U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

71–101 PDF 2012

NEXTGEN: LEVERAGING PUBLIC, 

PRIVATE, AND ACADEMIC RESOURCES 

(112–60) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

NOVEMBER 7, 2011 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

Available online at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/ 

committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

ANDY HARRIS, Maryland 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington 

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

JEFFREY M. LANDRY, Louisiana 

STEVE SOUTHERLAND II, Florida 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

CHARLES J. ‘‘CHUCK’’ FLEISCHMANN, 

Tennessee 

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

LAURA RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

(II) 

(III) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... iv 

TESTIMONY 

Babbitt, Hon. J. Randolph, Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration ... 5 

Blakey, Hon. Marion C., President and Chief Executive Officer, Aerospace 

Industries Association .......................................................................................... 5 

Bunce, Peter J., President and Chief Executive Officer, General Aviation 

Manufacturers Association .................................................................................. 5 

Caslavka, Alan, President, GE Aviation Systems-Avionics ................................. 5 

Dillingham, Gerald L., Ph.D., Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues, Government Accountability Office ............................................................................. 5 

Johnson, John P., Ph.D., President, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University ..... 5 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Babbitt, Hon. J. Randolph ...................................................................................... 34 

Blakey, Hon. Marion C. ........................................................................................... 50 

Bunce, Peter J. ......................................................................................................... 56 

Caslavka, Alan ......................................................................................................... 62 

Dillingham, Gerald L., Ph.D. .................................................................................. 67 

Johnson, John P., Ph.D. .......................................................................................... 80 

iv 


Insert offset folio 1 here 71101.001
v 


Insert offset folio 2 here 71101.002
vi 


Insert offset folio 3 here 71101.003
vii 


Insert offset folio 4 here 71101.004
viii 


Insert offset folio 5 here 71101.005
ix 


Insert offset folio 6 here 71101.006
x 


Insert offset folio 7 here 71101.007
(1) 

NEXTGEN: LEVERAGING PUBLIC, 

PRIVATE, AND ACADEMIC RESOURCES 

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

WASHINGTON, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in Room 101 

of the Willie Miller Instructional Center Auditorium, Embry-Riddle 

Aeronautical University, 600 S. Clyde Morris Boulevard, Daytona 

Beach, Florida, Hon. John L. Mica (Chairman of the committee) 

presiding. 

Mr. MICA. I would like to call this hearing of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to order. Today we have a 

field hearing here in Daytona Beach, Florida. I thank Members for 

attending and our witnesses for being with us, and we will get to 

some introductions in just a minute. 

But we are pleased that this probably one of the first congressional hearings I believe we have held at Embry-Riddle. We are delighted to have them host us. We are going to hear from Dr. Johnson, one of our witnesses, in a few minutes. But thank you for your 

hospitality and allowing us to come here, particularly when Congress’ reputation lately—to host us and have us as your guests. 

But this is an important hearing, and the title of it deals with, 

of course, our next generation air traffic control systems. And the 

title is ‘‘Leveraging Public, Private, and Academic Resources.’’ 

Today’s hearing is being held in conjunction with a ribbon cutting, which will be really open expansion of a next generation air 

traffic control Test Bed facility, and the public is invited to that, 

I believe, at 2:00 today. It is just next to the airport terminal facing 

the airport terminal that is on the left. And that will begin promptly at 2:00 today. 

I want to welcome again our Members of Congress. We are joined 

today by the chairman of the House Aviation Subcommittee. Mr. 

Petri, the gentleman from Wisconsin, chairs the subcommittee. We 

have another chair of one of our subcommittees, the distinguished 

gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Bill Shuster, who chairs the— 

I always say the railway—the Rail Subcommittee, but it is Rails, 

Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials—did I get it wrong—including 

responsibility in both the committee and in Congress. 

We are pleased also to be joined by another Transportation Committee member, the gentleman from Texas. He is part of that powerful group of 89 freshmen. We have 19 Republican freshmen on 

this committee, and he is one of our new members, Blake 

2 

Farenthold from the State of Texas. And we are pleased to have 

him join us today. 

And we are also pleased to have minority counsel. Thank you so 

much for joining us and being with us today. We have the staff director also as part of our committee staff with us. So, that is the 

makeup of our panel. We have got Mary acting as counsel for me 

this morning—welcome, Mark—of the majority staff. 

On the panel of witnesses, first of all, I have to welcome probably 

one of the most important people in aviation in the United States 

and a great leader, who helped us move in some difficult times 

under some difficult circumstances in aviation policy and programs, 

Randy Babbitt, who is the Administrator. We are pleased to have 

Dr. Johnson, who is the president here of the Embry-Riddle University. General Johnson does a great job of leading the premiere 

aeronautical institute and university not only in the United States, 

but the world. And we are pleased to have, again, you host us here 

today. 

We have got Gerald Dillingham. He’s from the General Accountability Office, GAO, as we affectionately refer to them. They have 

testified many times before our committee, and they do an outstanding job on oversight, some investigations, and give an important view of Federal programs. We are pleased to have you with 

us. 

Then, we are going to talk about a top hitting panel of witnesses. 

We have probably one of the finest FAA administrators following 

the footsteps of Marion Blakey, who served. I had the honor to be 

chair of the Aviation Subcommittee. She is actually one of the people who helped us launch some of the NextGen effort, and she now 

is the president and CEO for Aerospace Industries. I welcome the 

former Secretary and current president and CEO, Marion Blakey. 

And then, another distinguished gentleman that represents one 

of the most important aspects of aviation, and actually people who 

use and be involved in all of the next generation, use software and 

systems to develop them, we have the president and CEO, Pete 

Bunce. And Pete Bunce, he is with the General Aviation Manufacturers. He is on the end. 

And then I am going to blow it, Alan Caslavka? 

Mr. CASLAVKA. Caslavka. 

Mr. MICA. Good. A fellow Czechoslovakian surname. Most people 

think Mica is Italian, but it is also Czechoslovakian. But he is vice 

president of avionics at GE Aviation, and we are honored to have 

him here. 

The order of this will be as follows. I have an opening statement, 

and then I will refer to Members for opening statements, and then 

I will go to our witnesses. Normally we have 5 minutes; we would 

prefer it. I have read most of your testimony already. If you condense some of it [inaudible]. But with that, I will recognize myself, 

and then I will turn it over to Members, and then we will [inaudible]. Again, welcome. 

But I think today is a very important day because the people 

who are on this panel and Members of Congress I am sitting beside, and that is pretty decisive because I do not intend for there 

to be another short-term extension of our FAA bill. I happened to 

be chair in 2002. I headed that office from close to a year 2000 and 

3 

then as chairman of aviation, to pass a 4-year bill that expired in 

2007 passed in 2002. So, for more than 41⁄2 years now, we have not 

had a long-term FAA reauthorization. As some of you know, we are 

very frustrated by this. I agreed when the [inaudible], and since 

February when I became the chair, there were three more, and I 

am the fourth one, and I said that we have got to be the last. We 

did have sort of a showdown, FAA and Congress, on the matter, 

and through that I believe we will now have a long-term bill. 

We will have it on the President’s desk before Christmas and certainly before January 31st. So, that is why this hearing is particularly important because one of the most important components for 

the bill is the conditions we have for next generation aircraft. We 

did some things in the last legislation, which is 41⁄2 years old now, 

and it is overdue for updating the policy. 

The bill that we propose does some things, but I think that we 

need the proper [inaudible] some of it, witnesses just before we 

started. We want to hear anything about these new provisions to 

alter, to improve to [inaudible] some dysfunction that works best 

[inaudible]. This is not my work or Members’ work, but [inaudible] 

hopefully can move us forward [inaudible] plan. 

Specifically, the legislation currently [inaudible] the NextGen 

technology to include accountability and management for modernization, that sets immediate performance methods, which we 

are hopeful hold FAA accountable for [inaudible] and be responsible for, again, putting all this together. 

It sets a deadline for the deployment of NextGen [inaudible] administrator to utilize private sector and FCC to accelerate the deployment of NextGen technology, and also flight plans. Furthermore, to streamline we have a certification process for NextGen 

technology, and for flight paths. It sets a rulemaking deadline for 

offering more beneficial ADS–B, and it also directs FAA to leverage 

private sector capital to accelerate the NextGen [inaudible]. 

It provides a process for the timing for the acceleration of FAA 

facilities so NextGens are enabled. That is also important. And, finally, it provides [inaudible] safe integration of our unmanned 

aviation systems into the National Airspace System. 

So, we came here to hear from you today to begin to assess 

where we are, where we must go, and how we must get there at 

a very pivotal time when the Congress [inaudible] legislation [inaudible]. 

Also, at the conclusion of today’s hearing at 2:00, as you know, 

there will be an opening of the Test Bed. [Inaudible] that we have 

and we will know about the progress of that particular enterprise 

today and the other [inaudible] their mission. 

But the key to all this I think was summed up in a summary 

that I read [inaudible]. It says that the FAA has said that there 

are significant quantifiable benefits associated with proper implementation of NextGen. FAA’s estimates show that by 2018, next 

generation air traffic control management improvements will reduce total delays by about 35 percent. And also, they will have a 

dramatic impact on fuel prices and [inaudible] compared to what 

would happen if we have no [inaudible]. And the delay in the production will provide the benefit of $23 billion accumulated from 

4 

2010 to 2018 to aircraft operators [inaudible] project management 

areas. 

So, getting back to airspace management improvements plan from 2010 forward, we can save about $1.4 billion of aviation fuel 

and carbon dioxide emissions, about 14 million tons. [Inaudible] 

aircraft. The first would be an installation of next generation avionics. It also drives job growth [inaudible] economic prosperity and 

high-paying employment, and hopefully this activity will alleviate 

the need to, again, [inaudible] some of the finest people we have 

in the industry who actually [inaudible] in the system, so the combination of that FAA [inaudible] and management, to administer 

the program. 

And, finally, we could not have a better university or more wellqualified personnel here [inaudible] aviation and avionics than 

Embry-Riddle University. 

So, we are pleased you could join us. I hope you can take some 

today to get some information on today’s hearing, and [inaudible] 

done here and where we do go from here. 

We have been joined by the Honorable Sandy Adams, and she 

and I have the privilege to represent [inaudible] community and 

representing [inaudible]. 

So, with that, let me yield first to Mr. Petri, chair of the House 

Aviation Subcommittee. 

Mr. PETRI. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for inviting us 

[inaudible] the involvement of non-profit private organizations and 

of industry [inaudible] technology [inaudible] aviation [inaudible] 

safety that it will provide for the expansion of the capacity of the 

system, for the efficiency that it will provide to the airline industry. 

