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Research, Engineering and Development Advisory Committee

Recommendations for Fiscal Year 2019 Research and Development Portfolio 

Subcommittee on Aircraft Safety

Finding: Propulsion Research Resource Targets - As modern aircraft have evolved to employ 

new and novel materials to improve efficiency and reduce life cycle costs the FAA has 

appropriately applied increased funding levels to conduct research in the area of advanced 

materials. The majority of this funding is being directed at aircraft composite structures. Engine 

manufacturers also continue to push for improvements in fuel economy and provide some of the 

enabling technologies to the advancements and benefits observed at the aircraft level. The 

funding levels associated with propulsion research continue to decline and are proposed at $1.1M 

for FY19. This is nearly a 50% reduction from 2015 levels and compares unfavorably to the 

nearly $7.2M planned for aircraft composites research.

The Subcommittee made a prior recommendation that the FAA consider funding of advanced 

inspection techniques, hot corrosion in nickel alloys, cold dwell fatigue in titanium and advanced 

computational methods for microstructure changes. These could be target areas for propulsion 

research in future years.

Recommendation: The FAA should evaluate the target funding levels for propulsion research 

with a goal of achieving a proper balance between aircraft advanced material and propulsion 

research budgets.

Finding: UAS Implementation Plan - The SAS REDAC reviewed the 2019 proposed research 

portfolio and specifically research related to UAS. Several of the smaller items in the presented 

plan were questioned (e.g. hi-visual contrast, air carrier operational considerations) for their 

necessity and safety value in relationship to our understanding of other possibly conflicting 

research being conducted in the same general areas. As we have noted in the past it is still hard 

to get a complete picture of the total research scope related to UAS. It is especially difficult to 

understand the context of this proposed research without appreciating the full picture of FAAfunded UAS-related research given that overwhelming majority of the UAS research resources 

are grants to the UAS COE (i.e., ASSURE). Visibility to safety research requirements in other 

areas of the UAS implementation plan need to be reviewed as well.

Recommendation: Complete, update and make routinely available to SAS REDAC the UAS 

implementation plan so that we may get a clearer picture of the complete UAS research

plan. The REDAC SAS would also like to routinely receive information about the UAS research 

being conducted by ASSURE. To better understand how the significant research investment has 

benefited the FAA, we would like a briefing on the highlights of UAS research portfolio 

including ASSURE over the last two years and how this research has impacted FAA decisions 

with regard to UAS related regulations and other decisions.

Finding: Fatigue Research Program - The REDAC Subcommittee on Aircraft Safety (SAS) 

received a deep dive briefing on the FAA’s overall fatigue research program. The Subcommittee 

was impressed with the progress that parts of the program are making, particularly the research 

on fatigue genomics and biomarkers. However, the Subcommittee remains concerned that the 
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FAA program is not taking a holistic approach to fatigue, which remains a widely acknowledged 

and pervasive risk to aviation safety. There is a concern that this may be a consequence of the 

reductions to the A11G BLI, which averaged 80% over the past 3 years.

Currently, there are no funded programs to detect and mitigate fatigue problems across the 

breadth of civil aviation -- other areas of aviation operations that have widely acknowledged 

fatigue concerns seem to have been overlooked. While aviation maintainers and air traffic 

controllers have been recently studied, other broad areas of aviation, including aeromedical 

ambulances, other commercial aviation, and general aviation operations are not being sponsored 

by any of the FAA policy holders and potential fatigue problems are not being addressed. 

Finally, there is no convincing plan to analyze data from FRMP or FRMS, to determine the 

utility and cost-effectiveness of these important FAA fatigue initiatives.

Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends an expanded fatigue research program that 

integrates the different policyholders, funding programs, and research organizations within the 

FAA. This program should provide surveillance for early indicators of fatigue hazards across 

aviation operations in the US. The integrated research program should facilitate identification 

and advocacy for needed research and ensure sharing of results across aviation domains within 

the FAA.

Recommendation: The Subcommittee also recommends that a structured research program to 

assess the effectiveness of FRMP/FRMS in Part 121 passenger carrying operations be planned, 

given high priority for funding, and commenced immediately.

Subcommittee on Human Factors

Finding: Human Factors Portfolio Prioritization and Competencies - The Human Factors 

Subcommittee had a previous finding concerned about how HF research funding for NextGen 

and UAVs have significantly increased at the expense of core HF research areas like fatigue and 

training. The Subcommittee received a briefing on the prioritization process but it did not answer 

the question. Further Subcommittee discussion addressed how the HF research community 

manages its competencies whether organic, contract, or Centers of Excellence. The HF 

Community could not tell the HF Subcommittee how it assesses its technical competencies.

Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends that the FAA HF research community 

establishes a process to define and assess its technical competencies in a Lead, Leverage, Watch, 

or similar construct to be able to determine the status of their ability to respond to changing FAA 

priority needs. 

Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends the FAA HF community report out to the 

HF REDAC Subcommittee at its next meeting.

Finding: NextGen HF Research Support - The Subcommittee has made previous 

recommendations on the need for HF research in NextGen. The Subcommittee received a 

briefing and was very pleased with the HF communities' response and proposed research plan for 
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FY19. However, due to current budget deliberations, this research was reflected as unfunded. 

The Subcommittee supports this proposed research.

Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends the FAA assess the priority and funding of 

this HF NextGen research and report out the results at the next HF Subcommittee meeting.

Finding: Mixed-Capability NextGen Environment - For two years a recurring topic of 

discussion at the REDAC Human Factors Subcommittee meetings raised questions around HSI 

across multiple capabilities and operational changes converging at the human operator and users 

over the coming years. For NextGen to realize its planned operational benefits and capabilities, 

the human operators and users of the NAS, both on the flight deck and on the ground, must be 

willing and able to effectively utilize the combined suites of capabilities and operational changes 

they will be given by the system.

It is not clear to the Subcommittee whether, or to what extent, integrated assessments across the 

users and stakeholders of those combined suites of capabilities have adequately been done in 

order to reduce risk and ensure the delivery of benefits. Discussion around these questions 

inspired the Subcommittee to request that the FAA summarize what efforts have been made on 

this issue, so that the Subcommittee can provide appropriate and useful advice. 

Recommendation: The Human Factors Subcommittee requests the FAA define the plan, 

including any research, for assessing the risks and alternative designs and procedural solutions 

related to the multiple capabilities across the NAS and increased complexity on the human role 

in Next Gen. This complexity includes the interaction of the various humans and systems as 

well as integrated human performance considerations on pilots, dispatchers, and controllers and 

traffic managers and report back to the HF committee on this research plan at the next meeting. 

This will enable the Subcommittee to assess the extent to which human-system collaboration 

concerns have been accounted for in the complex multi-capability of NextGen and to determine 

where more specific HF research may be warranted.

Subcommittee on Environment and Energy

The Environment and Energy (E&E) Subcommittee of the FAA Research, Engineering and 

Development Advisory Committee (REDAC) met in Washington, DC on February 28 – March 

01, 2017. Per the guidance from the FAA Research Director, the Subcommittee focused on 

reviewing the R&D portfolio in Environment and Energy developed based on the strategic 

guidance provided to the FAA in the August 2016 Subcommittee meeting. FY19 portfolio plan 

and selected deep dives were included on the agenda for this purpose. Following is the report on 

the outcome of this meeting. The recommendations offered are all for inclusion in the REDAC 

report. 

Finding: Noise Research - Noise research is making substantial progress in studies related to 

the understanding of impact of aviation noise on annoyance, sleep, health, and children’s 

learning and in the planning of studies related to noise from supersonic aircraft, Unmanned 
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Aerial Systems (UAS), and commercial space. Some of the impacts of noise have become 

barriers to the implementation of NextGen.

Recommendation: Since the results of some of these studies will generate significant public 

interest, the Subcommittee recommends the FAA prepare a public outreach plan to proactively 

manage this public interest.

Finding: Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT) - In response to the action from the 

last Subcommittee meeting, FAA provided clarity on improvements and further development 

needs for the Aviation Environmental Design Tool (AEDT). This will enable enhanced 

usability, improved airspace and airport design, continued support for analyses that support 

domestic and international decision-making. The FAA also identified key risks to AEDT 

development (e.g. availability of BADA 4 on airplane performance and noise) and has developed 

appropriate contingency plans.

Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends the FAA continue the simultaneous (and 

balanced) development of usability improvements and enhanced features in the near term.

Finding: Continuous Lower Energy, Emissions, and Noise (CLEEN) Program - In 

partnership with industry, the Continuous Lower Energy, Emissions, and Noise (CLEEN) 

Program is maturing new technologies that will continue to show significant engine and aircraft 

performance benefits (fuel burn and operations improvement, noise and emissions reduction). 

The Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative (CAAFI) also continues to make 

significant progress in advancing alternative jet fuels as a private public partnership between the 

FAA and industry. 

