[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
NEXTGEN: AREA NAVIGATION (RNAV)/REQUIRED NAVIGATION
PERFORMANCE (RNP)
=======================================================================
(111-55)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
AVIATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JULY 29, 2009
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
51-384 PDF WASHINGTON : 2009
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, JOHN L. MICA, Florida
Vice Chair DON YOUNG, Alaska
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
Columbia VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
JERROLD NADLER, New York FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
CORRINE BROWN, Florida JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB FILNER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi Carolina
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania SAM GRAVES, Missouri
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
RICK LARSEN, Washington JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York Virginia
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois CONNIE MACK, Florida
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOHN J. HALL, New York ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee PETE OLSON, Texas
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
PHIL HARE, Illinois
JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
BETSY MARKEY, Colorado
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
DINA TITUS, Nevada
HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico
VACANCY
(ii)
Subcommittee on Aviation
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois, Chairman
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
Columbia JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB FILNER, California SAM GRAVES, Missouri
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania Virginia
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii CONNIE MACK, Florida
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
JOHN J. HALL, New York JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
CORRINE BROWN, Florida
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania
SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
VACANCY
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vii
TESTIMONY
Beck, Captain Gary, Vice President, Flight Operations, Alaska
Airlines, on Behalf of the Air Transport Association........... 3
Brantley, Tom, President, Professional Aviation Safety
Specialists, AFL-CIO........................................... 3
Calvaresi-Barr, Ann, Principal Assistant Inspector General for
Auditing and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Transportation..... 3
Day, Richard L., Senior Vice President for Operations, Air
Traffic Organization, Federal Aviation Administration.......... 3
Fuller, Chet, President, GE Aviation Systems, Civil.............. 3
Martin, Captain Jeff, Senior Director, Flight Operations,
Southwest Airlines............................................. 3
Sinha, Dr. Agam N., Senior Vice President and General Manager,
Center for Advanced Aviation System Development, The Mitre
Corporation.................................................... 3
Thomann, Brad, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer,
Jeppesen, a Boeing Company..................................... 3
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Costello, Hon. Jerry F. of Illinois.............................. 45
McMahon, Hon. Michael E., of New York............................ 53
Mitchell, Hon. Harry E., of Arizona.............................. 55
Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota............................ 56
Petri, Hon. Thomas E., of Wisconsin.............................. 60
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Beck, Captain Gary............................................... 67
Brantley, Tom.................................................... 75
Calvaresi-Barr, Ann.............................................. 85
Day, Richard L................................................... 101
Fuller, Chet..................................................... 117
Martin, Captain Jeff............................................. 137
Sinha, Dr. Agam N................................................ 160
Thomann, Brad.................................................... 183
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Beck, Captain Gary, Vice President, Flight Operations, Alaska
Airlines, on Behalf of the Air Transport Association, responses
to questions from Rep. Michael E. McMahon, a Representative in
Congress from the State of New York............................ 71
Brantley, Tom, President, Professional Aviation Safety
Specialists, AFL-CIO, responses to questions from Rep. Michael
E. McMahon, a Representative in Congress from the State of New
York........................................................... 81
Calvaresi-Barr, Ann, Principal Assistant Inspector General for
Auditing and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Transportation,
responses to questions from Rep. Michael E. McMahon, a
Representative in Congress from the State of New York.......... 97
Day, Richard L., Senior Vice President for Operations, Air
Traffic Organization, Federal Aviation Administration:.........
Response to question from Rep. Charles W. Dent, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania 30
Response to question from Rep. James L. Oberstar, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Minnesota... 34
Response to question from Rep. James L. Oberstar, a
Representative in Congress from the State of Minnesota... 39
Responses to questions from Rep. Michael E. McMahon, a
Representative in Congress from the State of New York.... 113
Fuller, Chet, President, GE Aviation Systems, Civil, responses to
questions from Rep. Michael E. McMahon, a Representative in
Congress from the State of New York............................ 131
Martin, Captain Jeff, Senior Director, Flight Operations,
Southwest Airlines:............................................
Brochure entitled, "Destination RNP Automatic Evolution
Transforming Southwest".................................. 148
Responses to questions from Rep. Michael E. McMahon, a
Representative in Congress from the State of New York.... 156
Sinha, Dr. Agam N., Senior Vice President and General Manager,
Center for Advanced Aviation System Development, The Mitre
Corporation, responses to questions from Rep. Michael E.
McMahon, a Representative in Congress from the State of New
York........................................................... 177
Thomann, Brad, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer,
Jeppesen, a Boeing Company, responses to questions from Rep.
Michael E. McMahon, a Representative in Congress from the State
of New York.................................................... 192
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
HEARING ON "NEXTGEN: AREA NAVIGATION (RNAV)/REQUIRED NAVIGATION
PERFORMANCE (RNP)"
----------
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Aviation,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jerry F.
Costello [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Mr. Costello. The Subcommittee will come to order. The
Chair will ask that all Members, staff, and everyone in the
room turn electronic devices off or put them on vibrate.
The Subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on
"NextGen: Area Navigation and Required Navigation Performance
Performance." The Chair would ask unanimous consent that the
gentleman from Alaska, the former Chairman of the Full
Committee, Mr. Young, a Member of the Full Committee, be
allowed to participate in today's Subcommittee hearing. Without
objection, so ordered.
I have a lengthy opening statement that I will submit for
the record and then recognize my Ranking Member, Mr. Petri, for
any remarks he may have, and then we will go directly to
witnesses.
I welcome everyone here to the Subcommittee hearing on
"NextGen: Area Navigation and Required Navigation Performance."
The employment of RNAV and RNP procedures are key near to
midterm NextGen initiatives. RNAV and RNP procedures are part
of the Federal Aviation Administration's NextGen implementation
plan and are expected to be a major part of the NextGen midterm
implementation task force final report that is due next month.
Let me say that we have indicated in the past, since I have
been Chair of the Subcommittee and even before that, when we
have been examining NextGen and its progress that we would hold
hearings from time to time to get a progress report as to where
we are, where we are headed, and this hearing today is a part
of that commitment.
With that, the Chair would recognize my Ranking Member, Mr.
Petri, for any remarks that he might have.
Mr. Petri. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I do want to
submit my full statement for the record and just say that I
very much thank you for having another of a series of meetings
and hearings that this Subcommittee has had on NextGen and
issues surrounding it.
This is a major undertaking. It is outside the normal scope
of the FAA as a line agency to come up with a whole new
technology, and there are a lot of issues involved in how to--
not just technical issues, but business issues as to how to
roll out this new technology in a way that is attractive and
used by the community and that people will buy into because it
is in their interest to do it at various stages of the
procedure.
So I am hopeful that there will be even more discussion and
consultation and work to kind of come up with a roadmap that
makes sense for the aviation community for rolling this out so
that it can be used by different companies and in a way that
maybe gives them a little competitive edge and incentivizes
their competitors to buy into it rather than being done sort of
a mandate approach.
There are a lot of issues involved in this whole area, and
it is clearly very important to try to get it right in advance
rather than pointing fingers, as often happens with various
major Federal undertakings, because things haven't worked after
the fact.
And with that, I thank all of our witnesses for being here
and look forward to your testimony.
Mr. Costello. I thank the Ranking Member and would advise
all Members that their full statement will be submitted and
appear in the record.
The Chair would now recognize and introduce our witnesses
today. Let me say to each of our witnesses that your full
statement will appear in the record as well. It will be in the
record as you submit it. We would ask that you summarize your
testimony in 5 minutes, and that will allow for us to have
adequate time to ask questions.
The first witness will be Mr. Richard L. Day, who is the
Senior Vice President for Operations, Air Traffic Organization,
Federal Aviation Administration.
Ms. Ann Calvaresi Barr, who is the Principal Assistant
Inspector General for Auditing and Evaluation with the U.S.
Department of Transportation.
Dr. Agam Sinha, who is the Senior Vice President and
General Manager for the Center of Advanced Aviation System
Development at the MITRE Corporation.
Mr. Tom Brantley, the President of the Professional
Aviation Safety Specialists, AFL-CIO.
Mr. Chet Fuller, who is the President of GE Aviation
Systems, Civil.
Captain Jeff Martin, the Senior Director of Flight
Operations of Southwest Airlines.
Mr. Brad Thomann, who is the Senior Vice President and
Chief Operating Officer with JEPPESEN, a Boeing company.
And Captain Gary Beck, who is the Vice President of Flight
Operations of Alaska Airlines on behalf of the Air Transport
Association.
So ladies and gentlemen, your statement will appear in the
record. And at this time I would call on Mr. Day to offer your
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF RICHARD L. DAY, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR
OPERATIONS, AIR TRAFFIC ORGANIZATION, FEDERAL AVIATION
ADMINISTRATION; ANN CALVARESI BARR, PRINCIPAL ASSISTANT
INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AUDITING AND EVALUATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT
OF TRANSPORTATION; DR. AGAM N. SINHA, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND
GENERAL MANAGER, CENTER FOR ADVANCED AVIATION SYSTEM
DEVELOPMENT, THE MITRE CORPORATION; TOM BRANTLEY, PRESIDENT,
PROFESSIONAL AVIATION SAFETY SPECIALISTS, AFL-CIO; CHET FULLER,
PRESIDENT, GE AVIATION SYSTEMS, CIVIL; CAPTAIN JEFF MARTIN,
SENIOR DIRECTOR, FLIGHT OPERATIONS, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES; BRAD
THOMANN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER,
JEPPESEN, A BOEING COMPANY; AND CAPTAIN GARY BECK, VICE
PRESIDENT, FLIGHT OPERATIONS, ALASKA AIRLINES, ON BEHALF OF AIR
TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION
Mr. Day. Thank you, Chairman Costello, Ranking Member
Petri, and Members of the Subcommittee, and thank you for
inviting me here today to discuss the FAA's program for RNAV
and RNP.