The estimates are it will save some 15 to 25 percent of fuel as it 

goes forward, so it’s green technology. And it is something that will 

maintain the leadership of our country for the foreseeable future in 

aviation if we proceed with it in a determined and orderly and 

well-organized way. 

So, I thank your panelists and you for having this important 

hearing and Embry-Riddle for making a contribution to this national effort. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Petri. We will yield to the chairman, 

Bill Shuster from Pennsylvania. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

bringing us here to Florida for this very important hearing. 

I just want to highlight the importance of public/private partnerships, and how that is what we have today, and we need to continue to look across the scope of the Government to find out ways 

to bring the private sector in and leverage the Federal taxpayer 

dollars with the private sector to be able to bring projects like this 

that are going to be very, very beneficial to the traveling public, to 

Congress of the United States. And so, it is great to be here, and 

thank you. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Shuster. The gentleman from Texas, 

Mr. Farenthold. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I would like to thank you all for your hospitality. It is good to be back in Florida also as a regular visitor on 

vacation. I am excited to be here and excited in the anticipation in 

watching the way that Government should operate working with 

5 

the private sector and academia to come up with the best solutions 

that in the long run will save both the Government and industry 

time and money. 

I look forward to hearing from our panelists. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. And I would like to welcome to the 

panel—she is not a member of our committee, but I ask unanimous 

consent that we recognize her. Without objection, so ordered. And 

welcome, Representative Sandy Adams. 

Ms. ADAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am happy to be here, 

and I am looking forward to the discussion of NextGen. We have 

been talking about it for a long time now, and it is a good public/ 

private partnership. I am just happy to be here, and I appreciate 

you allowing me to be here today. 

Mr. MICA. And while we do not have a Democrat member of the 

committee with us today, and I have given permission for some of 

them to attend some other functions around the country, we do 

have counsel from the Democratic staff, Alex Burkett. And did you 

want to make any comment? 

Mr. BURKETT. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully would not, other than 

just to thank you on behalf of the Democratic members for holding 

this hearing. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. And we have had wide bipartisan support 

for the legislation. Thank you for your participation. The important 

thing now is we get the job done, and I look forward to working 

with everyone in that regard. 

So, I think we have covered our membership and those attending. The order of business will be now to hear from our panel of 

witnesses. And, again, we are delighted, and I thank you, too. Usually when I have the Administrator, he will sit on a panel, and we 

bring in red velvet carpeting, and we have a very special place for 

him. And I thank him for allowing us to have him join the entire 

panel, but we will recognize him first, thank him for his service, 

and actually just delighted to have his leadership in, again, working on this important issue, being here to report to us, and also see 

the Test Bed. 

So, welcome, Mr. Administrator, and you are recognized. 

TESTIMONIES OF HON. J. RANDOLPH BABBITT, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION; GERALD L. 

DILLINGHAM, PH.D., DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; 

JOHN P. JOHNSON, PH.D., PRESIDENT, EMBRY-RIDDLE 

AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY; ALAN CASLAVKA, PRESIDENT, 

GE AVIATION SYSTEMS-AVIONICS; HON. MARION C. BLAKEY, 

PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AEROSPACE 

INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION; AND PETER J. BUNCE, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, GENERAL AVIATION 

MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION 

Mr. BABBITT. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chairman Mica, Congressman Petri, members of the committee. Thank you all for the 

opportunity to come here today to highlight the capabilities of the 

Florida Test Bed. 

Mr. MICA. Can you all hear him? Move that up a little bit. We 

do not want to miss a word, Randy. 

6 

Mr. BABBITT. That concludes my remarks. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BABBITT. Thank you very much for the opportunity to come 

and speak with you about the Florida Test Bed and the things that 

we are undertaking here. It is an exciting expansion of the Federal 

Aviation Administration’s NextGen testing operation. 

I am pleased to be able to join you all here in Florida. I grew 

up here, so it is nice to be back. And as I was explaining to Dr. 

Johnson, I actually learned to fly at Embry-Riddle, so it is a little 

humbling for me to come back here. 

The FAA’s three NextGen Test Beds here in Florida, in Atlantic 

City, and in North Texas provide an opportunity for real world 

testing for us, demonstration environments that facilitate both research and development, as well as real world demonstrations and 

evaluations. They offer us a variety of resources that offer us ways 

to develop NextGen technologies, along with the concepts and various implementation techniques that we need. 

And today, we are marking the completion of renovations and enhancements here at the Florida Test Bed, the enhancements to 

equip this facility to handle not just today’s testing demonstrations, 

but they are also preparing us to take in new ideas in the innovations of tomorrow to give us the ability to integrate a full range of 

NextGen systems, and evaluate operational impacts. 

And the dozens of systems that it houses today are really just a 

beginning truly. The Test Bed will constantly be modified, as they 

all are, as we complete the demonstrations and engineer additional 

platforms. We also look forward to the new technologies that the 

Test Bed will yield. This is a great facility, and it offers us the capacity for innovation and prototype testing, as well as demonstration. 

And I think key to this is having access to the resources that 

Embry-Riddle provides to us that enhances the effectiveness in 

what we can do. And this combination will make it the birthplace 

of industry-driven concepts that will advance NextGen and the benefits that come from NextGen. 

The FAA has awarded a $22 million contract towards NextGen 

research and development through an agreement with Embry-Riddle University. This agreement enables the FAA to leverage the experience and expertise that resides here at Embry-Riddle and 

many of the industry’s partners also. We get to capitalize on all of 

that. It has already resulted in a number of solutions of the product and industry collaboration, and we expect to see even more developments ahead. 

Although we are pleased to cut the ribbon here today and witness demonstrations of the cutting edge systems that exist, this 

event is more than just a celebration of what we have already accomplished. It is truly a call urging our industry partners to take 

advantage of the promise of the public and private partnership 

going forward that this facility represents. 

We truly look forward to the evolution of our air transportation 

system. The chairman has cited a number of the benefits that we 

expect to receive as we move forward. NextGen is going to make 

travel more convenient, more dependable. It is going to improve 

safety and efficiency all at the same time. And a continuous roll 

7 

out of improvements and upgrades, all of these will come as we pioneer things here in the Test Bed. 

This building has the ability to guide and track air traffic more 

precisely in order to save fuel and reduce costs. We will be able to 

test and implement those as we move forward. So, NextGen, as we 

know, is already a better way of doing business. It is a better way 

for the FAA, for the airlines, the airports, and the traveling public. 

It is better for safety, better for our environment, better for efficiency and flexibility, and overall it is better for the economy. Congress has appropriated about $2.8 billion for NextGen in the 

last 5 years. The President has requested another billion dollars in 

the American Jobs Act for NextGen. We will continue to invest in 

the coming years, and those investments will bring us substantial 

returns. The chairman highlighted for us a number of those, and 

we expect to recoup our entire initial investment by 2018. We decided a 35 percent reduction compared to what would happen if we 

did not do anything. We find those to be very accurate projections. 

All in all, we propose to save about 1.4 billion gallons of fuel; 

that will cut carbon dioxide emissions by 14 million tons. That is 

a lot of carbon emission reduction. 

The NextGen benefits, however, do depend on getting stakeholders to invest in avionics, ground equipment, staffing, training, 

and procedures we will all have to use in order to take advantage 

of the infrastructure that the FAA establishes. 

Their willingness to make these investments depends in return 

on the business case, their assessment of how valuable these benefits will be, and their confidence that the FAA can deliver in the 

timeframes and the manner required in order to realize those benefits. 

Facilities like this one right here, this Florida NextGen Test Bed, 

helped make that case. Demonstrations and operational trials of 

specific NextGen systems and procedures actually let stakeholders 

see the very real benefits that NextGen can bring. They mitigate 

program risk. They show us whether we are on the right track in 

our technical approaches. They provide insight as to how equipment should be designed for the best operation, the best maintenance, and the human interface and automation comparisons. In 

this way, the Florida Test Bed will spur innovation. It will spur 

collaboration with the industry to speed the realization of the many 

benefits that NextGen has to offer. 

NextGen is happening now, and I would note that if we delay the 

investment, our long-term costs to this Nation, to our passengers, 

and the entire environment overall will far exceed the costs of moving forward today. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared remarks, and I would 

be pleased to answer any questions at the appropriate time. 

Mr. MICA. I think what we will do, if you do not mind, is we will 

go through everyone. 

Mr. BABBITT. Sure. 

Mr. MICA. And thank you for your patience. I am going to call 

on our next Government witness, which is Dr. Gerald Dillingham. 

We have an important Federal partner in examining some of 

these programs and undertakings, and that is GAO. So, I thought 

it would be appropriate, first, if we heard from the Administrator, 

8 

and that we hear from Mr. Dillingham now, his candid open comments. 

Welcome, sir. You are recognized. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Thank you, Chairman Mica, Chairman Petri, 

Chairman Shuster, members of the committee. My statement today 

discusses the role of the NextGen Test Bed in the development of 

NextGen capabilities, together with some observations on how it 

can generally support a more robust R&D and technology transfer 

function throughout FAA. 

As we have reported over the years to this committee, ATC modernization efforts often fail to meet cost, schedule, and performance 

targets for a number of reasons. In some cases, systems do not perform as intended because system operators and users were not involved early and continuously in technology planning and development. In other cases, commitment faltered also when projects 

lacked a home or a champion in FAA. 

In addition, concerns about FAA’s credibility, which arose when 

promised benefits did not materialize, or the agency stopped a program after the airlines had equipped, discouraged airlines from 

making further commitments needed to implement the technologies. 

These issues plagued FAA’s past ATC modernization effort, and 

despite substantial improvements, have surfaced again with the 

ERAM system. ERAM is now projected to be almost 4 years behind 

schedule and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget in part because FAA did not ensure adequate collaboration and cooperation 

among stakeholders. 

The three test facilities that currently make up the NextGen 

Test Bed have the potential to address these past issues and make 

a significant contribution to accelerating the implementation of 

NextGen. The Test Bed is designed to bring together stakeholders 

early in the technology development process so participants can understand the benefits of operational improvements, identify potential risk, and foster partnerships between Government, industry, 

and academia. 

Furthermore, the Test Bed provides access to the systems now in 

the NAS, which allows for testing and evaluating the integration 

and interoperability of new technologies. Such testing and evaluation are critical, since many of today’s NAS systems will be in service for many years to come, and the new NextGen technologies and 

capabilities will have to be integrated with them. 

