required costs must
incorporate reasonable and executable time lines for program
development, policy implementation and rule development,
aircraft certification and aircraft equipage.
You have heard this morning that the plan that is going to
be brought forward will talk, will be a plan that will provide
a baseline for all others. But I can tell you today with
certainty that this plan will not tell us as manufacturers what
we have to build to put in the airplane to execute just very
basic backbone systems like ADS-B. We do not have that
delineation right now for the manufacturers to be able to know
exactly what to put in the aircraft. That is why aircraft
coming off the production line today, even though we have ADS-B
elements in it, are not going to be able to operate in the
system as we probably will see it out there, because we don't
have the design specifications as of yet.
In order for the system to work, aircraft owners, both
commercial and GA, will have to equip their aircraft to operate
in this new system. Now, the FAA Administrator defines the cost
of equipage as being roughly equal to the cost of the
Government investment. Let me use ADS-B as an example. The main
concern facing us with ADS-B roll-out is that the benefits are
still undefined to the users. In fact, we are trying to help
the FAA define those benefits.
But unless we know what those benefits are, what we are
going to find is that people will equip with this technology at
the back end of the window, and that is what we saw with the
reverse vertical separation memo, RVSM. If they wait until the
back of the window, that is out at 2020. Now, the FAA just
revised their estimates of what equipage would be like when
they get the ground infrastructure in place at about 2014. They
talked originally about perhaps having 40 percent of the fleet
equipped, now they have revised that to 26 percent. If we are
going to truly reach a capacity limit around the year of 2015,
2016, 2017, and we aren't going to have a majority of the fleet
equipped until way out at the end of the window, at the end of
near 2020, then all the time lines don't reconcile. That gives
us serious concern.
GAMA believes that Congress must identify a reasonable
performance-based and revenue neutral strategy to try to
incentivize equipage. That is part of the debate that hasn't
been talked about a lot. We talk about the Government
investment in this. But unless we are able to somehow figure
out a revenue neutral way to incentivize both the commercial
and GA folks to be able to equip with this technology, we are
not going to get the benefits early enough to be able to solve
the capacity problems out in the system.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for letting me be here today and I
look forward to your questions later on.
Mr. Costello. We thank you, Mr. Bunce.
The Chair now recognizes Dr. Frederick-Recascino.
Ms. Frederick-Recascino. Chairman Costello, Ranking Member
Petri, Chairman Oberstar, thank you for allowing me to testify
today.
My name is Christina Frederick-Recascino, and I am the
Interim Provost and Director of Research at Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University, the world's largest and oldest
university solely devoted to aviation education and research.
Our students, faculty and staff live and breathe aviation.
In the United States, we have been fortunate to enjoy a
vibrant air transportation system, allowing us to move across
the Country quickly and easily. However, this year, all trends
indicate that congestion may be at an all-time peak. The skies
are crowded, the quality of the traveling experience, according
to all evidence, is declining and the American public deserves
better.
At Embry-Riddle, we are currently testing solutions that
will improve safety and decrease congestion in the national
airspace. One of these solutions is the ADS-B system. Embry-
Riddle was one of the early pioneers in the installation and
testing of ADS-B. Embry-Riddle outfitted its entire fleet of
100 aircraft with this system and has provided data to the FAA
bout increases in safety resulting from this retrofit.
We believe it is a good thing, and we have shown that
increased situation awareness provided to pilots and operation
center staff resulting from ADS-B has enhanced the safety
record of our fleet. We have experienced a significantly lower
number of near mid-air incidents since our ADS-B installation.
Embry-Riddle recently has embarked on another ambitious and
timely project. We have created a university public-private
partnership called the Airport of the Future. With our private
partners, Lockheed Martin, Transtech, ENSCO, Sensis, Jeppesen
and Mosaic ATM and three others who are in process, and our
public partners, Volusia County, Florida, and the Daytona Beach
International Airport, we have created a cutting edge national
test bed for new air modernization technologies in the tenth
busiest airspace in the Country at a working commercial
airport.