These are some of what we call Performance-based
Navigational Procedures, or PBN. PBN requires a certain level
of performance from the aircraft and the air crew to fly a
certain type of air traffic procedure. It used to be that
aircraft could navigate primarily by ground-based navigational
aids. Depending on the location and the position of those
navigational sources, the aircraft was limited in how
efficiently and precisely it could fly. Now, with advances in
technology, we are able to take advantage of space-based
navigational sources, such as GPS.
RNAV and RNP gives greater aircraft flexibility in flight
paths and profiles, and it enables them to fly more precise and
efficient routes. This leads to potential for flights to reduce
the miles flown, save fuel, and improve efficiency. The
development of RNAV/RNP procedures is a relatively young
program at the FAA, as you can see from the slide--and I know
it is difficult to see--which shows the current state of RNAV/
RNP implementation.
Since 2002, we have accomplished quite a bit. Currently, we
have 159 RNAV routes and 270 RNAV arrival and departure
procedures implemented into the NAS. We also have an additional
163 RNP special aircraft and air crew required approaches, or
SAAAR approach procedures in the NAS. By the end of fiscal year
2009, we anticipate that we will have an additional 48 RNAV
routes, 35 RNAV arrival and departure procedures, and 29 RNP
SAAAR approach procedures in place. Overall, we have over 8,000
PBN procedures throughout the NAS.
Along the way, we have encountered some challenges and we
have learned from them. We intend to apply those lessons
learned as we move forward. For example, while we have a
standard process for developing RNAV and RNP procedures in the
terminal area, we do not have a comparable process for
developing procedures elsewhere in the operational environment.
We believe this is an area where we can improve by mapping
agencywide all the PBN processes to standardize how we develop,
test, chart, and implement PBN procedures. I am pleased to
report that we should be starting work on the mapping process
in the next couple of weeks.
As we move forward, there are other challenges that
continue to face us in the advancement of RNAV and RNP. First
on the list of challenges is prioritization of which procedures
to create and implement and in what order. Second are the
environmental issues which require time for us to examine.
Third, as the industry moves to equip, we are seeing a hybrid
equipage environment where some aircraft are capable of flying
RNAV/RNP and others are not.
Some of our other technical challenges are illustrated in
the second slide that we have prepared for this hearing. Each
phase of flight faces unique challenges. For example, for
departures and arrivals we may be faced with deconflicting air
traffic between adjacent airports. In the en route environment,
we may need to avoid restricted military space, and for
arrivals and departures we want to ensure that we provide our
controllers with the right tools to make the right decisions
when managing the air traffic.
I want to assure you that the FAA has developed a solid
foundation of routes and procedures for RNAV/RNP as part of
NextGen. Using this foundation, we are transitioning from a
site-by-site or runway-by-runway implementation process for a
NextGen readiness concept by treating the system as a network.
This will include development of an integrated system of PBN
routes and procedures NAS-wide. This broader view will help to
advance and accelerate NextGen as much as possible.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Petri, Members of the
Subcommittee, this concludes my prepared remarks, and I look
forward to your questions.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Mr. Day, and now
recognizes Ms. Calvaresi Barr.
Ms. Calvaresi Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the
Subcommittee. I appreciate you inviting us here to this
important hearing on FAA's efforts to modernize the use of
airspace through RNAV and RNP. Inspector General Scovel regrets
not being able to make it here today due to a family medical
matter. However, I can assure you that this statement has
received his full attention.
As you know, RNAV/RNP are key to the success of FAA's
NextGen. They are the legs of the table. Without them NextGen
will not function. By relying on satellite navigation and on-
board avionics to maximize airspace, RNAV and RNP could achieve
substantial benefits, including fuel savings and improved
airport arrival rates.
While RNAV and RNP have considerable industry support, some
stakeholders are dissatisfied with FAA's overall method for
implementing these initiatives. Today I will focus on two key
areas: first, implementation concerns that limit the benefits
of RNAV and RNP and, second, the lack of clarity surrounding
the role and oversight of third parties in developing new
procedures.
RNAV/RNP have achieved some benefits, but FAA must address
several concerns to realize their full potential. First, FAA
has yet to develop unique routes. Instead, the agency places
new routes over existing ones and continues to focus on the
quantity rather than the quality of new flight paths. As
airline representatives know, the new routes provide few, if
any, added benefits because they are essentially the same ones
that airlines already fly.
Another longstanding concern is the potential impact mixed
equipage will have on RNP's implementation. Experts believe
most aircraft will need to be equipped with advanced avionics
to realize benefits. Equipping the aircraft has been a subject
of intense debate. Until this is resolved, concerns remain that
mixed equipage will increase controller workload and may
introduce new hazards in the congested airspace. We are
particularly concerned about this given the large number of
developmental controllers in the system.
A third concern is that FAA has not developed a plan to
effectively manage interdependent efforts, including RNAV and
RNP, airspace redesign, and air traffic control modernization
systems. All of these efforts must be fully integrated and
synchronized to maximize benefits. As FAA begins to develop
more complex and demanding routes and procedures, it will need
to reevaluate, align, and coordinate plans and budgets as well
as address controller and pilot training needs.