The Test Bed can also serve as a forum for private companies to 

learn from each other and eventually enter into technology acquisition agreements or technology transfers with the FAA, with significantly reduced risk. However, our recent work on technology transfer has identified some lingering stakeholder concerns. For example, although work at the test site has allowed private sector participants to see how they might benefit from the technologies being 

tested, some of the participants told us it was not always clear 

what happened to the technologies that were successfully tested at 

the sites. They said in some cases it was not apparent whether the 

technologies being tested had a clear path to implementation, or a 

clear path to FAA’s NAS infrastructure roadmap. 

9 

FAA’s linking together of testing facilities, expanding the Florida 

facility, building a research and technology park adjacent to the 

new to the New Jersey facility to complement the capabilities of 

Embry-Riddle, are very positive steps that should also help to address some of these issues. 

Our recent technology transfer work has also identified a gap in 

collaboration between FAA and the partner agencies that can inhibit technology transfer. For example, after several years of 

NextGen planning, FAA, DOD, and DHS have yet to fully identify 

what R&D technology or expertise at these agencies could support 

NextGen activities. According to NextGen stakeholders we spoke 

with, FAA could more effectively engage partner agencies’ longterm planning by aligning implementation activities to partner 

agency mission priorities, and by obtaining buy-in for actions required to transfer on to NAS. 

We have recommended that FAA and its partner agencies work 

together to clarify NextGen interagency priorities and enhanced 

technology transfers. Those recommendations are still pending. To 

its credit, FAA has implemented several of our recommendations 

for realigning its management structure and improving its oversight of NextGen acquisition, which in turn should help the agency 

to better manage the portfolios of capabilities across program offices. These changes have also placed a greater focus on accountability for NextGen implementation, and can help address issues 

like finding a home for FAA technologies. However, it is too early 

to tell whether these latest reorganizations will produce the desired 

results. 

Mr. Chairman, in summary, we believe that FAA recognizes the 

importance and necessity of partnerships, and has taken several 

important steps to improve its ability to manage and enhance these 

technology transfer activities. We will continue to monitor developments and outcomes in this area and provide information and analysis to this committee. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, and, again, we will withhold questions. 

Now, what I will do is turn to two of the partners in this Test 

Bed activity. First, we will hear from academia, and representing 

Embry-Riddle, their president, Dr. Johnson. Welcome. You are recognized. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to host the hearing today and to serve as a host for the Florida NextGen Test Bed facility. 

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University was founded in 1926, 

prior to the development of the aerospace industry. We worked 

closely with those industries to provide the needed personnel and 

manpower to make them successful. We have always had a corporate focus as we looked at partnering with aerospace companies. 

That has not changed as we develop next generation technology 

and make our air transportation system safer and more efficient. 

The university is really quite unique. We offer 40 degree programs from the bachelors’, masters’, and through the Ph.D. level. 

The thing that I think makes the university great is that we have 

an outstanding college of aviation and an aerospace engineering 

program that is the largest and among the best schools of its type 

10 

in the world. We also have an engineering and space physics degree program that is one of the largest ABET accredited programs 

in the country. That synergy between aviation and engineering provides for wonderful opportunities for research. Problems are identified, tested, and real-world solutions are found. 

We have been partnering with the aerospace industry, Mr. Chairman, for all of our existence. I agree with Dr. Dillingham’s comments that we look very closely to not only Congress, but to the 

FAA to provide coordination of efforts across our aerospace industry partners, universities, and Government initiatives. Coordination is going to be very important to the future of the welfare of 

our aviation industry and our national air transportation system. 

The University is uniquely prepared to do research. We have not 

only great colleges of aviation and engineering, but we also have 

a fleet of 100 small airplanes. We can redesign and test the avionics package on those airplanes. We can put biofuel in one engine 

of a twin and put regular avgas in the other and test them in a 

cost-effective manner. We can compare the efficacy of a biofuel 

versus a traditional petroleum-based fuel. 

Mr. Chairman, we have been involved in developing NextGen 

technology in a very real sense for many years. In 2003, we 

equipped every one of our airplanes with satellite-based GPS-type 

technology, ADS–B. We have been flying those planes going on 8 

years, and have had an opportunity to determine that the GPS satellite-based type of technology substantially enhances and increases not only accuracy in terms of identifying where planes are, 

but improves communication with the tower, allows us to see other 

airplanes in terms of altitude, closing speed, and to make efforts 

to separate aircraft to prevent accidents from happening. So, I 

think the development of satellite technology is something that is 

very important to safety. 

Now, that is just one aspect of NextGen technology. We have also 

been working on improving ground safety by preventing runway incursions. We have been working with high-speed digital cameras 

along the runways and lighting systems that tell the approaching 

pilot that is on final whether or not there is an airplane on the 

runway. Active lighting systems will prevent incursions and accidents. All of those things are very important. 

We are so pleased to be a partner with the FAA. It is doing a 

great job. We look forward to establishing additional relationships 

with our industry leaders, and feel we can help better serve our industry and the flying public. We feel that the Florida NextGen Test 

Bed is making great progress and offers great opportunities to 

strengthen our air transportation system. 

In a very real sense, the Test Bed serves as a microcosm of our 

national air transportation system. We can test things efficiently 

and quickly, and make recommendations to the FAA and to Congress to improve the safety and efficiency of the system. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. 

And we will turn now to Alan Caslavka. And Alan is the vice 

president, Avionics, for GE Aviation. And I think they have about 

total of 17 private sector partners in is this, and you are one of 

them. 

11 

Welcome, and you are recognized. 

Mr. CASLAVKA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. members of the committee, Alan Caslavka. As Chairman Mica indicated, I am vice 

president of aviation systems within the avionics group at General 

Electric. I thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

General Electric is making large investments to improve the 

global infrastructure not only in aviation, but in power generation, 

health delivery, and rail facilities as well. In the aviation world, 

most people think of GE as an engine provider, which we are, but 

we have broadened our horizons beyond the engine domain to focus 

on efficiency of broader aviation systems around the world. 

We are fully engaged in trying to solve the toughest problems of 

aerospace and air traffic management. We see a tremendous opportunity to fundamentally transform our airspace and air traffic management infrastructure, to safely accommodate traffic growth more 

efficiently, more reliably, and in a way that positively impacts our 

environment and our communities. 

In the U.S., we are focused on advancing NextGen. GE is currently involved with a number of next generation programs with 

the FAA, some of which are here at Embry-Riddle. We value tremendously the public/private partnership, and are hopeful that by 

collaborating with Government and academia, we will be able to accelerate the delivery of the benefit to aviation owners and operators. 

GE Aviation Systems is the avionics member of the integrated 

airport initiative, the consortium that we are involved with here 

today at Embry-Riddle. The Test Bed program will host a number 

of demonstration programs that will allow us to develop and refine 

operational concepts, as well as validate the benefits and the technologies that it can provide. These programs help quantify what 

the benefits will be to key stakeholders, and often include life 

flights that lay the groundwork for transitioning into ongoing operations. 

The programs that GE has been involved with at the Test Bed, 

though limited, have shown the value of collaborative R&D and the 

impact of an integrated demonstration center to showcase the combined NextGen capabilities of the FAA, Embry-Riddle, and the industry team. One FAA funded project, referred to as task G, is designed to leverage existing flight management systems, of which we 

have a domain expertise, and the technology to validate trajectorybased operations, which we believe is key going forward in this 

particular domain. 

Implementation will help aircraft fly more optimized routes, conduct idle descents, and also to have more efficient shorter paths to 

the terminal. 

We look forward to funding under another project, task E, where 

we will demonstrate the flight of a Predator UAS unmanned air 

system, with a modified 737 flight management system that will 

digitally link to air traffic control. These proof of concept flights 

will show the ability of the FMS equipped UAS to fly very precise 

paths, even in a situation where you have lots of flying contingencies, while giving air traffic controllers a high degree of confidence in the UAS intended path. 

12 

Demonstrations under task E and another FAA program, network enabled operation, otherwise known as NEO, later this month 

will help pave the way for expanded UAS access to national airspace. 

The increasing involvement of the FAA in Test Bed activities is 

valuable, not only to fund demonstrations, but to enable moving 

the technologies closer to the demonstration from a demonstration 

into an operational use in national airspace. We recommend that 

Test Bed projects be expanded beyond just demonstrations to include a forum for funded collaborative R&D programs for near and 

midterm next generation capabilities. 

I would like to take a moment to talk about the value of collaboration between the FAA and private sector in the deployment of 

near-term NextGen economic and environmental benefits. GE has 

developed a great deal of experience deploying performance-based 

navigation—specifically, RNP paths is what it is referred to. In collaboration with the Government, regulatory agencies, and airlines, 

we have designed and deployed more than 340 RNP procedures in 

over seven countries. Based on that experience, we find clear and 

compelling evidence that PBN, if implemented properly, can immediately reduce aircraft track miles, fuel consumption, and CO2 

emissions. The kinds of near-term benefits PBN brings unalign 

with the recent recommendation of the NextGen Advisory Committee to develop and deploy RNP instrument procedures that 

would allow currently equipped users to routinely fly them and 

achieve associated benefits. We estimate that over 50 percent of the 

aircraft flying in airspace today have that capability. 

The quickest and most efficient way to deploy these procedures, 

we believe, is to engage qualified commercial PBN service providers, like ourselves here at GE, and work closely with the FAA 

to design and deploy them. The FAA policy for this collaboration 

already exists within the current regulatory framework, and work 

could begin immediately. Collaborative research and development 

and public/private partnerships are critical to deliver tangible benefits of NextGen to the operators who utilize our airspace. NextGen 

demonstrations need to be about getting on with the benefits of the 

technologies and the operations into the hands of airspace users 

faster and more smoothly. 

GE Aviation is proud to be a part of the integrated airport initiative and the Florida Test Bed. We look forward to working with the 

FAA, Embry-Riddle, and our industry partners to demonstrate real 

NextGen benefits for the operational users of NAS in the weeks 

and months to come. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. I will turn now to the 

president and chief executive officer of the Aerospace Industries 

Association, Marion Blakey. 

Ms. BLAKEY. Thank you, Chairman Mica. Chairman Petri, Chairman Shuster, and Congressman Farenthold, and Alex, thank you 

very much for having this today because this is an important 

event, an important hearing as you unveil the Florida NextGen 

Test Bed. 

As you know, I was here about 16 months ago, so this is really 

remarkable to see the progress that has been made since then. And 

13 

I have to commend Dr. Johnson and his team for what he has accomplished. You’ve got a lot to be proud of in a very short period 

of time. 

I am here representing the Aerospace Industries Association, 

AIA, which is the premiere trade association of manufacturers and 

producers of aerospace and defense industry products. Over 340 

members manufacture the aircraft that fly in our airspace, the systems that guide them, and the satellites and unmanned aircraft 

that are a part of the wave of the future. Our members are vitally 

interested in seeing NextGen succeed, and many of them are partners here with the NextGen Test Bed. 