CLEEN and CAAFI are both very successful industry/FAA cost-share programs as is the 

Aviation Sustainability Center (ASCENT), the FAA Center of Excellence for Alternative Jet 

Fuels and Environment. Three quarters of Environment and Energy research funds are 

generating 100% plus cost matching from non-federal partners (CLEEN, CAAFI, and 

ASCENT). This leverages scarce FAA R&D funds to accomplish significant advances and 

improvements.

Recommendation: The Subcommittee encourages Public Private Partnerships like CLEEN, 

CAAFI and ASCENT programs to leverage resources and recommends that FAA should 

continue to prioritize robust funding for these programs. 

Finding: Operational Research Program - The operational research program is an important 

and impactful program in the Environment and Energy portfolio. These projects are being 

worked (or planned to be worked) in collaboration with the FAA Air Traffic Organization 

(ATO), FAA NextGen Office (ANG), FAA Office of Airports (ARP), NASA, and MassPort. 

Recommendation: The Subcommittee is pleased to see this research included in the portfolio 

after having been impacted due to the reduction and eventual elimination of F&E funds for this 

category. We encourage FAA to pursue this research while recognizing the potential for 

environmental benefits thru operational changes in all phases of flight.
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Finding: Staff Vacancy Expansion - The workload of FAA AEE staff has been increasingly 

driven by CO2 standard setting, global market based measure (CORSIA) development, nonvolatile particulate matter standard settings, supersonic aircraft, and a broad range of noise work. 

Staff vacancies within the organization are a big concern. These vacancies need to be filled. A 

lack of skilled personnel could delay completion of critical projects, and in the long term, 

prevent achievement of the core FAA mission, including improving efficiency of aviation 

system. 

Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends that the FAA place a high priority on filling 

staff vacancies to manage the AEE portfolio and support the expanding workload.

Finding: Collaborative Research Topic Priorities - The REDAC Environment and Energy 

Subcommittee had believed that water issues were proactively being addressed by the Airports 

and Safety REDAC Subcommittees, but learned that water research was not a priority on the 10 

year research plan for the Airport Technology Research (ATR) Program.

Recommendation: REDAC Subcommittees DFOs should communicate amongst each other and 

develop a list of research topics that they believe are priorities but feel are within the domain of a 

different subcommittee.

Subcommittee on NAS Operations

Finding: Operations Concept Validation - The Subcommittee received briefings on Operations 

Concept Validation Modeling (BLI 1A11) and Operations Concept Development & 

Infrastructure (BLI: 1A01C). The Subcommittee found the briefings to reflect the high quality 

of the briefers and the excellent research and development work carried out in both areas. The 

Subcommittee notes that operations concept validation activity represents one of the most 

valuable programmatic risk mitigation investment tools available to the FAA for advancing the 

state of the art in airspace operations. Early identification and resolution of operational and 

integration issues yields tremendous cost avoidance during implementation. 

The strategic context motivating FAA and NAS users’ investment in ops concept validation 

includes both near and far term considerations. These considerations include the accelerating 

pace of change affecting all aspects of the Agency’s NextGen portfolio. Examples include the 

pace of advancement in connected aircraft capabilities, increased confidence in investment 

decisions on the part of NAS users to complement FAA investments, community sensitivity to 

terminal airspace noise resulting from improved arrival and departure management schemes, as 

well as advancements in aircraft and airspace automation systems and concepts, among others.

The Committee observes that the priority given to Ops Concept Validation projects has been in 

decline over recent years. In particular, the work that was performed under BLI 1A11 was 

moved from a cross-cutting, enterprise-level F&E activity to within the NextGen portfolios. 

There, this activity competes directly for funding with the day-to-day pressures of NextGen 

implementation. Portfolio managers are very much focused on program implementation and 

thus it is very difficult for them to properly prioritize this work, particularly since the work 
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should be done well in advance of implementation. The Subcommittee notes that the result has 

been a significant decline in the level of effort devoted to operational concept validation across 

the FAA.

Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends that the FAA increase the priority given to 

Ops Concept Validation investments, particularly those that are closer to implementation, as the 

most effective and affordable means of strategic risk mitigation in a time of rapid technological 

and business concept advancements affecting the NAS. The savings in time and implementation 

cost more than offset the relatively low cost of increased concept validation.