Now I would like to focus on the second key area regarding
third parties. The role of third parties in developing RNP
procedures is unclear, and industry is skeptical of FAA's
ability to deliver the more complex procedures. At industry's
request, FAA entered into agreements with two third parties to
design and develop certain RNP procedures. Airlines believe
third parties could provide expertise and resources to
complement FAA's efforts and to achieve quality procedures.
However, FAA program officials told us that they do not plan to
use third parties to speed RNP adoption because FAA is meeting
its annual production goals.
As part of the agreement, FAA provided an option for
carriers to use third parties to develop public procedures--
those that can be used by all airlines with equipped aircraft.
But we question the soundness of this business case because it
is unlikely that carriers will invest in procedures that other
carriers will benefit from at no cost. Air carriers that choose
to use third parties to develop public procedures would
essentially be investing in their competitors.
From the carriers' perspective a more logical business case
would be to use special RNP procedures, those that are designed
specifically for their use and are not available to other
carriers. However, FAA is concerned that an increasing number
of special procedures will further burden controllers and
complicate the airspace.
Ultimately, the role of third parties will require an
understanding of the in-house skill mix and expertise of FAA,
but this type of assessment has not been done. Absent clear
roles and responsibilities, it is difficult for FAA to
establish a plan to oversee third parties.
Over the next decade, FAA and the industry plan to invest
billions of dollars in RNAV/RNP and other NextGen efforts. To
better ensure efficient use of taxpayer and industry dollars,
we will continually monitor FAA's vision and strategy for RNAV/
RNP, the role and use of third parties, and training needs for
controllers and pilots.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be happy
to answer any questions that you or other Members of the
Subcommittee may have. Thank you.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you and now recognizes Dr.
Sinha.
Mr. Sinha. Good morning, Chairman Costello, Ranking Member
Petri, and Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting
me to participate in today's hearing on NextGen: RNAV and RNP.
My testimony today will highlight some examples of RNAV and RNP
applications which together form the performance-based
navigation initiative, commonly known as PBN, and constitute a
foundational element of NextGen.
RNAV enables aircraft to fly any desired path rather than
flying to or from a fixed ground navigation aid. RNP takes
advantage of more advanced on-board avionics to monitor the
aircraft's navigation performance and to alert pilots when the
required performance is not being achieved.
RNAV and RNP equipage has been steadily increasing over the
last several years. For air transport aircraft operations in
2009, RNAV equipage exceeds 90 percent, RNP equipage exceeds 60
percent, and advanced RNP equipage with curved-path
capabilities is nearly 40 percent.
RNAV and RNP procedures are being implemented to achieve
repeatable and predictable departure, en route, arrival, and
approach paths for aircraft. RNAV departure procedures
implemented at Atlanta in 2006 have shown a measured capacity
gain of 9 to 12 departures per hour. RNAV procedures also
result in reducing the workload associated with the routine
voice communications between pilot and air traffic controllers.
Atlanta RNAV departure procedures show a decrease of about 50
percent in voice communications required between the pilots and
controllers.
Similar RNAV procedures have been implemented at airports
such as Dallas/Fort Worth, Las Vegas and Phoenix with a
cumulative savings of $130 million from 2006 to 2008. RNP
procedures at Portland have resulted in fuel savings of 150,000
gallons and a reduction of 7,500 tons of carbon emissions since
implementation in 2006.
In many metropolitan areas, arrival and departure paths at
nearby airports can interfere with each other. Decoupling
operations at Chicago O'Hare and Midway through the use of an
RNAV departure procedure at Chicago O'Hare in combination with
an RNP approach for Chicago Midway has been modeled to show a
savings of approximately $4-1/2 million per year in reduced
delays under a full PBN equipage scenario.
RNP SAAAR that Rick Day has defined can provide an
alternative means of access to runway ends that currently
cannot support an ILS. At Palm Springs airport, Alaska Airlines
has reported over 20 instances where they were able to complete
the flight and land at Palm Springs using RNP SAAAR approaches
since its implementation in 2005.
Within the descent phase of flight, a strategy for reducing
fuel use and emissions is to minimize the use of level offs. A
general term for the broad class of descent routes and
procedures which are designed to reduce fuel and carbon
emissions during descent is Optimized Profiled Descents (OPDs).
Several domestic trial implementations of regularly scheduled
flights have shown significant promise. OPD flight trials at
Atlanta and Miami during 2008 involved 20 flights, with a fuel
savings of 50 gallons per flight and a carbon emissions
reduction of approximately 450 kilograms per flight.
MITRE recently conducted a nationwide analysis of arrival
flows at over 100 airports to assess the potential application
and benefits of OPD procedures. Ten airports were identified
with less complex airspace structures and flows where OPDs can
be implemented in the near term. The estimated range of
benefits achieved at those airports is equivalent to removing
4,400 to 13,000 cars off the road every year. At larger
airports the benefits are higher but the implementation of OPD
is more complex and is likely to require a longer time.