Mr. Chairman, I do not think there is any question about the 

cost benefit of NextGen. Tom Captain, who you have recently had 

at a hearing, has done a study for Deloitte Touche. I think he captured it perfectly in one of the hearings where he said, ‘‘NextGen 

has an open and shut business case.’’ 

What we hear from industry, though, is a call for stronger coordination. I think you have heard some of that this morning from the 

private sector, including aircraft manufacturers, airlines, and the 

manufacturers of equipment. As we speak, new ADSB ground stations are being commissioned, more aircraft are equipping and flying. But we are not realizing the full value of these benefits. The 

development and approval of procedures is simply lagging the technology. Mr. Caslavka just referred to this, and I have to say, Mr. 

Administrator, we are very encouraged that the FAA has certainly 

bought into public/private partnerships. And the example here in 

Florida could be applied vigorously all over the country, we believe, 

to advance NextGen. 

To its credit, as I say, FAA is responding. The agency recently 

reorganized the NextGen management team, raised its organizational priority, and we are very delighted that the NextGen executive now reports directly to deputy administrator Huerta. 

We know that NextGen is a priority of the agency, but we also 

fear that the coming budget reductions are going to make it hard 

for NextGen to stay on track. 

FAA’s long-range budget was already programmed at flat levels 

to the year 2016. Then the Budget Control Act, passed in July, required funding cuts below these levels. And if that were not 

enough, we now see that further reductions, part of the sequester, 

may occur when the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction 

issues its recommendations later this month. This is a perilous situation. 

And as, Mr. Chairman, you know better than anyone else, FAA 

is primarily an operating agency. Two-thirds of its funding goes to 

operating costs. Seventy percent of that is needed to make payroll. 

We all know what happens when operating budgets are pitted 

against transformational capabilities. Operating budgets win. 

We also know that the agency’s facilities and equipment budget, 

where most of NextGen is funded, was already projected to decline 

slightly over the next 5 years. I fear that if these additional cuts 

are disproportionately applied to NextGen, we may never recover 

the momentum we have today, or regain the support of a skeptical 

industry. We will lose our technological stature in global air traffic 

management to other, fast-moving nations in Europe and Asia. And 

14 

when our economy and air travel begin to pick up—as we know 

they will—we will not be ready with the new technologies that are 

needed. In short, Mr. Chairman, as budgets get tighter, FAA’s role 

in explaining and demonstrating NextGen’s benefits will become 

more critical. Likewise, AIA is doing its part in that education campaign, to make sure that our aviation system remains second to 

none. 

Mr. Chairman, the National Airspace System is a ballet of sorts 

that plays out each day in our skies and at our airports. It involves 

the planning, coordination and actions of flight crews, dispatchers, 

airports, and air traffic controllers, to name just a few. FAA’s services are providing businesslike benefits to the U.S. economy, something relatively rare in the Federal Government. Inefficiencies in 

the management of our air traffic control system, or lack of capital 

investment, have a direct impact on industry, and stifle our ability 

to compete. And that’s where the NextGen Test Bed comes in. 

FAA and industry need an environment where NextGen concepts 

are tested without affecting the day-to-day operations of the air 

traffic control system. The agency needs to model, simulate, and 

verify new technologies under different scenarios. These results 

will help the FAA make data-driven decisions that speed up 

NextGen’s implementation, and bring benefits sooner. 

Mr. Chairman, there is no better institution to assist FAA in the 

Test Bed than Embry-Riddle, the world’s largest and most prestigious aviation and aerospace university. They have advised the 

FAA for over 30 years, and I counted on their advice when I served 

as FAA Administrator. Professors, retired controllers, and pilots, as 

well as Embry-Riddle’s fleet of over 90 aircraft will all have access 

to the new NextGen Test Bed. 

With the help of a growing number of industry partners, EmbryRiddle has doubled the size of the Test Bed and vastly increased 

its software and tracking capabilities. The Test Bed now works 

with at least 15 companies. In fact, industry has invested at least 

$1 million of its own in the Test Bed. This is a clear sign of industry confidence. And it is a great example of public-private partnership—companies, academia, and the Government working, and 

jointly funding, a program to address important challenges. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we have recently been celebrating 

the life of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. With his inventive genius, 

Jobs helped untether the world from the wires of mainframes, 

landline telephones, and CD changers. And that’s exactly what 

NextGen promises to do for aviation. It promises to untether air 

traffic control from ground radars, phone lines, and voice switches. 

It promises to untether aircraft from the fixed airways they fly 

through today, allowing them to fly routes that are most efficient 

for their users. 

Just as Steve Jobs saw that the world of consumer electronics 

was ready to move beyond boundaries set in the 1960s, so too is 

the world of aviation. In fact, the aerospace industry is chafing at 

those bonds today. So it’s exciting to be here as Embry-Riddle, its 

industry partners, and FAA help make the vision of NextGen a reality. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony. Mr. Bunce. 

15 

Mr. BUNCE.——several Embry-Riddle graduates, and I rely on 

them each day and very senior leadership positions to be able to 

help guide the general aviation portion of this industry, and the 

product that you produce here is first hand top notch. 

And it also is pretty neat for me to be able to walk around this 

campus. Every time I come down here, I am really struck by the 

nature of the international flavor that you get down here. And our 

industry is global. Right now, we are hurting badly because of the 

economy in the U.S. and Europe, and over 70 percent of the revenue that we will bring in this year is from sales of aircraft going 

over to the Far East down to Latin America and the Brazil area, 

and areas of the Middle East. So, the global nature of this industry 

really relies on the education that—— 

——is out at airports. We are partnering with academia to be 

able to leverage the ADSB technology that is going to be mandated 

in most aircraft by 2020. And the traffic situational awareness 

alerting system basically allows general aviation aircraft to have 

an alert warning system like the airlines have with their system 

call TCAS, but TCAS is just too expensive to put in most of the 

general aviation aircraft, other than just the high-end business 

type of aircraft. So, this is extremely important, and MIT is 

partnering with the FAA on that issue. 

We are celebrating the 10th anniversary of a program that we 

called the Center for General Aviation Research. CGAR is the acronym we give to it. But it is part of the Center of Excellence program that the FAA has set up with academia, of which Embry-Riddle is one of the premiere players in this. 

What we get out of that is absolutely phenomenal. When you 

look at the fleet of aircraft that is out here on the ramp at EmbryRiddle, just being able to use ADSB to tracking the fleet, getting 

the data in that helps us understand we are in high-density aircraft and traffic environments so we can go and be able to use 

ADSB to be able to precisely manage aircraft is important. 

Dr. Johnson mentioned what we are doing on the research for 

the unleaded avgas that we have to convert to. We know we have 

got to get away from leaded fuel, and they are helping us tremendously there. 

Accident trend analysis becomes very important, and probably 

the premier thing that we are getting out of the CR initiative is 

experience in looking at glass cockpit technology and looking at 

training standards and testing standards to be able to allow people 

to use glass cockpits. And we all know that that technology is now 

going into a lot of airline aircraft, but if you go into a modern business jet or a turbo prop today, or the high-end pistons, you are 

going to find actually a more advanced glass cockpit that you find 

in most of the airlines right now. And so, the research that we are 

doing here is very important. 

Now, could we do some things better? I think we can. We do not 

have a lot of money in industry right now, and we are not able to 

give academia a lot of research dollars to help us with some of the 

issues and some of the projects that we want help with. But we certainly would appreciate a call from all of our institutions saying, 

hey, we got students that are going to have to write papers; are 

there topics that you want us to research for you? And we can leVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:19 Apr 25, 2012 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULL\11-7-1~1\71101.TXT JEAN
16 

verage them, and actually it helps the students because you get a 

paper, and one of my employees is a prime example of this. He 

wrote an outstanding paper, and Cessna hired him the day he 

graduated just off the paper that he wrote here. And we can leverage off of that. 

Also, the FAA is very software dependent right now, or we as an 

industry are software dependent, and the FAA’s very limited resources to be able to go and help us certify product that is almost 

wholly software dependent. We are in a situation right now because of resources available at the FAA that were in sequencing 

issues where we have got to streamline processes to be able to get 

our product to market. But in addition to that, we need to be able 

to use the expertise that we have in academia with software expertise to be able to help the FAA help industry to be able to produce 

the products for NextGen. 

So, we are absolutely committed as the General Aviation Manufacturers to this public/private partnership, both between the FAA 

and industry, industry and academia, and academia and the FAA, 

because that is the only way we will make NextGen work. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you. And I want to thank all of our witnesses for their testimony. And the next order of business will be 

questions from Members of Congress to our panelists. 

I brought this headline with me. It says, ‘‘modernization of air 

traffic may be delayed.’’ It was a couple of months ago in the Washington Post. And we just heard the GAO cite that, let us see, that 

we do not need the most costs or schedules set forth, and gave an 

example of ERAM some 4 years behind schedule. 

Some of these programs are important components, parts of any 

next generation air traffic control technology. Mr. Administrator, 

maybe you could respond. 

The other thing, too, Ms. Blakey raised the issue of financing. I 

have checked in periodically, and told that the finances are adequate, but I heard that we are not keeping up in other aspects of 

moving forward. Would you like to comment? 

Mr. BABBITT. Certainly. I guess one of the issues with these 

projects, and you noted ERAM; that is a good example. ERAM is 

probably one of the largest software that is currently going on in 

the country [inaudible] doing other things. 

The program has been going 9 years. When I became the administrator, one of the things we clearly had run into some technical 

difficulties. I literally stopped the program, and I asked everyone 

to just step back, and let us completely reevaluate where we are. 

What is the issues? Are we having proper program management 

oversight? This is technology; are we really being asked to deploy 

oversight and management program. It was being vetted before our 

eyes. 

Yes, we did it. I am very comfortable now, however, that we have 

reestablished a new waterfall schedule in communication. We are 

on that track. We are currently, to the best of my knowledge, on 

budget. It is a huge project, which you can imagine. We are changing an entire analog system that has been in existence for nearly 

40 years in a complete digital integrated environment. But I am 

17 

comfortable in saying going forward I am very comfortable with the 

targets, and we should be able to stay on the revised scheduling. 

Mr. MICA. Dr. Dillingham, one of the things that concerns me— 

we do have three Test Beds. I have read your analysis of their mission. Do you view any of it as duplicative, or do you think they all 

serve, again, a beneficial purpose in this long-term development? 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we analyzed the 

three Test Beds, we did not see anything duplicative. But what we 

understand is that research has to be validated. And we saw some 

of that, but we would not call it duplicative. But it is the kind of 

repetition that you need to do when you are doing research to reduce risk. 