The Airport of the Future is a four-phase project,
developed in response to the call for air traffic and airspace
modernization. Each phase will focus on a different air
modernization problem. The first phase examines airspace and
airport safety, including further testing of ADS-B
implementation. Phase two focuses on airport capacity and
efficiency issues. Phase Three examines ramp management
technologies and point to point technology enhanced arrivals
and departures. Phase four tests solutions for all-weather
airport operations.
The partners in the Airport of the Future project realize
that new technologies designed to modernize the airspace system
must be tested prior to implementation. At our test bed, all of
our private partners have entered into a signed agreement. The
will bring their technologies to Daytona Beach International
Airport, where they will be tested and integrated with other
teams' technologies.
Embry-Riddle will collect and analyze data from these
integrated systems. We will have the ability to use the data we
collect to enter into a simulation to test human factor
solutions that include human participants in the airspace
system. Controllers, dispatchers and pilots will be able to
engage in decision-making activities to test the newest
technological solutions.
In addition, the data we collect can be used to generate
financial estimates of the cost of implementation of these new
systems, estimates that are crucial to the Federal Government
and to every tax-paying citizen in this Country.
On March 27th and 28th of this year, we presented to the
world the first demo of our project. We had individuals from
all over the globe come to hear the project, including
representatives from the FAA, NASA and Germany's DLR. They
recognize the importance of this project. In a short period of
time, at DBIA, we will have technologies installed. We will
show that these technologies can be integrated with all other
systems that are at the airport. No other project has brought
together multiple partners who have agreed to work together at
one location for technology testing and integration. The
project is really unprecedented in both scale and scope.
The Airport of the Future should become the next national
test bed for all NextGen technologies. Since our first
demonstration, other companies have expressed interest in
joining our partnership and we open it up to any companies and
agencies who want to be part of this unique and important
vision.
Embry-Riddle's motto is ``Leading the World in Aviation and
Aerospace Education and Research.'' In all that we do, we look
to the skies and lead the way to a stronger and safer future
for aviation. We are asking Congress this year to partner with
us to make the Airport of the Future the national test bed for
NextGen technologies. Embry-Riddle and its partners estimate
the cost of the project to be $50 million over the next five
years. Our private partners are contributing half the cost of
the project, along with the technical support from Embry-Riddle
in a facility provided to us.
We are requesting that this Committee provide language in
the FAA authorization bill supporting our efforts for this
important endeavor, that will provide solutions for airspace
modernization in the United States.
Thank you for your time today, Mr. Chairman. This concludes
my testimony.
Mr. Costello. We thank you. And the Chair now recognizes
Mr. Brantley.
Mr. Brantley. Chairman Costello, Congressman Petri and
Chairman Oberstar, thank you for asking PASS to testify today.
PASS represents approximately 11,000 FAA employees working
throughout the United States and overseas. We appreciate the
opportunity to present our views on the future of air traffic
control modernization.
The FAA has introduced a plan to modernize the national
airspace system through development and deployment of the Next
Generation Air Transportation System, or NextGen. Under
previous administrators, PASS worked closely with the FAA in
its efforts to modernize the NAS, collaborating on such efforts
as the development and deployment of the Standard Terminal
Automation Replacement System, STARS, where it ultimately was
deployed successfully; the display system replacement, DSR; and
the National Airspace System Infrastructure Management System,
or NIMS.
Throughout these projects and many others, the experience
and expertise offered by PASS members proved invaluable. As
Congress has seen over the years, and as testified to by the
GAO again today, involving the employees who use and operate
the systems in the development of those systems, greatly
improves the final product and inevitably saves the taxpayer
money. Yet in 2003, the FAA began to eliminate PASS'
involvement, and PASS has not been a participant in developing
and implementing any of the FAA's modernization projects for
several years now. PASS believes the FAA must reconsider its
exclusionary approach to modernization and once again involve
the employees, who will ultimately play a large part in any
modernization effort.
