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T. WILSON PROFESSOR OF ROOM 33-303 

AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS 77 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE 

DIRECTOR CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02139 

 INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR AIR TRANSPORTATION (617) 253-2271 FAX (617) 253-4196 

 E-MAIL: rjhans@mit.edu 

October 17, 2008 

The Honorable Robert Sturgell 

Administrator 

Federal Aviation Administration 

800 Independence Avenue, SW 

Washington, DC 20591 

Dear Administrator Sturgell: 

On behalf of the Research, Engineering and Development Advisory Committee (REDAC), I am enclosing 

the summary observations and recommendations from the fall meetings of the standing REDAC 

Subcommittees (Aircraft Safety, NAS Operations, Environment and Energy, Airports, and Human Factors). 

As a general observation, the REDAC has been encouraged by the efforts to develop a structured approach 

to integrate near term and longer term (NextGen) objectives as well as the beginning of a research 

requirements flow down process driven by NextGen. The REDAC is concerned, however, that the multiple 

shared objectives of NextGen (e.g. Capacity, Efficiency, Emissions, Noise, Safety, Security) are somewhat 

piecemeal and need to be more fully integrated in both near term and long term plans. It is also important 

that the NextGen planning processes remain dynamic and able to adapt to emergent factors such as fuel, 

emissions and financial concerns which may shift the relative importance of competing NextGen 

objectives. 

We hope that these observations are useful to you and the agency. The REDAC stands ready to assist if 

there is any way we can help in our common objectives of improving the safety, efficiency and capability 

of the air transportation system. 

Sincerely, 

R. John Hansman 

Chair, FAA Research, Engineering and Development Advisory Committee 

Enclosure 
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Research, Engineering and Development Advisory Committee (REDAC) 

Guidance on FY 2011 R&D Portfolio 

Subcommittee on Environment and Energy 

1. The Agency must continue to focus its environmental research on both activities to 

support NextGen and the traditional research necessary to ensure that United States 

leadership in the international process (ICAO) remains constant. It is therefore 

recommended that additional resources be made available, at least at the levels 

envisioned by the NARP. 

2. With respect to NextGen, it is recommended that: 

a. Concentration on applied solutions should continue, especially with respect to 

the ongoing research on potential alternative fuels. Indeed, to highlight the 

importance of alternative fuels, the Subcommittee recommends that funding 

for Alternative Fuels research be broken out as a separate line item in future 

FAA budgets. 

b. Airspace redesigns have generated an entirely new class of aircraft noise 

complaints, with citizens miles from airports now voicing concerns. It is 

recommended that sufficient funds be made available for a thorough 

reassessment of the noise issue to ensure that the goals of NextGen are not 

derailed by environmental concerns based on noise. 

c. Similarly, with NextGen considering a shift to underutilized or new airports to 

relieve future congestion, the environmental challenges inherent in such a 

paradigm shift, both in terms of noise and emissions, must be considered. 

Sufficient funding to conduct such research should be provided. 

d. In order to foster continued communication and cooperation between the 

Office of Environment and Energy and the Air Traffic Organization (ATO), 

the subcommittee recommends that ATO establish one point of contact for 

work with the environmental community. Such communication is necessary 

to ensure that environmental metrics are included in the ATO NextGen 

decision-making process so that the environmental impacts on air traffic 

decisions are adequately considered. 

e. With respect to longer term considerations, the subcommittee recommends 

that FAA environmental research also concentrate on the environmental 

benefits of new aircraft development and specifically that work in conjunction 

with NASA on such issues continue. 

f. Finally, with global climate change an increasing environmental concern, the 

subcommittee recommends that the FAA work to bring together all relevant 

agencies to support the Aviation Climate Change Research Initiative 

(ACCRI). 
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3. With respect to the ICAO standard setting process: 

a. The development of tools and metrics to support international standard setting 

should continue. In order to support these objectives, funding for the 

PARTNER program and the tool to assess the costs and benefits of various 

environmental initiatives (APMT) must continue. 

b. With ICAO having established a new process to assess the issue of global 

climate change (GIACC), the subcommittee recommends that sufficient 

funding and personnel resources be made available to support this activity. 