So, the short answer is, no, we did not find any duplication that 

we would say is unnecessary. 

Mr. MICA. Well, one of the things that was raised, issues that 

was raised, is we have developed some technology and maybe some 

systems or some protocols, but there seems to be a delay or a failure to utilize, take these improvements to the next level. Any suggestions? Maybe two of the participants, Mr. Caslavka? Any ideas 

on how we could improve that? You are involved in an important 

component. Do you see that as a problem, and how can we solve 

it? 

Mr. CASLAVKA. Yeah. I mean, from my perspective, I want to see 

us continue to advance in that area. You know, specifically, I see 

it as a benefit for business and for academia, an improvement for 

business and academia in that area. 

As you know, when we look at what we hope to gain from our 

adventure here with Embry-Riddle and the organizations that we 

have here, we have performance-based navigation and front management systems that aid in the development of a Test Bed and the 

initiatives here with the tasks we are involved with. And improving 

flight in the national airspace is fundamentally important as over 

the next 20 years we see issues with flight traffic almost doubling 

in that timeframe. 

Mr. MICA. Well, you know, you are from the private sector. You 

are not doing this just to keep all these occupied Wall Street people 

happy. You want to sell a product, either hardware or software, or 

systems, and it appears that while we may be developing some, 

say, the next generation of equipment software technology, that it 

is not going anywhere. How do we take it to the next level? 

Mr. CASLAVKA. So, I do not necessarily view it as not going anywhere. If you look at airspace travel today, a lot of the systems 

that are in use today in air traffic do have adequate flight management systems and adequate performance-based standards of opportunities. So, it is just a matter of continuing to evolve that and 

grow it beyond where it is today. 

We are currently working initiatives that are heavily involved in 

performance-based flight management systems. And if you look at 

some of the studies that we have recently done, I mentioned earlier 

that we have over 340 PBN-based solutions today. But if you take 

a look at a recent study we put together for the FAA, we clearly 

see the benefits of emissions, fuel savings, noise pollution, and safety associated with the study that we did. 

18 

And we looked at 46 airports here in the United States, and 

what the benefits would be associated with implementing performance-based navigation departures and arrivals. In those 46 airports, over 13 million gallons of fuel could be saved over a 1-year 

period, 274 million pounds of CO2 emissions, as well as $65 million 

of operating costs in 2 years of flight time. 

So, the initiatives are getting off the ground, and what we are 

doing here with the tests that we have with Embry-Riddle are contributing. So, I do not view it as not going anywhere, but it needs 

to continue to move along. 

Mr. MICA. Well, one of the customers for the equipment, the big 

customer is FAA. Mr. Babbitt, one of the things that we have got 

in our proposed legislation—let us see. It streamlines the FAA certification for NextGen technologies and flight paths. Is that adequate to give you the direction? Again, things are produced. We 

want them installed. They do have to have some buy in to the customer, which is FAA and to the airlines, to the industry. 

And, again, one of the criticisms is we have deadlines. Someone 

said FAA not moving. We have some deadlines. We have some 

streamlining that is proposed in the bill. Speak now or forever hold 

your peace because this may become law very soon. 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, there are three important components when 

you build a system like this. Obviously we have to have groundbased construction to do deployments on schedule. We should be up 

and running actually ahead of schedule, and we want all of the 

ground-based GPS and AVS stations. 

Secondly, we have got to have the appropriate airplanes that you 

use. One of the things I talked about in the testimony is being able 

to prove that these things work, and having private partners like 

GE, who actually goes out and forecasts for us, they can [inaudible]. 

The third piece is we simply have to have the procedures in 

place. We have undertaken of our own initiative a streamlining of 

the process where we have developed a procedure, not an old one, 

but a new procedure. And we have eliminated about 50 percent of 

the time to develop that. We simply went through using the lean 

and the Six Sigma reviews. Where were we wasting time? What 

was taking this process so long? Do you mind if we streamline 

that? So, I am comfortable that we are on the right track. 

Now, all these three parts just simply have to play together. It 

does not do us any good to have all the equipment and all of the 

both airplane and ground and not have procedures. 

Additionally, we have got to train the pilots and the air traffic 

controllers. We also get to a point of having a critical mass who are 

affected, for example, if we have 50 airplanes an hour arriving at 

LaGuardia, and only three of them were equipped and ready to 

shoot the arrival approach, approach, that does not fix LaGuardia. 

If 45 of them do, you know, best equipped will have to best. So, I 

think we appreciate the support, and I think we are on track. 

Mr. MICA. What about the deadline and the blueprint that is set 

out here? Do you think that is adequate? 

Mr. BABBITT. I do. I do. 

Mr. MICA. Well, let me go to the industry folks, Ms. Blakey and 

Mr. Bunce. What do you think? Again, you have seen what has 

19 

been crafted and drafted. Is this adequate to keep this on schedule? 

Ms. Blakey? 

Ms. BLAKEY. I think it is. More specificity about the schedule and 

the metrics that need to be met is going to be very important. In 

other words, fleshing this out, because that cannot all be done 

through legislation. We think industry working with the FAA on 

the specifics here will work well. 

We are also keen to see further integration of these Test Beds, 

and the research that is being done, for example, at NASA and 

Mitre, and others, very important work, all integrated together 

closely, and really tracked right into a demonstration and into operations. 

Mr. BUNCE. Mr. Chairman, I would add just two things, and I 

will drill down a little bit on what Marion said there. 

The first one is on the metrics. I know that we have a great partner in the administrator, and he is working very closely with us. 

But he has got to steer a ship that is very difficult to steer. And 

the first thing that you have to do is you have to adopt metrics that 

we can measure success of NextGen. And your committee put forward metrics in your bill, and I understand that the Senate somewhat agreed to it, and it is frustrating for us in industry not to see 

an adoption right away even before the bill is passed, of metrics 

that we can go ahead and measure progress against. So, I think 

that is step one. 

The second one is exactly what Marion just mentioned. The 

United States military went and they networked all their simulators between their fighters, tankers, bombers, so that they could 

save money, and they could fly missions like they do out at Nellis 

Air Force Base, red flags, just with folks sitting on terra firma in 

simulators, everything all linked together. We can do that as well. 

And that critical mass that Randy was talking about that we have 

to get is extremely expensive when you’re driving people around in 

the air burning gas, and we have to wait until some mandatory 

equippage dates to be able to drive some of that critical mass. 

But we can do it by networking simulators and centers of excellence together to be able to go and test some of these concepts. 

Data link is one of the primary ways that we can go and take a 

look at what it looks like, get all of these centers, controllers at 

one, students at the other, because if you think about whose flying 

our airplanes, and that it is young people. And if they get down in 

the systems for data link and prove it against grizzled old controllers, the system will work. 

Mr. MICA. Finally, well, two things. One, have you got enough 

money, and from what you have seen, our authorization does, I 

think we are going to end up with a higher rather than a lower 

figure. Is that adequate from what you have seen? 

Mr. BABBITT. We submitted this [inaudible], but it probably 

would not be, you know, totally accurate. We understand, like everybody, is that this was [inaudible] today. I think the funding enables us to do a lot of things. I think one of the important parts 

about our budget request is this is one of the few agencies, as you 

pointed out, that we are an operating agency, but a lot of what we 

put in place here would be operational equipment facilities, and 

just like if we were a board of directors. And we looked at whether 

20 

we should buy new equipment, we would ask what equipment, we 

would tell you it is very positive. 

The faster we can buy the equipment, the faster we can put it 

into place, the more quickly we would use it. You are going to be 

able to benefit from it, save that fuel, reduce that noise, increase 

throughput with airports. Airports are assets. People pay a lot of 

money to build an airport in a town, and they want to serve that 

town. And if we can increase the throughput formula, the investment in equipment would help. Then we would get our money 

back. 

This is one of those cases where we appreciate what we get paid 

on the—but I would suggest the kind of money belt that we are 

looking for, we might be able to deploy that equipment more quickly. 

Mr. MICA. Well, the final thing, and if anyone wants to comment, 

this is a global race, too, because whoever accepts the protocols and 

develops the technology, the software, the systems, also wins the 

world market. And that is a prize that generations will benefit 

from, and it will be in place. Anyone want to comment on how we 

are doing compared to the Europeans and even, I guess, the Chinese in their own little march? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, we are a global institution. We 

have 150 campuses around the world—14 in Europe, 3 in the Middle East, and we just opened 1 in Singapore. So, we have a good 

deal of opportunity to interact with the aerospace leaders in those 

regions. Our faculty and our administrators interact fairly routinely with both the private companies and governments around 

the world as we establish campuses and relationships. 

Our clear perception is that we are in the lead. Europeans are 

working very hard on NextGen technology. However, the United 

States has an edge in not only the genius of our private industry 

and our universities, but also because we have established some integrated efforts to bring together universities, private partners, and 

Government toward a common purpose. 

I believe we are on track to develop the kind of technology and 

deploy a system that will improve our national air transportation 

system more quickly. 

Embry-Riddle is working on establishing an aerospace research 

and technology park. Our motivation is to try and contribute to the 

safety and efficiency of our national air transportation system. 

In addition to NextGen, we are working on unmanned autonomous systems and whether or not unmanned aerial vehicles can be 

made safe and reliable in commercial airspace. We are conducting 

research with other universities as well as selected aerospace industry partners to address these concerns. 

So, the short answer, Mr. Chairman, is that I think we are 

ahead. 

Mr. MICA. Dr. Dillingham. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Chairman Mica, we just recently completed a 

study for your committee with regard to how the U.S. is faring 

with the Europeans and their effort of SESAR, which is the same 

as our NextGen. And they are having similar problems as the U.S. 

in terms of bringing it all together because of the many countries 

that they have to bring together. 

21 

But besides that, I think the FAA is probably doing a tremendous job with regard to working with the European Union. They 

just signed an MOU that described how they would work together 

and what they were aiming for. We also know that FAA is a significant player in the International Civil Aviation Organization, 

and they are also moving in that direction. 

I think one of the differences between the U.S. and the Europeans is that the Europeans started off with a public/private kind 

of orientation. I think we have caught up with them, and the linking together of the Test Bed, and academia, and FAA, and the rest 

of the Government is the way that is going to keep us ahead of the 

game. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Mr. CASLAVKA. Mr. Chairman, I would like to comment on that 

as well. 

Mr. MICA. Yes. 

Mr. CASLAVKA. So, I concur with what Mr. Johnson is saying relative to how we are progressing against SESAR. I do believe that 

we are ahead today, but I am concerned as an industry partner 

that we need to continue to look at policies very firmly. We need 

to continue to invest in the technologies like the demonstrations 

that we are doing here with trajectory-based operations and performance-based navigation. So, it is extremely important that we 

keep those things on track, we keep them funded, and we keep industry involved heavily with the FAA jointly progressing these initiatives. 