In addition, there must be a sufficient number of trained
FAA technicians in place to maintain the NAS today and into the
future. Since the FAA does not have a staffing model to
accurately determine the number of technicians needed to meet
the agency's mission, PASS is requesting that Congress require
a study of FAA technician training and the methods used by the
FAA to determine technician staffing needs.
The FAA is nonetheless moving forward with plans to
modernize the NAS without input from FAA technicians. Recent
issues associated with the implementation of the FAA
telecommunications infrastructure, FTI, highlight the problems
that develop when stakeholders are not involved. A few years
ago, PASS' liaison was removed from the FTI project and PASS
was informed that its support was no longer needed. Since that
time, the costs for the program have escalated, the expected
benefits have deteriorated and there have been numerous
problems with implementation, leading to several outages across
the Country.
Implementation problems could have been avoided or reduced
had PASS been involved in the development and implementation of
the system. Development of additional NextGen systems must
include stakeholder participation, especially FAA technicians
who are intimately aware of every aspect of the NAS and how
each system affects every other system.
In addition, the agency's reauthorization proposal includes
provisions that would outsource key components of the NAS, such
as ADS-B, which I believe is as much a part of the
Administration's privatization effort as it is the
modernization effort with the NAS. To introduce concepts that
would hinder or abandon the work performed by the dedicated
professionals that are already in place would be to risk the
foundation that keeps this Country's aviation system safe. PASS
is very concerned that the Administration's desire to privatize
the NAS and related services overwhelms any thought of the true
implications of such an action.
PASS firmly believes that providing a safe and secure NAS
is an obligation that must remain with the Federal Government.
The danger of placing the world's busiest, most complex and yet
safest air traffic control system into the hands of private
contractors is too great a risk. The safety of the flying
public should never be sold to the lowest bidder under any
circumstance.
Thank you, and I would be happy to answer any questions
that you have.
Mr. Costello. Thank you, Mr. Brantley.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Romanowski.
Mr. Romanowski. Thank you, Chairman Costello, Chairman
Oberstar, Representative Petri.
On behalf of the nearly 300 member companies of AIA and the
635,000 high-skilled, high-wage workers they employ, I would
like to thank you for allowing me to testify on the critical
issues related to modernizing our aviation infrastructure.
I would also like to thank the Subcommittee for its
leadership on modernization issues, particularly the
establishment of the JPDO and the integrated NextGen process.
We remain a strong supporter of both JPDO and NextGen, and the
comments I offer here are intended to help strengthen JPDO so
that NextGen can become a reality.
We have heard this morning that we all agree on the need
for modernization and the importance of aviation to our
Nation's economy. However, despite the pressing need, we
question whether we are really adequately prepared to meet the
challenge of implementing this system. The consequences are
high. The JPDO has estimated that the cost of not implementing
NextGen will be over $20 billion per year by 2015 and over $50
billion per year by 2025. That is just the effect on commercial
aviation. That doesn't include other areas.
Now, looking across the JPDO enterprise, we see several
areas of concern that place NextGen development and
implementation at risk. First, I would like to say that we
applaud Mr. Leader and the moves he is making on reorganization
and refocusing its working groups on implementation. Those are
moves in the right direction, and there is progress being made
with improving the engagement with industry. And more work
there remains to be done and we are going to support him as he
moves forward.
But on the Government side, we do see systemic issues that
will require immediate attention and resolution. Taking these
from a high level, we see across the agencies a lack of
urgency. We also see a lack of accountability by the agencies
for their NextGen responsibilities.
And finally, we see a lack of program integration across
the agencies and a need to strengthen the JPDO, particularly
its program management and systems engineering disciplines.
These are all clearly illustrated by the R&D gap that Dr.
Dillingham and Mr. Scovel talked about earlier that exist
between FAA and NASA. This is an issue we believe needs to be
addressed immediately if NextGen is going to succeed. We
believe it is going to take strong Congressional leadership to
resolve those issues.