General Observation: Runway Incursion Reduction Program - The Runway Incursion 

Reduction Program (RIRP) has been developed to address the NTSB recommendation A-00-66 

(July 6, 2000), which states:

“[The FAA should] require, at all airports with scheduled passenger service, a ground movement 

safety system that will prevent runway incursions; the system should provide a direct warning 

capability to flight crews. In addition, demonstrate through computer simulations or other means 

that the system will, in fact, prevent incursions.”

In 2015, the Subcommittee found that this NTSB recommendation failed to address the 

cost/benefit assessment that is required as part of an investment decision and recommended that 

the FAA should estimate the potential benefits of the Runway Safety Assessment (RSA) and 

Small Airport Surveillance Sensor (SASS) projects under RIRP.

In response to this recommendation, the FAA conducted a causal factor analysis and technology 

evaluation study under the Runway Incursion Prevention Shortfall Analysis (RIPSA). 

Finding: The RIPSA project was intended to (1) identify the causal factors associated with 

runway incursions at small and medium airports and (2) identify feasible runway incursion 

prevention technologies to address those factors. The Subcommittee has previously noted that 

feasibility includes technical performance and cost/benefit. While the RIPSA analysis has 

examined the estimated cost and general technical performance of candidate technologies, the 

project did not estimate the benefits pool available to runway incursion prevention technologies 

as recommended by the REDAC in the Fall of 2015. The Subcommittee finds that the FAA 

cannot perform cost-effective research and development of runway incursion prevention 

technologies in the absence of any knowledge of the potential benefits pool that such 

technologies target. 

Recommendation: The FAA should not invest any more funds in Runway Incursion Prevention 

technologies until they have estimated the benefits pool as previously recommended by the 

REDAC. Further technology development in these projects should be contingent upon an initial 

positive cost/ benefit estimate. REDAC looks forward to reviewing this benefits estimate in its 

Fall 2017 meeting. 
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Subcommittee on Airports

Finding: Cross-cutting Strategic Research - The Subcommittee supports the FAA’s efforts to 

update its research strategy, goals, objectives via the NARP, particularly with respect examining 

how the FAA’s various research programs can more effectively address research that cuts across 

multiple research areas (e.g., air traffic system operations, airports, safety, and environment). 

Such a cross-cutting approach to research has proven to be successful in the area of airport noise 

research involving both the Airport Technology Research Program and Environmental Research 

Program.

Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends that the FAA seek additional opportunities 

to utilize cross-cutting approaches to research and development that draw on the skills and 

expertise from multiple research programs. In addition to aircraft noise, research areas that are 

ripe for this approach are (1) cyber-security, (2) unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), (3) timebased flow management (especially the surface elements of TBFM), (4) management of 

operations during irregular operations such as airport construction and adverse weather 

conditions, and (5) aviation safety management.

Finding: Airports Research Prioritizations - The Subcommittee placed a high priority on 

research into new categories of aeronautical vehicles--UAS and commercial space vehicles 

specifically--and their potential impacts on airport safety, operations, and infrastructure. Other 

high priority research areas are (1) pilot perception of light emitting diode (LED)-based airfield 

lighting systems (RPA S5), (2) aircraft rescue and firefighting agents (RPA S3), (3) runway 

incursion prevention technologies (RPA S1), and (4) noise standard development/refinement 

based on the findings of ongoing noise annoyance data collection (RPAs N2-N5).

Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends that the FAA Office of Airports place a 

high priority on research associated with the research areas that include (1) pilot perception of 

light emitting diode (LED)-based airfield lighting systems (RPA S5), (2) aircraft rescue and 

firefighting agents (RPA S3), (3) runway incursion prevention technologies (RPA S1), and (4) 

noise standard development/refinement based on the findings of ongoing noise annoyance data 

collection (RPAs N2-N5), as well as, UAS and Commercial Space.

Finding: Research Programs Completion Projections - Although it understands that the 

timelines for research projects are inherently uncertain, the Subcommittee would like to have a 

better understanding of when research projects are expected to conclude and get periodic updates 

regarding their schedule for completion as the projects progress.

Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends that the FAA provide information regarding 

the estimated schedules for completing new research projects and provide schedule updates 

regarding ongoing research projects in its briefings to the Subcommittee.

Finding: Research Completion Priorities - The Subcommittee finds that priority should be 

given to research projects that are close to completion (i.e., issuance of final research findings 

and/or conclusions), particularly those that have promising practical applications.
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Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends that the FAA prioritize research projects 

that are close to completion such as the regarding trapezoidal grooving project (RPD S.1.4).