Mr. BUNCE. Mr. Chairman, I would just add that when I look at 

SESAR and NextGen together, they truly can be complemented. If 

you look and you go into some of the specifics that Mr. Dillingham 

was talking about, if you look at ADS–B, we are far ahead. They 

do not have any ground infrastructure deployed, and they really do 

not have a good plan, so ADS–B does not work unless you have a 

ground infrastructure. So, we are obviously going to be ahead 

there. 

But they are mandating equippage for data com much earlier. 

We do not have any mandatory equippage except for data com. 

They do, so industry is going to adapt to what the Europeans require, and we need to leverage off of what they are going to learn 

in data com for our systems so we can leverage what is valuable 

in both. 

And then, you take what the Chinese are doing, and I really 

want to compliment the FAA administrator here because a lot of 

the rulemaking that is going forward now for aviation is something 

that we have to do in tandem with our partners. So, the FAA administrator has been very willing to allow us to invite observers 

from EASA to be part of rulemaking, and now also the CAAC, the 

regulatory body within China, because if we get a one set of regulations for our equippage out there, then industry can universally go 

and equip, and we do not have to have different aircraft flying or 

different aircraft equipped to fly in different environments. We 

have to have that, and really Administrator Babbitt has been a 

partner with this. 

Mr. MICA. Again, we hope this sets the parameters, at least for 

the next 4 years, of legislation. I was asking staff if we have a data 

22 

com provision in there. We will check that, and if there is something we can do to ensure that we are, again, moving forward— 

anything, Mr. Babbitt? 

Mr. BABBITT. Yes, sir. I would only add, and I appreciate the observations made. I think there is a fundamentally a pretty significant difference between the way the Europeans are approaching 

this. They have as, Mr. Bunce noted, they do not have an infrastructure. It is all theoretical. We, on the other hand, field test, 

prove using the Test Beds, we take concepts, we develop them, we 

test them, we demonstrate them, we put into the systems. We have 

250,000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico. We are moving traffic 

today in positively controlled environments using ADS–B in partnership with the industry, helicopters, petroleum. 

So, we are testing these things. We have a half a dozen airports 

around the country where we would actually use a profile on these 

things where we save 60 gallons of fuel every day, and we will continue to expand it. 

So, ours is a build, implement, and expand type of process, work 

with the industry. We have a variety of sources of input, and that 

is why I think this Test Bed will help us remain in front and make 

a lot of progress. 

Mr. MICA. Well, we trust you. We are just going to verify. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MICA. Let me yield for the purpose of questions. Chairman 

Petri. 

Mr. PETRI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one quick comment, 

and that is that Administrator Babbitt just spoke briefly about the 

enormous pay off. We recently had a hearing where a representative of one of the leading international accounting firms said he 

had looked at and analyzed this. And it is a slam dunk from an 

investor’s point of view. If things were done on schedule by 2018, 

they predicted an over 40 percent return, and if it could be done, 

as you indicated, possibly 3 years earlier, it would be over 60 percent return on the Federal investment. And that is astonishing. 

And, of course, it is not just a light switch you turn on and off. 

You are putting in place a whole new procedure that will tend to 

gain momentum and spread through a major sector of the world’s 

economy. So, it is very important. 

One question. When I talk about this whole thing to rotary clubs 

or service groups back in my district, they were very excited because we are a little glum about Government, you know. And right 

now, things seem to be negative. But this is an area of great, positive, you know, it is a bright, shining light of progress in a lot of 

areas. 

One question I get constantly is, what about security in terms of 

what if someone were to wish us harm, whether another country 

or some other group? Is there a way they can shoot down a satellite 

or foul the thing up? And if we put all of our eggs in this basket 

and move off radar, will we be vulnerable? Could you discuss that? 

Mr. BABBITT. Sure. That is a concern, and we should have that 

concern for any navigation system that we have. We have backup 

alternatives. One of the areas that we are researching is what 

would be our primary fallback? For some reason, it is hard to imagine that we could lose an entire array of satellites possible. So, it 

23 

still would be a very long time before we get rid of primary radar. 

The military is not going to be without it. 

We have other tools on board the aircraft today. Most of the modern aircraft are equipped with modern capabilities, which means 

they listen to any number of things. Most modern airplanes built 

in the last 10 years have inertia navigation where the airplane just 

knows where it is by its own virtue. It knew where it started, it 

maintains awareness of its movement, and, therefore, it—all of 

those are capable of being translated, and all of those are a check 

against their own GPS. 

So, we have some alternatives out there, and we will deploy 

them. But you are right, some of this is grounds for mischief, and 

we want to protect against that just like we concern ourselves with 

cyber security. We will use our structure for communication and 

data to cover some of these things. 

But I am comfortable that we have enough backup in place if, 

you know, we have a threat to the entire system. 

Ms. BLAKEY. Mr. Chairman, if I might add one point, because we 

have the opportunity as industry of observing the Joint Planning 

and Development Office’s work among the agencies. There is a good 

partnership there, and that jointness is important. 

We would love to see more energetic engagement from the Department of Homeland Security. I think that is an area where, 

frankly, we do need the committee’s help in terms of urging the 

DHS to become a more active partner when it comes to the security 

front. And I would support that. 

Mr. MICA. Mr. Shuster. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Babbitt, how confident are you that in 2018 we are going to have a roll out? 

Mr. BABBITT. Oh, I am highly confident. Highly confident. We 

will have our ground infrastructure fully operable 4 years before 

that. And I think, again, in the business case, how well the system 

is embraced is highly dependent on the insurance that people get. 

We did see one of our early adopters come into place, and we are 

looking right now as to what happened early on. They had a high 

percentage of use, and now Congress says they are not using it as 

much. Well, why? The controller is not educated or the pilot is not 

asking for the approaches and so forth. 

We want to get to the bottom of that because we want people to 

use it. The more people that use it, the more savings that are going 

to be there to sell [inaudible] equipment use. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Petri point out. I have read some of the same 

analysis that he has read that here is the business case, strongly 

one of them. And I guess the ultimate end user is the airlines. Are 

they talking to your folks at Boeing and Mr.—is it Bunce? The 

General Avionics folks. Are they trying to pull it forward with the 

end users that want to buy these things? What are they saying 

when you ask the question? 

Ms. BLAKEY. I think from the standpoint of the airlines, of 

course, the airlines are the ultimate customer for a great deal of 

our aircraft parts and operational aircraft deployed. They want to 

get the most out of the equipment that is already on the aircraft. 

I think that is fair to say that this is a lot of capability that is flying up there now. They also feel it is critical to get the system in 

24 

place because that is the only way that they are going to be able 

to deal with the traffic that is coming. 

I think from the standpoint of our manufacturers, our greatest 

threat is the issue that the system will not be ready for the traffic 

that is coming, and congestion, and the dampening, therefore, of 

demand and dampening of our economy. It is a huge problem. We 

are genuinely worried about it. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Which part of the system? You pointed out the 

three parts, procedures, the infrastructure, or the equipment? All 

three of them will not be in place, or they are concerned about not 

being in place, or one of the three they are concerned about? 

Ms. BLAKEY. I think the first two really have to come into play 

because it is not reasonable to ask businesses like the airlines, 

which frankly struggle to make the kind of corporate investment 

that is needed for equipment, unless they are pretty sure. The infrastructure has got to be there and the support. It is like asking 

people to buy cars, but there are no highways. That does not work. 

Mr. BABBITT. We use the analogy that I use is the high-definition 

cable box. And say, well, how many network challenges I am showing. So, if it is 2 now, then we are going to get 50. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BABBITT. When you get to 50, call me and I will buy a lot 

of them. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BABBITT. And that is sort of where we are. We need to 

produce those procedures, and that is a hurdle that we need to 

achieve. 

Mr. CASLAVKA. Chairman Shuster, I think that it is really a conundrum that the administrator pointed out because it has chicken 

and egg. It is chicken and egg, because the ground infrastructure 

will be in place, and in 2013 we will have the ground infrastructure 

out there. We need to have critical mass for equippage, and we 

need to have those procedures out there. 

Procedures right now that simply overlay today’s approach, they 

can give us some benefit, but the true benefit is when we can develop new approaches, redesign airspace, and, of course, we have 

environmental concerns there. If we could streamline that NEPA 

process, that is really one thing that can help us a lot. 

But on the equippage, what concerns us is we have to see those 

types of benefits, and the conundrum that the administrator is in 

is, as he pointed out, if only a few equip, then you actually get less 

efficient if you give them best equip/best serve, because then you 

have got to put everybody into a different pipe if you segregated 

runways. 

So, if we can figure out a way, this idea of an infrastructure development bank, or some of the creative ways that we have some 

of our different companies say, OK, we will loan to the money to 

people to equip, and as soon as they can accrue some of the benefits, then they have to be able to pay it back. When we have a surefire way to measure these benefits, OK, then they will start paying 

back. That is a way that we could potentially achieve the critical 

mass that we need to make this really work rapidly. 

Mr. SHUSTER. You mentioned earlier about metrics. We put into 

the legislation—I think I heard Mr. Bunce answer the question. I 

25 

do not know if he fully completed it. Is there any prohibition on you 

accepting what is in there now and saying this is what we are 

going to use? Is there any reason you cannot move forward without 

legislation being passed? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, I would like to think it is in our best interest 

and the industry’s best interest to deploy everything we can as 

quickly as we can and benefit from it. They made the investment; 

we made the investment. I mean, metrics are good targets. 

One of the things that we struggle with a little bit is this is a 

very rapidly developing and new integrated technology. So, the 

metrics, you know, we have to be careful that we do not get about 

halfway through it and somebody says, hey, we have a whole new, 

better data system just invented yesterday; we should use that instead. 

Metrics change. Our process changes at some point. And we have 

to accept them the way they are, but we are never [inaudible]. 

Things will come out of this Test Bed we have not even thought 

about yet. I am certain that in 2 years it will be something here 

that we should deploy. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Dr. Dillingham. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Chairman Shuster, I wanted to add that this 

is an opportune time to go forward in that we recently had the 

RTCA report that made a lot of suggestions for near-term, midterm implementation of NextGen. And FAA has taken those recommendations into its plan and is beginning to move towards implementing them. 

This is one of the first times that we have had airlines, avionics 

manufacturers, FAA, everybody at the table saying if you do this, 

if you bring these benefits in this timeframe, we are on board. 

And so, this is an opportune time to make it go forward. 