It is estimated that NextGen development and implementation
is going to require at least $1 billion per year.
Unfortunately, the Administration's budget request fails to
make that level of investment. For example, the FAA's 2008
request only increases funding for NextGen at 3 percent or $36
million. We are losing time. Mr. Sturgell stated in his
testimony that by 2015, the system will not be able to handle
the traffic that will exist.
Given the time required to conduct research, validate and
prototype concepts, create new rules and procedures, certify
systems and incorporate the necessary upgrades into our
infrastructure and the operational fleet, we believe it is
critical that we really jump start NextGen now. We need to be
more aggressive, taking advantage of the capabilities that are
already in aircraft, and we need to ensure that we are prepared
to certify the new systems.
This highlights the importance of the Aviation Safety
Organization in FAA. That is an organization that is currently
already resource constrained. But the new regulations, policies
and certification approvals that are going to be required for
NextGen are going to be needed to be done at that organization.
Those are front-loaded activities and we need to ensure the FAA
applies sufficient resources to achieve the necessary results
in that area.
However, developing new policies and certifying new systems
depends on having done adequate research. This is an incredible
concern for us. The concepts of operations that Mr. Leader is
talking about calls out 167 research questions and 77 policy
issues that have to be addressed to implement NextGen. With the
research gap that exists between FAA and NASA, we question how
those are going to be resolved. That research gap should not
exist. Congress provided NASA an additional $166 million above
their request for 2007. We believe that money needs to be
applied now to transitional research for NextGen to close that
gap now.
Now, if we look across the accountability and authority of
JPDO and the agencies, additional work needs to be done there.
We believe Vision 100 and the national aeronautics policy that
President Bush recently signed gives them the authority to
develop and implement the plan. But that requires the agencies
to do their part. The agencies' commitment must be
strengthened. They need to be held accountable to the
integrated work plan and strong Congressional oversight is
going to be required to make sure that occurs.
We also call out additional recommendations to strengthen
the accountability and performance within the JPDO, including
fully funding the JPDO and improving the resources it has at
its disposal.
With that, I will conclude my testimony and welcome any
questions you have. Thank you.
Mr. Costello. Thank you very much.
Mr. Bunce, you indicated in your testimony, both in your
testimony today and in your written testimony that I read last
evening that you think that the JPDO director, instead of
reporting and having accountability both to the COO and the
Administrator, that it might be best to have the director
report directly to the FAA Administrator. Do you want to
elaborate on that?
Mr. Bunce. Yes, Mr. Chairman. We in industry want to see
Charlie succeed. We have great stakes in making sure that he
can be the boss of his organization and that he can provide
advice at the right level. If he reports directly to the FAA
Administrator and is a member of basically the acquisition arm
that the FAA has, then there is a connect between JPDO and the
OEP, so that they can take this vision and bring it to reality
when they go and acquire systems.
So by making the head of the JPDO report directly to the
FAA Administrator and putting him on this JRC, there is a
capability to raise that position and stature within the FAA to
be able to try to leverage all these different systems that
they are bringing on board. Also, the head of the JPDO needs to
be an advisor to the Secretary of Transportation. When you look
at the time frame between the last time that Mr. Mineta had all
the principals together for all the different agencies, the
time that has elapsed, basically two budget cycles have gone by
where we have missed opportunities to put funding in budgets of
other agencies to be able to further this NextGen along.
So we think that raising the stature of the head of the
JPDO becomes very, very important.
Mr. Costello. We are going to hear the bells go off in just
a few minutes. We have four votes on the Floor coming up. So I
am going to ask some questions very quickly and call on Mr.
Petri.
Let me just ask you, Mr. Bunce, in your testimony you
indicate, and I am quoting, that you strongly encourage
Congress to both push the JPDO, FAA and DOT and other
governmental participating agencies and on and on, to clearly
define what they intend to build, how they intend to build it,
a comprehensive plan. You have heard the testimony this morning
that by the end of July that we are going to have a
comprehensive plan and I guess I would just ask you, based upon
your experience in dealing with NextGen, do you have confidence
that that plan, that we are near the time at the end of July
where we are actually going to have a plan that lays it out?