Beyond the near term, there are opportunities to combine
different NextGen capabilities to achieve even greater
benefits. Concepts for approaches to closely spaced parallel
runways combine the use of ADS-B and RNP capabilities with the
potential capacity benefit of adding 15 to 22 arrivals during
instrument meteorological conditions at airports such as San
Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle.
In summary, RNAV and RNP implementation over the past few
years have resulted in significant benefits. These
implementations have been successful due to the close
collaboration between the FAA and the aviation community
through forums such as RTCA and the Performance-based
Operations Aviation Rulemaking Committee, commonly known as
PARC.
As we move forward, we must consider the implementation of
those RNAV and RNP procedures that result in measurable high
benefits to the community, not just the number of procedures
that are implemented. Furthermore, we suggest a focus on
implementing OPD procedures at airports with less complex
airspace structures and flows which can more easily be achieved
in the near term. OPD procedures implementation at airports
with more complex airspace structures and flows should be
undertaken as a part of a more comprehensive airspace design.
Finally, as we look ahead, RNAV and RNP, in combination
with other capabilities such as ADS-B, data communications,
enhanced ground automation capabilities, and safe reduction in
separation standards, can result in even greater benefits.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I would be happy
to answer any questions the Committee may have.
Mr. Costello. Thank you, Dr. Sinha. The Chair now
recognizes Mr. Brantley.
Mr. Brantley. Chairman Costello, Congressman Petri and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting us to
testify today on RNAV/RNP.
PASS represents approximately 11,000 FAA employees
throughout the United States and overseas, including the flight
procedures development specialists, flight inspection pilots,
and mission specialists in aviation systems standards.
It is generally accepted that the use of new performance-
based routes and procedures has great potential to enhance
system capacity and reduce environmental impact and fuel costs.
However, a lack of clear guidance from the FAA has led to
conflicting ideas among the industry, FAA, and even
congressional proponents as to how these benefits can best be
realized.
An agenda supported by many in the aviation industry and
advanced by some Members of Congress is to set quotas for the
production of new RNP procedures without regard for the
feasibility of such a plan. PASS believes that quotas are
unrealistic, very likely unachievable, and are not based on the
potential safety, capacity, and operational benefits to the
overall NAS.
NextGen's promise is founded on shifting from ground-based
to satellite-based operation. This will not be accomplished
solely through the use of new technology. It will be a mix of
new technology procedures and operations that will transform
our current system into the one promised by NextGen. But it
seems that the drive for industry to equip with new technology
to realize benefits as soon as possible may lead to unintended
problems that could actually delay those gains. The best
equipped, best served policy offered by the FAA may not be the
best way to promote the adoption of new technology by users.
Since the FAA left it to the RTCA NextGen Implementation
Task Force to define the specific policy details, the priority
treatment promised by the FAA is unclear. Yet the rush to gain
this priority treatment has begun. The very complex issues
involved in developing and implementing new RNP procedures in
support of NextGen won't necessarily align themselves with the
best equipped, best served policy.
The work involves developing an integrated infrastructure,
not individual stand-alone procedures. Obstruction and
environmental issues must be resolved; controlled airspace and
air traffic flow must be taken into consideration; any needed
airspace rulemaking processes must be initiated; and
coordination with air traffic is needed to ensure that the new
procedure can be safely integrated into the management of the
overall airspace.
Additionally, during the development of a new procedure,
changes in other procedures are often identified, and further
coordination must take place to ensure that everything
continues to work together.
The numbers of special use procedures meant for the benefit
of the user developing them have always been small in
comparison to public use procedures which are meant for the use
of all qualified users of the system. However, the push to
develop thousands of new special use procedures would require a
coordination unlike any we have ever seen. Without extensive
oversight, these new procedures may not fit ongoing airspace
redesign efforts, and they may conflict with other RNP
development that is underway at the same time. To assume that
all conflict with public use procedures will be resolved
through the FAA's best equipped, best served policy is
unrealistic.
PASS also feels that any policy change to allow third
parties to develop public use RNP procedures is misguided. PASS
believes this safety critical work to be inherently
governmental. As such it should not be outsourced to private
vendors. Additionally, the changes in air traffic operations
that will be required for a systematic transition to the
capabilities offered by NextGen must not be unduly rushed. We
cannot forget that the changes that are coming include people,
not just technology and procedures.
The FAA has said that it believes it needs to take a
strategic approach to RNP/RNAV procedures development and any
corresponding airspace redesign work that is required to deploy
those procedures. PASS agrees with this approach and stands
ready to work with the FAA and other stakeholders to accomplish
the transition to the new capabilities.
That concludes my statement and I thank the Subcommittee
for having me here today.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Mr. Brantley, and now
recognizes Mr. Fuller.
Mr. Fuller. Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank
you for opportunity to testify today. There are a few things I
would like you to believe about RNP.
First, RNP means greater accuracy and precision and RNP
enables efficiency. It is through RNP that operators and the
flying public will derive the value of the NextGen air traffic
management system.
Second, RNP provides enormous environmental benefits.