Mr. SHUSTER. But you also said in your report that you did not 

think that the private industry stakeholders were brought into it 

at all. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. Yes. That is one of the things that has to happen, that those who are participants need to be a part of it. Otherwise, you run the risk of when that system is fielded or the beginnings of fielding, that the people who operate it will say, this does 

not work for me. And it could be something as simple as, this button feels like this button, and I am watching the screen, and I cannot do it. Or it could be something a lot more sophisticated in 

terms of software development. But, yes, you definitely need to 

bring those on board. 

And that has been legislated as well. So, hopefully lots of things 

are in place to make it work. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Are you saying now that they are not fully involved in it and they need to be? 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. They were not fully involved early on. Now, 

there is legislation and there is the will to involve everyone. So, the 

promise there. 

Mr. CASLAVKA. So, let me talk from an industry perspective as 

well. Clearly we have made a lot of investments associated with 

NextGen, even before it was NextGen, in our FMS solution, and 

also in our procedures for performance-based and arrivals and departures. 

26 

So, I had a meeting with my team here just within the last 2 

weeks where we are looking closely at what are we going to do in 

support of NextGen from an investment standpoint. And we laid 

out a strategy in those areas. So, we are focusing on that. 

This does not have to be a homerun. It can be incremental steps. 

And, yes, we run into issues, like Mr. Bunce indicated, relative to 

implementing new procedures to get the efficiencies associated with 

landing and departures. But we can take those steps, and we are 

trying to work with Mr. Babbitt and his team to make those steps 

possible. Start with selective airports and continue to progress to 

realize some of the advantages so you can do more of an incremental approach rather than just go for the homerun. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Do you feel that you are involved at a level you 

need to be at this point? 

Mr. BUNCE. I think that the FAA brings us on board. Again, go 

back to the metrics. I think that it is important to measure where 

we are today because if you think about it, every time any one of 

us jumps on an airplane today, they are in an open seat. So, we 

contracted about as much as we can contract. The only way we are 

going to go is more aircraft out there, both on the commercial side 

and on the general aviation as soon as this economy starts to really 

recover. 

So, for us to be able to measure, OK, what happens, what is the 

baseline today, and real metrics that we can go and then measure 

against as that traffic builds, and we implement the NextGen technologies I think becomes very important. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Chairman, I have one more question. 

Mr. MICA. Go right ahead. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And this comes up over and over and over again 

throughout the Government, different agencies who all work together, like you said, DHS and DOD. I just thought maybe you 

could address it. What do you think is DHS’ problem? Why are 

they not engaging in this area? Is it just the cultural differences 

in DOD, or they do not have time for it, or they are just not engaged at this time? I cannot get through to these agencies that it 

is so important when we talk about something—security. It is 

about safety. So, they need to be engaged. 

Ms. BLAKEY. You know, I can speak to that problem from my historical perspective on this, and then I would yield to Administrator 

Babbitt on this and Dr. Dillingham. But what I do think has been 

part of the problem is that DHS has not grasped the vision that 

NextGen brings to the transformation of an aviation system. 

One of the biggest obstacles all of us see for aviation to realize 

its potential in this economy and this country is security. It is the 

hassle factor. It is the time, which is, I think, by almost everyone’s 

standards, unreasonable today. 

That vision of building security into the system, building in network information so that you really do begin to have total gate 

pushback to destination security built all the way through in the 

information management system is something that could be done. 

But we do not see DHS, in my historical experience, stepping up, 

probably because they were forming at the time. They had a lot on 

their plate. I think it was in the early stages of NextGen. 

27 

But, as I say, I would yield to Administrator Babbitt on the current situation. 

Mr. BABBITT. I think some of the issues that might be there are 

the perception of emission versus hours, and private would be included in that. And I think we are making some progress, trying 

to improve them. We have got the displays. We think it would be 

critical information to know a lot about a particular flight. Sometimes they, for security reasons they want to know a number of 

things—how much fuel is on this airplane, where is it on the airport. We can help them with a lot of those things. 

And so, I think we are beginning to realize the benefits of some 

of the security areas. It always provides the opportunity—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. Did DOD say long-term—— 

Mr. BABBITT. Actually, DOD, from my perspective, did partner 

with us. We have got a good relationship with them, particularly 

DDO. It is a melting pot of information. I think it is actually very 

reasonable when we do some of the things that we are doing. There 

are a lot of stakeholders. We are talking about using a GPS, so a 

lot of people use GPS for a lot of different things. So, when we 

want to change it just for airplanes, a lot of other people go, whoa. 

Just the impact of what we use it for. 

And so, we have got to have those places where we can have 

common dialogue and explain what the uses are, how they could 

better use it. Airlines are finding this flight object display really 

useful. They know a lot about the airplane— 

Mr. SHUSTER [continuing]. LightSquared utilized like they want 

it to be? Do you have great concerns about it? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, I have great concerns about it. They are a 

company who proposes to build an infrastructure to take 

broadband across the United States. The original approaches to 

using satellite broadcast signal within GPS had no impact. They 

have since changed the business plan with ground base modification that had about 1,500 times more powerful a signal than [inaudible]. 

There is literally multiple, billions of dollars are invested, hundreds of billions of dollars invested in navigation systems, GPS 

equippage, and [inaudible] stations all over the world. And to jeopardize that because someone has a [inaudible] has us concerned. 

So, I think the FCC has realized the interferences there. I think 

there are stations that could [inaudible]. I do not think anybody in 

industry thinks that is a good idea. So, we are sort of waiting for 

the FCC at this point. 

We have spoken pretty strongly to DOD, Homeland, a lot of industry itself, people in manufacturing. It is kind of lonesome right 

now in finding support. We are concerned it will have an impact. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, Congressman. I want to point out that the 

implementation of the basic system is not a technology problem. 

The technology fundamentally is in place. Yes, we are doing some 

new software development for some new systems. But basically it 

is taking existent technology and integrating in a way that has not 

been integrated before to serve our needs. 

I think that Ms. Blakey’s comment about vision and about getting rid of silos and cooperating with each other are the real challenges. This is where we look to Congress, this committee, and to 

28 

the FAA to help us integrate and provide oversight, learn to share 

with one another. 

But the basic technology is there. It is existent. We can develop 

the software. We have outstanding software engineering in this Nation. We can develop what is needed. Our private industries’ research and development is par excellence, and we are moving forward aggressively. Technology is not the obstacle. It is the human 

dimension that we have got to address. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I think my time has expired. 

Mr. MICA. No problem. Mr. Farenthold. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much, Chairman. I had a couple of questions. We were talking a little bit about the integration 

of UABs into the domestic air system. We are seeing more and 

more UABs flying within this country now where we are using 

them not only to control the northern and southern borders, but 

also in the rescue operations and other life-saving operations. 

Administrator Babbitt, are we going to be able to do this before 

NextGen? Are we going to end up having to wait to NextGen to see 

more integration of UABs within the domestic air system? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, it depends somewhat. I mean, certainly if we 

had, before we fleshed out, a NextGen system in place, it makes 

the operation a lot better. The fundamental concept with the UAB 

and deployment with [inaudible]. The answer to any of those is, no, 

it is not a good, cooperative maintenance. 

So, we are making a lot of improvements to the autonomous operations and [inaudible]. There is the time between winning consensus and taking action and when it actually takes that action. 

It is way too large to be mixing with the normal airspace system. 

So, we sort of relegated it to airspace where we can provide that 

extra margin because it does not respond as quickly. And that will 

work for now. 

We are working on reducing those margins, reduce the legacy 

times, improve the machine’s ability to—and take actions. 

So, I see wonderful machines. They do a lot of great things. If 

somebody just gets up out of the chair and nobody sits down. We 

can do a lot of interesting things. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And, Mr. Caslavka, I know what GE is working on. When are you going to be comfortable with your family sitting in that 737 operating near one of those? 

Mr. CASLAVKA. So, my perspective is you really have to roll out 

NextGen before you have the infrastructure in place to fly on top 

of those vehicles. You need trajectory-based operations to be functional. You need the data link communications back to the FCC. 

So, you really need to have those in place in order to feel safe on 

those vehicles. 

It is important to note that they will have a role, we believe, at 

some point, whether it is border surveillance or search and rescue. 

They will have a space in national airspace. So, we need to roll out 

the infrastructures that provide for that. 

And we are currently, as part of our initiatives here at EmbryRiddle, involved in a task that is going to view some of that initial 

testing of trajectory-based operations. So, that is part of the ongoing activity here at Embry-Riddle. 

29 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. And, Mr. Bunce, you know, you represent folks in the general aviation industry. And in general, I 

would imagine they are going to be the last adopters of this 

NextGen technology when you are talking to obvious pilots, or the 

crop dusters, or the guy who flies his plane into his ranch. 

I mean, we have got general aircraft now that do not have even 

transponders in there, mature technology. Is there a price point 

issue there? Are we going to be able to get enough of the general 

aviation folks in where we are able to really see the true benefit 

of some of this new technology? 

Mr. BUNCE. Well, sir, I think it is a matter of degrees here. Actually general aviation has been the first adopter of a lot of this technology. So, you take, for instance, the types of GPS-based approached that we have populated this country with. In fact, the administrator talked last week at a speech I was listening to that we 

have reached a tipping point. There is actually more GPS-based approaches out there than there are the traditional instrument landing type of system approaches. That is because general aviation 

uses these. 

We can get into airfields that we never possibly could have got 

into before because we have this technology, and we have integrated through our systems—why we are so concerned about life 

squared is because we have had so many of our airplanes adopt 

systems that can use what is called WAAS, which augments the 

GPS to allow us these precise approaches. 

So, I would actually argue that there is a lot of general aviation 

that has more modern cockpits that some of the airplanes that I 

transit with on the airlines. I looked in a cockpit the other day on 

my iPad. I have more situational awareness of what the weather 

is ahead and where we are actually going than the poor pilot up 

there because just that, it is very expensive to upgrade those cockpits. So, the cost for ADS–B is starting to go down. 

My wife flies a Cessna 172, very light basic airplane out there, 

so I equip with ADS–B. I have ADS–B out in the aircraft, and it 

cost me $600 more than what I had to put a new transponder in, 

and it integrates with the GPS system. So, it was about a $600 differential. 

So, the cost is coming down, and it is reasonable, but we have 

got to be able to go and make sure that the benefits are there. And 

the real key in ADS–B is ADS–B in. And when we can start getting 

people to want to equip so that they can traffic, and they can get 

real time weather, we are going to make flying safer in this country. And that is really the golden goose right there is being able 

to get people to see the advantages of ADS–B in. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And I will go back to you, Administrator Babbitt, just on a kind of, I guess, pushing the airlines into implementing the technology. You used LaGuardia as an example about 

how few aircraft come in there. We have got Washington, I know 

the DCA airspace is very crowded. 