Mr. Bunce. Sir, I think it is an iterative process. I think
that we are going to have a clearer concept, a clearer vision.
And as we go and put this enterprise architecture together, it
will give more and more clues as to where we eventually want to
go.
Industry provided the FAA with clear concerns about ADS-B.
And really, we are not going to have a notice of proposed
rulemaking right now out until they say September. But in that
it is very important. If we don't come out with separation
criteria for ADS-B that is at least as good as what we have
today, people are going to start scratching their heads. We
know that what is going to come out in June and July isn't
really the NPRM. That is the technical part.
When we look to industry and we say, a plan is something we
can build to, and that is really our point. Industry needs to
be able to build this infrastructure, and until we get the
design specifications and know what some of these augmentation
signal requirements are for the GPS to be able to really have a
precise position, to know what kind of separation criteria is
out there, we have a hard time being able to go and figure out
how industry is going to be incentivized to want to go forward
and build this quickly before we know how much demand is going
to be out there.
So all of these things are very important to fit together.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
Mr. Brantley, you state in your testimony that the FAA
adopted a position of banning PASS from the modernization
project. You heard the testimony earlier of the FAA saying that
they thought that they gave plenty of input, both to NATCA and
to the technicians. I just want you to elaborate on your
statement that their position was to ban PASS from the
modernization project.
Mr. Brantley. Certainly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I believe the question was answered very artfully earlier.
What I would offer is that the agency can direct an employee,
order them to be part of a work group that is working on
something that has to do with modernization as an assignment of
work. Now, as an employee, they are not as free to raise issues
or even to pursue them after they are raised as they are if
they do it on behalf of the union.
Quite frankly, they are protected when they do it on behalf
of the union. If they do it as an FAA employee, they fall into
the greater than 60 percent of FAA employees who are afraid to
speak up when they see a problem, because they fear
retaliation.
So as a general culture, FAA employees don't speak up, if
they can avoid it. So I am not surprised that they have chosen
to go this route, because if you don't find problems, then you
are not hindered with having to correct them.
Mr. Costello. You also mention in your testimony that
several recent high visibility outages have called into
question the FAA's focus on maintaining the current system. I
would ask you to elaborate on that.
Mr. Brantley. Certainly. There have been several throughout
the last year. Los Angeles, Chicago had a problem earlier. And
what they had to do with is, the people that are installing the
FTI system, and there are very different, many different
companies across the Country, because Harris has outsourced
much of that, so the vendors are probably too many to even
mention. But they are not intimately familiar with the
equipment that the telecommunications infrastructure is
designed to feed. So many times they will, whether it is turn a
system off inadvertently or when they bring the FTI online, it
is not lined up properly, so the communications don't go where
they should.
It is just something that the FAA is relying on the vendor
to do, that they are frankly not capable of.
Mr. Costello. You mentioned outsourcing. Since the
certification cannot be outsourced, you indicate in your
testimony that the FAA has been very creative in trying to
circumvent the system, would you elaborate on that?
Mr. Brantley. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. One of the things
that we have seen and heard from the FAA in the last couple of
years is that they are trying to reduce the amount of
certification they do. Where today they certify the systems,
the services, and in many cases the pieces of equipment,
depending on the criticality, and each of those must be
certified before it can be put into the overall system and be
used to control air traffic.
Because legal determinations have been made that won't
allow the certification to be outsourced, it is considered
inherently governmental, the agency has come to the conclusion
that just not doing the certification would clear that
roadblock. So they want to dramatically scale back the amount
and type of certifications that are done. And initially they
want to go to strictly a service certification, without any
equipment certified at all, which again, being done the way
they are planning is going to create a lot of problems. It is
going to end up putting us in a position where systems are put
into the NAS that aren't ready, and outages are going to occur,
people will be pointing fingers, no one will know what is going
on and the travelers are going to be sitting in the terminal
wondering what is going on.