Third, RNP is fundamental to the transition from the past
to the future.
Fourth, the technology is ready today. All we have to do to
reap the benefits of RNP is accelerate implementation.
GE Aviation is a leader in efficient technology, known for
its innovation in aircraft engines. But GE Aviation's
navigation systems have guided the world's most successful
aircraft for almost 2 decades. In fact, every 2.7 seconds an
aircraft goes airborne with a GE Aviation flight management
system computer guiding it.
Our current ATC system is outdated. It is a very large sky,
but we don't use very much of it, and what we do use, we use
pretty inefficiently. The airways we fly today are 8 nautical
miles wide because they have to be.
Radar was a technical wonder 50 years ago, but today it is
an anachronism. Today's GPS equipped aircraft are almost always
within a wingspan of airway centerline. The improved navigation
accuracy in all four dimensions enables increased airspace
capacity and efficiency.
Let me tell you about a couple of examples which showcase
the benefit of RNP and GE's technology. In Brisbane, Australia,
Qantas has been the lead carrier in a project that has
demonstrated that air traffic controllers can integrate RNP
capable aircraft and non-RNP capable aircraft in a medium
traffic density environment. They have already implemented RNP
at 15 Australian airports and are saving fuel and carbon today.
Another demonstration conducted by Scandinavian Airlines in
Sweden has taken RNP one step further and added the dimension
of time. Time increases predictability. With four dimensional
trajectory-based operations, they have added the ability to
deconflict traffic through trajectory negotiation. In thousands
of approaches into Stockholm, they have reduced by over 50
percent the area affected by noise greater than 65 db through
the use of RNP and 4D TBO.
In the case of RNP, it should be noted that all approaches
are not created equal. If you take an existing approach and
merely recreate it so that it might be flown using RNP
equipment and procedures, you get exactly the same results. No
reduction in noise, no reduction in fuel, and no reduction in
distance traveled. Unfortunately, many of the RNP procedures
posted in the United States over the last few years simply
replicate the existing ground-based navigation procedures and
in doing so create very little benefit.
We support the emphasis on measuring the benefits of new
RNP procedures as included in the Senate's FAA reauthorization
bill. We should increase the rate of RNP procedure deployment
and have metrics to ensure their effectiveness. RNP offers
substantial environmental benefits. It is estimated that RNP
has the potential to cut global CO-2 emissions by 13 million
metric tons. That is 1.2 billion gallons of fuel. This is a
very important path to energy independence.
Oddly enough, one of the factors slowing down the
proliferation of RNP procedures is the environment. Because the
RNP path differs from the path of the previous instrument
approach there is some question as to whether an environmental
impact statement is required to determine the impact of new RNP
paths. While this is a valid concern, there are immediate ways
that beneficial RNP paths can be designed that will not require
environmental review. In particular, RNP routes could be
designed in a way that replicate the routes taken by aircraft
on visual approaches over the same track of ground.
The benefits of RNP are very clear. So what should we do?
We think we should accelerate the creation of high quality RNP
procedures that use aircraft performance to drive the
efficiency. We think that, second, we need to create metrics
for success and measure approaches based on their efficiency.
Third, we need to accelerate the movement toward 4-
dimension trajectory-based operations and add time as an
element of the approach design.
And fourth, we need to integrate the efforts around
communications, navigation, and surveillance so that there is
one strategy and one vision. We think the time is now to work
together for the benefit of the environment, the airline, and
the flying public.
Thank you very much for your time.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Mr. Fuller, and now
recognizes Captain Martin.
Mr. Martin. Thank you, Chairman Costello, Ranking Member
Petri, and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Jeff Martin.
I am the senior director of flight operations and a Captain for
Southwest Airlines. Since 2006, I have been directing
Southwest's NextGen program, training our nearly 6,000 pilots
and equipping more than 500 Boeing 737 aircraft in RNP and
associated NextGen efforts.
Like Southwest, our RNP project is unique. In March of
2007, Southwest made an unprecedented commitment of $175
million to advance NextGen and make RNP an integral part of our
day-to-day operations.
Southwest based our business plan and set the standard for
a return on investment by determining that we need to reduce
our flight track miles by 3 miles per leg. Reducing flight
track miles burns less fuel. Fuel is an airline's highest cost
behind labor. So there is a national incentive for airlines to
reduce fuel burn. That also translates into reduced aircraft
emissions and lower fuel costs.
Southwest NextGen RNP project can be broken down into four
distinct work areas. One, aircraft equipage and modification.
Each of our 500 aircraft required some equipment modification
that consumed over 80 percent of our NextGen budget. Today 66
percent of our fleet is RNP capable, and we will complete our
remaining motivations within 4 years.
Two, FAA regulatory approval. For 2 years Southwest has
been working with the FAA towards achieving regulatory
approval. We learned last night that we had received FAA
approval from the FAA to proceed to our next level of our RNP
certification.
Three, pilot training. Training is already underway, but
developing that curriculum took 19 months and consumed 13
percent of our budget.