Subcommittee on Airports 

The Airport Subcommittee submits the following recommendations: 

1. The Subcommittee is pleased with the Airport Technology Research budget allocation 

for FY 10 / FY 11, and with the task statements and recommends a personnel increase of 

two persons that the budget supports. 

2. The Subcommittee recommends closer coordination between the Airport Cooperative 

Research Program (ACRP) and the FAA's own Airport Technical Research Program 

based at the FAA Technical Center. This is especially important given the maturation of 

the ACRP after a several year start-up period. These two research programs should be, 

and largely are, complimentary and are both vital to supporting the airport progress 

needed in the years ahead. While they target different types of airport issues, only a 

continuous awareness by each program of the other's activities can assure that the goal of 

complimentary programs will be achieved. 

3. There has been talk of moving the Airport Technology Research Branch (AJP) from 

ATO to AAS, which is the primary sponsor for the Airport Technology research. The 

subcommittee supports this realignment. 

4. The subcommittee recognizes the good work that has come out of the large aircraft 

fire mock-up at Tyndall AFB in Panama City, FL and recommends the transition of this 

work to a draft training document as soon as possible to support fire crews across the 

nation at airports wherever the A380 might operate. An emphasis on composite fire 

fighting is also strongly supported. 

5. The subcommittee supports the pavement area research and the construction of a 

laboratory to support this research area. There is one topic that the Airport Subcommittee 

recommends adding to the pavement area research and that would be an effort to 

investigate the use of warm-mix asphalt for air carrier airport pavements, which 

reportedly deliver environmental benefits to paving operations. 
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6. The subcommittee recommends an increase for FY 2011 of $1,375,000 for visual aids, 

which increases this item to a total of $3,200,000. The increase is required to start work 

on the development of a visual aids test For visual guidance FAA will start a multiyear 

initiative to develop a state-of-the-art visual guidance technology test bed that will enable 

visual guidance engineers an opportunity to design, install, test, monitor, and report on 

what it will take to create a visual guidance infrastructure that will take full advantage of 

state of the art technologies in Signs, Lighting and Markings to provide a more efficient 

infrastructure and the best visual cues to the airport user. Major advances in visual 

guidance technology have brought forth new, brighter, more efficient and more 

conspicuous lighting devices, enhanced paint material that lasts longer than traditional 

paint, and airport signage that is easier to read from greater distances. This new 

technology, when compared with the current state of visual guidance systems, warrants 

that the FAA undertake a major research effort to enhance these essential systems, 

making improvements that will best serve the future of our nations aviation system. The 

FAA's conceptual "NextGen" Program talks about levels of air traffic increasing to three 

times what it is today, bringing thousands and thousands of aircraft to smaller airports 

that have historically seen very little traffic. The demand for the visual guidance 

infrastructure at these airports will increase significantly, bringing with it higher levels of 

usage, higher performance requirements, and higher costs to maintain. Energy use and 

energy costs are becoming an important consideration for all airports in their efforts to 

become more sustainable and "green". Today's General Aviation community is already 

indicating that there is a need to enhance their visual aids, citing examples of aging power 

cables, antiquated fixtures, and high energy costs as major problems that they are 

experiencing now. 

7. The Subcommittee recommends that at some point in the future to carry out a study 

that would validate (or refute) the findings on taxiway deviation at JFK, now that NLA 

operations nave begun. While not necessarily the only study that could be considered for 

validation, it would be timely to do this, once the numbers of daily operations increase to 

a suitable level. 

 

8. The Airport Subcommittee sees an overarching need for the NextGen program to 

more thoroughly consider airport issues in its plans. The NextGen Program should 

decide what a future airport might posses in order to make it fully NextGen ready, and 

then articulate the attributes that airports will need to build to, in order to achieve 

consistency with that vision. 
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Subcommittee on Human Factors 

Observations 

1. The committee noted the strong cooperation/collaboration between ATO-P and AVS 

human factors (HF) personnel. The committee believes that a continued level of 

close cooperation will be critical to achieving success in development and fielding of 

NextGen concepts. 

2. The Personnel Roadmap is an extremely valuable tool to ensure recognition and 

visibility for human-related issues in NextGen. The committee strongly supports this 

effort and feels it will be a valuable component of the NextGen development process. 

3. It is important that NextGen planning and implementation continue to leverage 

common resources across industry, government and academia. 