Mr. Costello. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes the Ranking Member.
Mr. Petri. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have one
question, given the time constraints. I would like to ask Mr.
Brantley, and really, all the members of the panel, in your
judgment, does the Joint Planning and Development Office have
the necessary resources and authority to carry out NextGen? If
not, what changes should we be making to make sure that they
do?
Mr. Brantley. Mr. Petri, I think it is hard for me to say
exactly, because, without being involved in modernization any
more than reading about it in the newspaper, and what we hear
at the water cooler, it is hard to make a real call on that.
But from everything I hear and read, I would say that they are
struggling with having the autonomy and the overall buy-in.
Until that is nailed down, whatever they come up with is going
to be tough to implement, unless each agency is really stepping
up to the plate and are a part of it, and that they have the
autonomy to do their job without anyone overly controlling
them.
I think those are probably the biggest issues.
Mr. Bunce. Sir, I would just like to add, and be a little
more frank here, the head of the JPDO has two engineers that
work for him right now, has about six direct reports. So he is
having challenges just having the technical expertise that he
can reach down and touch and lead an organization to be able to
implement NextGen. This is a huge endeavor. We have to give the
head of the JPDO the tools to be able to go ahead and execute.
Unless he has people that work directly for him, you know, when
the military assigns people across departments, you can have an
Air Force guy working for a Navy guy. When the Navy person is
who that person is reporting to, he writes the report. And why
these different agencies can't send quality people over to work
in the JPDO, not to say that there aren't, but send their best
people over, because this is very important, and have them
report directly to the head of the JPDO is something I don't
understand.
Mr. Romanowski. I would like to add to what Pete has been
saying here. JPDO right now, as he said, very few of the people
actually work for Charlie Leader. We believe that he needs to
have direct performance input into those people. But also, if
you look across the agencies, it is very difficult to say who
is responsible in those agencies for NextGen. And one of the
things that we think is very important is that somebody be
named in each of those agencies that has NextGen
accountability. DOD is apparently moving down an approach to
name an overall NextGen program manager or program director at
DOD. We think that ought to be applying to all the partner
agencies at DOD, and that person should be tied in and working
for Charlie Leader as a direct report as well, so that we can
ensure that there is clear flow-down of need, of funding, of
resources through the agencies, and that the agencies also have
appropriate feedback into the overall integrated plan.
One of the key things that we are very concerned about is
that, as the integrated plan develops, will that plan really
reflect the capabilities and resources available at the
agencies or are there gaps that are going to be there. That has
to be fed back into the overall plan, the actual performance to
the plan, so that we can make adjustments as necessary, the
funding is actually applied where it needs to be, and the like.
The same thing goes for an engagement with the industry, that
the feedback that comes from the industry in terms of
implementation and requirements generation gets fed back into
the overall plan.
So right now, I think JPDO probably has authority given to
it. If you look at the statutes in the President's policy, it
has the authority to do what it needs to do. But we need to
really step up the oversight and accountability. That starts
with MOUs, making sure that those are not just, I think Mr.
Leader testified that they were symbolic to the Science
Committee last month. Those need to be real, meaningful MOUs
that really call out clearly what the agencies are going to do
with the resources that they are going to provide. And then
moving down into the other areas.
Mr. Costello. We thank you very much. We have less than
four minutes to get over to the Floor, so I would let our
witnesses know that we have some written questions that we
would like to submit to you and ask you to answer them for the
record.
We thank you for your testimony today and look forward to
continuing to work with you. Just as a side note to Mr. Bunce
and Dr. Romanowski, I can tell you that we have had these
conversations and I agree with you that JPDO, without question,
has the authority that it needs, but it needs to be
restructured and needs to be defined. And the people who work
there need to report to one person. We will have further
discussions about that.
We appreciate your testimony and this concludes our
hearing.
[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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