It seems like it is a carrot and stick approach—more slots in 

these airports, every plane you send in here is going to have to be 

equipped with this new technology. And there is no real Government requirement that you put it on your plane, but if you want 

30 

the hot airports, you are going to have to do it. Is that something 

you all are considering? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, we have considered it and actually implemented these things that require ADS–B, everything that is on the 

plane. We have not gone to, you know, particular airports. I think 

something Ms. Blakey said earlier is important, in terms of procedures, that we need have those developed in the areas, and then 

we will use them. For example, we have done it in the O’Hare area, 

the Chicago area. We have taken and separated the two airports, 

Midway and O’Hare, from each other. Earlier was one metroplex 

area. And so, if Midway Airport was operating at 60 percent of its 

capacity, and O’Hare was at 105 percent with major delays, well, 

Midway starts taking delays because it is the same airspace. Not 

anymore. We now allow people in RNP arrival procedures, they can 

go to Midway. 

So, if you have the equipment, you can use the arrival, and you 

do not have to wait. You do not have the equipment, you wait. How 

many times are you going to hold and watch other people go by you 

because they have the equipment? The answer is not long. 

I think it is important to note for general aviation, we do not 

want people to buy equipment they do not need. If you intend to 

operate a pilot in controlled airspace, you do not need to buy it. 

There are people today that have airplanes that do not even have 

radios in them, flying around their farms. They never get above 

1,500 feet. They are good pilots that and that is their mission. 

Fine, you can keep it that way. We want people to be equipped to 

the level of the operation that they are working towards. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MICA. Ms. Adams. 

Ms. ADAMS. Mr. Babbitt, I noticed as Dr. Johnson was talking, 

you were shaking your head in agreement, and that was nice to 

see. I wanted to just put that out there. 

Mr. BABBITT. He was talking nicely about me. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. ADAMS. Mr. Bunce’s written testimony, I do not know if you 

had a chance to review it, but he writes about the importance of 

research and development for FAA and NASA. And so, I want to 

know, what is FAA doing with NASA R&D to leverage NextGen? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, we have several programs that we are a part 

of JPDO. We interface with them. Actually, there was a provision 

that we were seeking to expand. We have taken responsibility for 

commercial space with sort of our old launches and so forth. We are 

trying to capture some of the expertise [inaudible] where we would 

take some of the folks who have been working [inaudible] think 

about a lot of what NextGen is built on today came from [inaudible] navigation space. That is the ultimate force now navigation 

[inaudible]. 

Mr. DILLINGHAM. I just wanted to add that while we were doing 

our work in tech transfer, the JPDO, which is composed of the Federal agencies that are part of the long-term research and development for NextGen, the strongest partnership we found was NASA 

in terms of tech transfer. They have a long history of working together, and their research transition teams are sort of what we put 

up as kind of a model that other agencies might want to use in 

31 

working with FAA. So, NASA is the strongest partner that we 

found. 

Ms. ADAMS. And, Dr. Johnson, I want to give you a chance. 

Again, kind of tell us the unique opportunities that you have that 

are derived from FAA’s partnership. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Congresswoman Adams. I appreciate 

that. We have worked closely with the FAA. And we very much appreciate it. We have worked with a lot of administrators, and we 

have had very good relationships with them. 

We work closely with the FAA in trying to ensure safety in our 

Nation’s airspace. And, of course, we are very proud to have Administrator Babbitt as an alumnus of Embry-Riddle, and we know 

that the FAA is in safe hands because of that. 

I would like to make a comment about GAMA and general aviation. I hope there is not a misconception that somehow general 

aviation is not at the cutting edge of technology. We have a lot of 

relationships with general aviation companies. For example, we 

offer degree programs for Gulfstream in Savannah, and we work 

with them on the development of composites and advanced avionics. 

When you look at Embry-Riddle’s fleet, if you look at the avionics 

in our small planes, like the Diamond 42, for example, you will find 

that that avionics package is as good, if not better, than most commercial airliners in our country. 

So, general aviation is at the forefront in terms of the development of a lot of technology that would be very appropriate to making NextGen a reality and make our skies safer. I want to compliment GAMA and their work, as well as the AOPA and their efforts. 

Ms. ADAMS. I think that he is recognizing that there is this 

unique opportunity between FAA and NASA as they gather on the 

commercial space industry. And I think that is probably what— 

and, Mr. Bunce, we want to hear further—the written testimony 

was about, was the fact that they have a unique opportunity. 

Mr. BUNCE. Yes, ma’am. Over the last several years, that budget 

has been whacked significantly. In fact, we partnered with FAA a 

couple of years back to say, you know, put the egg back in NASA, 

because as their budget was really getting squeezed, aeronautics 

started to drop out. And there was an initiative a couple of years 

back actually to take all aeronautics funding, R&D funding, and 

just give it to all to the FAA. And we were partners with the FAA 

there to say, no, that is not smart to do because there are things, 

as the administrator pointed out, that NASA does extremely well 

that we want to tap into. And that is why this partnership is something we would actually like to see expanded. 

But we all know in the fiscal environment that we are in right 

now, we have to leverage the best, and there are a lot of smart people just over there near the Cape that we would love to be able to 

see in the Government and industry to tap into that expertise. 

They do data com better than anybody on the planet, and we need 

to tap into the way they do it. 

Ms. ADAMS. I agree that we have got a lot of very smart people 

out there. And I would like to continue the aerospace part of [inaudible]. 

32 

Ms. Blakely, I listened and I was a little dismayed at the fact 

that DHS does not seem to play an active role in what you appear 

to have witnessed. Based on their own mission statement, I believe 

that homeland security is their mission statement. I am hoping 

that, Administrator Babbitt, you can help us to figure out a way 

to encourage them to be more active and involved as we move forward because there are some concerns that have been raised by 

this panel, and I am sure concerns on this committee. 

Mr. BABBITT. We will certainly make those efforts. As I said, I 

think we have made some progress. You know, the fact that they 

saw the mission that they had, the organization. I think they had 

some sort of getting in place structural issues that probably help 

any of us. [Inaudible] was lacking, we would say. So, I am beginning to see some better communicating line has been developed. I 

think they appreciate—we have a lot of expertise we could help 

them with, and they have a lot of information that we could use 

and benefit all of us. So, we will keep working on it. 

Ms. ADAMS. And just a quick comment. Dr. Dillingham, thank 

you for your information, for saying it is more validation of research than duplication, because that is important that we know 

that. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. I will call on our minority counsel. Did you have any 

questions? 

Mr. BURKETT. Mr. Chairman, you are very kind, but I do not 

think I have any questions. Thanks. 

Mr. MICA. What we will do, since we have Members who may 

have additional questions, in consultation with the minority, we 

will leave the record open for a period of 2 weeks for additional 

questions, which we may submit to the panelists. 

Well, I want to thank everyone for participating, for taking time 

out of your busy schedules to be with us, and for the cooperative 

effort in moving next generation air traffic control forward. 

Again, we thank Embry-Riddle. I want to also thank, in addition, 

Dr. Johnson and Dr. Recascino, one of the officers at the university, 

who has helped us both with the Test Beds and this hearing, but 

also with accommodating some of the meetings that will take place 

among some of the private, public, and academic players in bringing this important phase of next generation air traffic control forward. 

With that, again, I want to thank our Members for attending, 

and the staff for their assistance in making this fairly historic 

hearing possible. And on the eve hopefully of us passing long-term 

FAA reauthorization and will incorporate some important provisions to make certain that the United States stays at the forefront 

both as far as the systems, next generation, and particularly for 

aviation safety that is so important for the traveling public. 

Somebody said to me yesterday, sort of summed it up. He said, 

it looks like you all are here to take our air traffic control and aviation system from World War II era to the 21st space age, and that 

sort of sums up the purpose of our being here. 

I invite to participate at 2:00. We will have some brief commentary, opening of the new Test Bed facility, and then there will 

be tours made available, and some actual operational demonstration for all those who care to attend. So, that will be at 2:00. And 

33 

if you aren’t with where the facility is, it is right—if you are looking at the terminal, it is the building right to the left. I saw it this 

morning. There is a white tent out in front. But you all are welcome to participate in that. Thank you again. 

There being no further business before the Transportation and 

Infrastructure Committee, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:00 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

34 


Insert offset folio 8 here 71101.008
35 


Insert offset folio 9 here 71101.009
36 


Insert offset folio 10 here 71101.010
37 


Insert offset folio 11 here 71101.011
38 


Insert offset folio 12 here 71101.012
39 


Insert offset folio 13 here 71101.013
40 


Insert offset folio 14 here 71101.014
41 


Insert offset folio 15 here 71101.015
42 


Insert offset folio 16 here 71101.016
43 


Insert offset folio 17 here 71101.017
44 


Insert offset folio 18 here 71101.018
45 


Insert offset folio 19 here 71101.019
46 


Insert offset folio 20 here 71101.020
47 


Insert offset folio 21 here 71101.021
48 


Insert offset folio 22 here 71101.022
49 


Insert offset folio 23 here 71101.023
50 


Insert offset folio 24 here 71101.024
51 


Insert offset folio 25 here 71101.025
52 


Insert offset folio 26 here 71101.026
53 


Insert offset folio 27 here 71101.027
54 


Insert offset folio 28 here 71101.028
55 


Insert offset folio 29 here 71101.029
56 


Insert offset folio 30 here 71101.030
57 


Insert offset folio 31 here 71101.031
58 


Insert offset folio 32 here 71101.032
59 


Insert offset folio 33 here 71101.033
60 


Insert offset folio 34 here 71101.034
61 


Insert offset folio 35 here 71101.035
62 


Insert offset folio 36 here 71101.036
63 


Insert offset folio 37 here 71101.037
64 


Insert offset folio 38 here 71101.038
65 


Insert offset folio 39 here 71101.039
66 


Insert offset folio 40 here 71101.040
67 


Insert offset folio 41 here 71101.041
68 


Insert offset folio 42 here 71101.042
69 


Insert offset folio 43 here 71101.043
70 


Insert offset folio 44 here 71101.044
71 


Insert offset folio 45 here 71101.045
72 


Insert offset folio 46 here 71101.046
73 


Insert offset folio 47 here 71101.047
74 


Insert offset folio 48 here 71101.048
75 


Insert offset folio 49 here 71101.049
76 


Insert offset folio 50 here 71101.050
77 


Insert offset folio 51 here 71101.051
78 


Insert offset folio 52 here 71101.052
79 


Insert offset folio 53 here 71101.053
80 

Æ 


Insert offset folio 54 here 71101.054