And fourth and last, airport procedures. Southwest is
working closely with the FAA to assist in the design of new RNP
flight procedures. Our goal is to have at least one carbon
negative RNP procedure at each of the airports we serve, much
like Chicago's Midway Airport as you can see on the screen. It
is safe, it deconflicts two airports, it reduces fuel and
reduces emissions.
A recent audit of our airport procedures revealed that we
have 412 runway ends that we serve. Of these 412 runway ends,
69 RNP procedures currently exist. Of these 69 procedures, 6
would reduce fuel and reduce emissions.
From start to finish, Southwest's RNP program will take 6
years. In addition to time and money, it has required focus,
project oversight, and considerable attention to human factors
such as education and training.
As mentioned, RNP benefits the environment, it benefits the
consumer, it benefits the carrier. By using available
technologies like RNP, the implementation of NextGen can be
accelerated. If implemented correctly and widely throughout the
national aviation system, RNP will, one, strengthen our
environment by greatly reducing the amount of fuel we consume
and greenhouse gases we emit; two, provide our customers with
less congestion and fewer delays; and, three, improve safety
and operational performance of the aviation industry.
Based on Southwest Airline's own demonstration flights, RNP
can reduce fuel burn and carbon dioxide emissions by as much as
6 percent per flight. Translating those savings across our
entire fleet, we can burn 90.6 million less gallons of fuel and
reduce our CO-2 emissions by 1.9 billion pounds annually at
Southwest airlines.
NextGen's success is dependent on industry and government
working together. We have worked closely with the FAA from day
one and we continue to have quarterly meetings with the FAA
Administrator. The FAA Administrator, Randy Babbitt, said--and
I quote--we must take advantage of what operators already have
invested.
RNAV and RNP work. We know that. With the airlines and the
economy still looking at a steep climb, the return on
investment is even more important. Southwest Airlines could not
agree more. Achieving a return on investment is necessary to
justify continued NextGen efforts.
Let me conclude with lessons learned. During the past 3
years, our airline has been fully engaged and committed to our
NextGen project. We have already equipped over 300 aircraft and
will complete our pilot training by 2010. Developing and
implementing our RNP project is without a doubt one of the most
complicated, time consuming, and expensive projects that
Southwest Airlines has undertaken.
In order for the industry and the public to achieve the
full benefits of RNP, it is incumbent on the FAA to design and
implement flight procedures like those at Chicago's Midway
Airport. For NextGen to succeed, FAA, airlines, and other
stakeholders must all be in sync.
Existing regulations and guidelines from the 1960s and
1970s need to be updated in order to utilize and benefit from
NextGen capabilities and technology. Successful use of RNP and
NextGen requires, one, a definable return on investment; two,
an emphasis on the quality of the procedure, not just meeting a
quota for production; and, three, a mandate to design and
implement new flight procedures that will reduce airline
emissions and fuel burned.
Southwest Airlines is proud to be leading the industry in
deploying our 500 aircraft into NextGen airspace. Thank you for
this opportunity to testify and to share our thoughts and
experiences with RNP. We look forward to working with the FAA,
elected officials, and industry stakeholders in ensuring RNP's
future success. Southwest Airlines remains committed to RNP and
NextGen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Captain Martin, and
recognizes Mr. Thomann.
Mr. Thomann. Chairman Costello, Ranking Member Petri,
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Brad
Thomann, and I am the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating
Officer at JEPPESEN.
JEPPESEN is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Boeing Company
based near Denver in Inglewood, Colorado. For more than 75
years, our company has been the premier provider of navigation
charts, databases, and other information solutions to the
general aviation, business aviation, and commercial entities
around the world in airlines.
Mr. Chairman, I really appreciate your convening this
hearing to discuss NextGen and RNAV and RNP. JEPPESEN and
Boeing believe these procedures are an essential element in the
NextGen transformation. In the previous testimony, we have
heard a lot about what RNP is. Please allow me to show you
visually what we are talking about.
So what we are looking at here is a traditional approach.
These traditional approaches are typically based upon land-
based navigation or way points off those land-based navigation.
There is large buffers around terrain and obstacles and
restricted airspace. There is a complex network obviously to
these base navigational facilities. And typically in approach
procedures pilots do what we call a dive and drive procedure
where we hit a way point or we hit one of these navigational
aids and reduce power and we come down. And that is how in this
case we make a descent into the airport and for the landing
where we catch the ILS or the localizer. A dive and drive
procedure is not very fuel efficient, nor is it environmentally
friendly.
Now, a vast majority of the instrument approaches in the
world today are flown according to this design philosophy. This
is well established, very safe, but we all agree it is near its
maximum capability in terms of efficiency, carbon emissions,
and capacity.
So let me show you, Mr. Chairman, now what the future looks
like. Let us look at RNP. So this is an RNP approach. And again
as we have talked already in testimony, it is a satellite-based
navigation based on GPS with RNAV performance monitoring. RNP
of course requires special certifications with the pilot, the
airplane, close coordination obviously with ATC. There is
training and equipment that Captain Martin talked about. But it
gives us a lot greater design flexibility. It allows us to do
curve-path approaches, stabilize continuous descent, which is
safer, gives pilots--I think the pilots in this room would
disagree--or agree. It gives us a lot more situational
awareness as we are flying stabilized approaches rather than
dive and drive, And it puts us in this very confined and
contained and safe containment corridor.