Findings and Recommendations 

Finding 1 - Focus on Equipment at Expense of Human Issues. Current FAA NextGen 

planning in the solution set framework focuses primarily on equipment acquisition and 

insufficiently addresses human-related issues and needs. Greater emphasis on human 

systems integration in NextGen is required. 

Recommendation 1a: Edit and revise NextGen planning documents, enterprise 

architecture, etc. to address human systems integration issues related to NextGen 

implementation. Continued development and integration of the Personnel Roadmap 

should facilitate this process. 

Recommendation 1b: Change term “Human Factors” in FAA job titles and 

organizational names to “Human Systems Integration.” This may facilitate a broader role 

and understanding of the human component in the systems engineering approach. 

Finding 2 - Human Factors Resource Limitations. Human factors resources in ATO-P 

and AVS are insufficient to carry out the range of activities required to adequately 

support NextGen development and implementation. 

Recommendation 2: Increase AVS and ATO-P HF staffing and ATO-P HF research 

funding to support NextGen. In case of an extended Continuing Resolution for FY09 that 

will maintain Human Factors funding at the FY08 level, the FAA should augment human 

factors research funding so that critical NextGen human factors activities can be initiated. 

The human factors subcommittee notes that for FY08 the NextGen human factors budget 

line items were among the few that did not receive funding to perform substantive work. 

An additional delay in funding will jeopardize human system integration for NextGen. 

Finding 3 - Lessons Learned Not Well Integrated. The Post Implementation Review 

(PIR) process for the Advanced Technologies and Oceanic Procedures program resulted 
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in a number of significant human factors findings, but there is not a clear process to 

ensure these findings are fed forward to benefit other NextGen programs. 

Recommendation 3: Develop a process to formalize a human factors component to Post 

Implementation Reviews and establish processes to ensure lessons learned are available 

to other NextGen programs. 

Finding 4 - Crosscutting NextGen HF Issues Are Not Adequately Addressed. Due to 

the management structure of NextGen (individual program managers, solution set 

managers, etc.), it is not clear how crosscutting human factors issues will be recognized 

and addressed. 

Recommendation 4: Develop management structure to address cross cutting human 

systems integration issues. Consider sharing REDAC subcommittee members or joint 

REDAC subcommittee meetings. 

Subcommittee on Aircraft Safety 

Key program observations and recommendations are listed below: 

Observation 1: The Subcommittee on Aircraft Safety is encouraged by the FY2011 AVS 

Strategic Guidance provided by the Associate Administrator to the research planning 

community. The guidance created two new TCRGs, one focused on Weather in the 

Cockpit and the other on Self Separation & Air-Ground Integration. Additionally, 

emphasis was placed on the importance of program metrics, milestones & project phases 

in planning research projects. All positive additions intended to guide the right project 

management planning & execution. 

Recommendation: Item tracking database put in place. Assures subcommittee input is 

addressed. 

Observation 2: The Subcommittee on Aircraft Safety reiterates it’s past 

recommendation that R, E & D requirements definition for NextGen must be expedited. 

Failure to define the research needs supportive of the envisioned cutting edge 

technologies that NextGen is counting on will result in less capable, in hand, solutions 

having to be implemented with NextGen performance suffering as a result. Given that 

the NextGen mid-term implementation target dates are 2012-2018 or just 3 to 9 years 

from now, R&D should already be well underway on any new capabilities envisioned for 

these time frames. Without roadmaps in place, some capabilities currently being 

envisioned for NextGen may already be overtaken by time. 

Currently only about 10% of the R,E&D efforts are aligned explicitly with NextGen 

needs based on a SAS requested Solution Set, Domain & Roadmap alignment 

assessment. While waiting for top down requirements; 
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Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends AVS R,E&D management extend 

the assessment approach, on a proactive basis, to uncover potential research requirements 

by reviewing Roadmaps, Integrated Work Plans, ConOps and Operational Improvements 

(as well as any other lower level plans that might exist) and discuss the findings with the 

Solution Set coordinators for validation. 

Observation 3: As was discussed at the July 2008 REDAC workshop on NextGen, there 

is currently no overarching System Safety Analysis model for NextGen. This model 

could be used to assess the impact of the large number of proposed NextGen system & 

subsystem elements and enable proper trades & capability requirements to be defined. 

Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends a System Safety Model be 

developed to permit an integrated, quantitative assessment of NextGen. 

Observation 4: Aviation Weather research is a very complex topic with the dual goals of 

improving both safety and capacity. The Subcommittee appreciated the review provided 

by Ken Leonard and the team. A strategic plan is needed to show how the products 

developed under the research program will be transitioned to meet the needs of the flying 

community. 

Recommendation: Recommend the FAA engage the user community for both safety 

and capacity improvements validation. 

Observation 5: ASIAS has indeed come a long way. However, there is still much work 

to do in R,E&D to accomplish ASIAS objectives as envisioned. Tools are still needed to 

effectively process, integrate, and mind the large amounts of disparate data that will be 

entered into ASIAS as more data sources come on line. Thus need to have clear roadmaps 

with roles and responsibilities of what new capabilities are needed and how they will be 

inserted into ASIAS. Also, it was noted that a Continuing Resolution (CR) in FY09 will 

impact new starts planned for ASIAS. SAS did not hear a mitigation strategy if CR 

should go past March, which is indeed possible in an election year. 

Recommendation: Subcommittee strongly recommends FAA create mitigation plans, in 

the event the CR goes for an extended period. (note: this concern is not unique to ASIAS) 

Observation 6: FAA should continue to contribute to instrumentation development for 

the NASA High Ice Water Content Atmospheric Characterization effort. There is a need 

for fundamental physics research on accretion of ice crystals inside an engine – partial 

funding of this work is being contemplated by the FAA. This basic research is needed for 

future engine development and certification as well as resolving in-service issues of 

engine power loss. This research has applications beyond the engine, to any inlet with a 

heated surface, as well as probes which can be corrupted by ice crystals. 
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Recommendation: Subcommittee recommends finding a way to enable the Weather 

program to provide “pop-up” support of the upcoming flight test effort to maximize the 

efficiency of the test program. 

Observation 7: The influx of new Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) requirements from the 

user community is not waiting for or being driven by NextGen. The FAA needs to 

address current requirements that are ready for operational implementation, and also have 

a strategic plan to ensure NextGen can accommodate emerging and future UAS 

requirements. 

Recommendation: Subcommittee recommends the FAA take a proactive education 

approach aimed at the “newcomers” to this rapidly expanding aviation sector as well as 

accelerating rulemaking supporting research. 

Observation 8: Research is planned to: “Develop minimum standards for augmented 

manual control Fly By Wire (FBW) designs”. The Subcommittee is surprised that the 

current certification approach apparently relies heavily on program specific Special 

Conditions instead of up to date, comprehensive regulations. The Subcommittee is 

equally surprised the current regulations apparently do not adequately cover the >15 year 

old Fly by Wire technology. 

Recommendation: The Subcommittee recommends the FAA closely examine all areas 

of aircraft & engine certification for repeated use of Special Conditions as an indicator of 

areas where the regulations have not actually kept pace with the “advancing” technology. 

Observation 8: Airframe Icing - NASA and the FAA Technical Center have been 

involved with other organizations in a multi-year SLD technology roadmap to define the 

SLD environment and to develop engineering tools (codes, icing tunnels) with which 

airplane manufacturers can predict SLD ice shapes. This capability is critical to the 

airplane design, flight test, and certification processes. The FAA advisory group is 

currently conducting a status review of the available SLD engineering tools prior to the 

rulemaking proposal being issued for public comment. Although there is an "interim" 

capability for developing SLD ice shapes for freezing drizzle conditions the available 

tools are inadequate for freezing rain conditions. It is essential that FAA & NASA 

provide adequate priority and funding to enable completion of the key remaining SLD 

technology roadmap tasks prior to the regulation being implemented. 

Observation 9: Halon Replacement - Industry is still committed to working with the 

FAA to define an acceptable Halon-1301 replacement for engine/APU applications. This 

requires continued work with the nacelle fire simulator located at the William J. Hughes 

Technical Center. In addition to further testing using the FAA/industry-reviewed protocol 

Minimum Performance Standard - Engines (MPSe) Rev03, it will be necessary to define 

Rev04 of the MPSe to account for next generation fire extinguishing agents (e.g., higher 

boiling points, non-gaseous). Lack of support for these initiatives will make it difficult or 

even impossible to eliminate Halon-1301 from the propulsion fire extinguishing system 

on future airplanes. 
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NAS Operations Subcommittee 

Briefings were given on the FY10 budget, the R&D prioritization process, the NAS OPS 

PPT activities (including ConOps development, Human Factors, and Wake), the Weather 

Office research, an update on demonstration plans, and the Enterprise Architecture. 

Portfolio Content

Finding: Neither the July workshop nor the September briefings presented adequate 

information to determine if, or how, critically important (if very difficult) R&D with 

system-wide NextGen design implications is being conducted. Specific areas of concern 

are an apparent lack of R&D devoted to (1) separation responsibility--including the airground split, the human-automation split, and the impact of failures or aircraft 

nonconformance; (2) the impact of new classes of vehicles (UAS, VLJ, CESTOL, etc) on 

the NextGen design and operation; (3) the development of risk assessment methods and 

safety analyses for the NextGen ConOps; and (4) the design of NextGen and operations 

in it to optimally minimize adverse environmental effects. 

FY11 Recommendation 1: Use a taxonomy based upon research devoted to these areas 

to assess the FY 09 and FY10 R&D projects to ascertain whether a re-binning and an 

increase in funding for FY11 for R&D in these difficult areas is required. If so (and 

NASOPS believes it is so), consider re-allocating additional resources from other target 

areas to NASOPS. 

Finding: Although there was mention that a plan to establish an avionics roadmap has 

been drafted. the FAA appears to have no avionics roadmap yet for aircraft equipage, nor 

incentive to the industry to equip in an integrated fashion. Briefings on the airborne 

requirements for ATM are not linked to specific performance requirements. Since 

equipage is a major cost and complexity driver for airlines, this lack needs to be 

remediated immediately. 

FY11 Recommendation 2: NASOPS subcommittee offers to work with the Aircraft 

Working Group of the JPDO to establish an airborne avionics road-map and FY11 

funding requirements for airborne ATM R&D and lead-in re-prioritization of FY10 

funding. 

Program Funding

Finding: NASOPS is pleased to see the development of an Enterprise Architecture. The 

EA should enable a portfolio management process that provides some increasing linkage 

of the R&D that is being performed to some type of requirement, be it an OI or an RPD. 

Currently, the linkage of the R&D to requirements, and the criteria to select what R&D 

should be done, still are imperfect. Specifically, the criteria used by the Next Gen review 

board, as briefed, are too near-term and are risk averse, so important work (such as 2025 
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ConOps development) fails to be funded. Additionally, it is not clear that any work is 

actually dropped as a result of the current intuition- and consensus-based approach. 

FY 11 Recommendation 3: Continue to fund the EA at an appropriate level, but ensure 

that it develops into a straightforward tool to map and assess requirements and R&D. 

FY11 Recommendation 4: Re-establish funding at $15M/year for 2025 ConOps 

development, and develop a less risk averse NextGen Board ranking criterion. 

FY11 Recommendation 5: Re-examine lower priority work currently funded with the 

goal of ending it. A specific recommendation is to stop Common Data and Structure 

Data (CSSD) work. Another is to re-examine the funding requirement for Common 

Automation Platform. 

Partnerships

Finding: The NextGen design appears to be based on intuition and consensus, rather 

than modeling, analysis, simulation, and demonstration or testing. The implication from 

the July workshop is that the FAA intends to start a whole new activity in modeling and 

simulation, heavily infrastructure based, which was not ready to be briefed to NASOPS 

in September. This is not the correct approach. Additionally, the demonstration 

activities (e.g. Florida) need to be explicitly a part of the analysis, simulation, and 

learning process, and there is no evidence that they are. 

FY11 Recommendation 6: Leverage the work of NASA and other government partners, 

and particularly the considerable investment of the JPDO and its industry partners in the 

work accomplished by its System Modeling and Design Division, to form the basis from 

which to start this activity. Re-examine funding plans to develop entirely new simulation 

capabilities. 

FY11 Recommendation 7: Establish criteria for demonstration projects that link them 

to specific research questions and on-going analysis and simulation to provide validated 

answers. Provide exit criteria for, and lessons-learned from, each demonstration project. 

Establish clear funding stream for proof-of-concept tests or demonstrations.