So why do we want to do this? And we have talked about this
throughout the panel, but one of the biggest one obviously to
pilots in this Committee and us is safety. It allows us to
provide these stable approaches, it allows to us get away from
this no dive and drive, a continuous descent approaches, pilots
obviously would agree that this is a safer method. It gives us
protection in engine-out emergencies and ensuring limited areas
with the very precise navigation requirement. It is
environmentally friendly, as we have already heard. Emissions
reductions, noise reductions is critical, not only for the
aviation community, the business and general aviation
community, but the military community as well.
And of course we have heard about the financial savings. We
get fuel savings as we have less path that we travel over the
ground. We get fuel savings as we have more of an idle approach
to this. And that allows the airlines to have greater
utilization. Every minute that they can shave off of a flight
is another minute they can put in productive service.
RNP is a critical part of Next Generation. The FAA has
built over 140 RNP procedures at 42 airports. And as we have
heard, some of the procedures do not provide the desired
benefit of time or lower minimums to allow us to get in. Only
15 to 25 percent of the aircraft, as I know it right now, are
equipped to use RNP and we need continued justification for the
airlines to equip like Southwest and Alaska, and that is by
building more procedures and allowing RNP to more airlines to
participate in and take advantage.
We need more procedures. And third party providers like
JEPPESEN can complement and partner and work side by side with
the FAA in order to give us more capacity.
However, we do feel that the FAA should conduct ongoing
maintenance of procedures once they are built. There is no one
better equipped, no one with a greater core competency to
understand our national airspace system than the FAA. And so
like we are doing currently at JEPPESEN and other providers, we
work every day side by side with the published approaches for
the airlines around the world, working with the FAA, and we
suggest we continue to have that great working relationship.
So in summary, RNP is a vital part of NextGen. This picture
up here is Heng Shan, China, a very complex terrain approach
that we designed out in China. It is a technology that is ready
now. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. What we do need to do
is continue to work together, government and industry, to make
this a reality.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to answer any of
your questions.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Mr. Thomann, and now
recognizes Captain Beck.
Mr. Beck. Thank you, Chairman Costello and Ranking Member
Petri and Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Gary Beck. I
am the Vice President of Flight Operations for Alaska Airlines.
I came to Alaska Airlines from Delta Airlines, where I served
as Senior Vice President of Flight Operations and Chief Pilot.
I am pleased to testify today on behalf of the Air Transport
Association and offer Alaska Airlines' unique experience with
and perspective on RNP technology. My testimony today will
focus on three key points.
First point, RNP is proven technology. Alaska Airlines has
a relatively long history with RNP technology, having pioneered
its use during the mid-1990s to improve safety and reliability
of our flights operating into and out of Juneau, Alaska, an
airport known for its bad weather and challenging mountainous
terrain. The first RNP-guided flight path was used by Alaska
Airlines to land in Juneau in 1996.
As many of you know, RNP enables aircraft to fly more
direct routes with pinpoint accuracy and reduces diversions due
to weather by using on-board navigation technology in the
Global Positioning System satellite network. It improves safety
and reliability in all weather conditions and reduces reliance
on ground-based navigational aids.
You could say the rough terrain and equally rough weather
in the State of Alaska gave the company the business case to
invest early in innovative technology that could help us more
reliably and safely serve communities throughout the State.
In doing so, our corporate leaders then took a risk in
being the first major U.S. Air carrier to invest in RNP, an
unproven technology at that time. We believe that risk was one
worth taking. Today we are the only major domestic air carrier
with a completely RNP equipped fleet and fully trained crews.
In addition to RNP, our all-Boeing 737 fleet is 100 percent
equipped with other modern safety technology, including the
Heads-up Guidance System, which allows take-offs and landings
at the lowest minimum weather conditions certified by the FAA,
as well as the Runway Awareness and Advisory, or RAAS, System,
a key tool in alleviating runway incursions. Alaska is the
first U.S. passenger carrier to install RAAS on all of its
aircraft.
Since that first RNP flight into Juneau in the mid-1990s,
Alaska Airlines has launched RNP procedures in partnership and
with the approval of the FAA into Palm Springs, San Francisco,
Portland, Oregon, and cities throughout the State of Alaska.
Alaska Airlines was also the first carrier to use RNP precision
technology to land aircraft at Reagan National Airport right
here in Washington, D.C., having worked with the FAA after 9/11
on the development of the Reagan procedures. Recognizing the
safety and environmental advantages of RNP approaches and
landings, the FAA worked diligently to make the RNP procedures
publicly available to all airlines that operate at Reagan
national.
In total, Alaska Airlines currently has RNP approaches
available to us at 23 airports throughout our system, nine of
which we developed with the coordination and approval of the
FAA.
In another first on the RNP front, last December, the FAA
approved Alaska Airlines to become the first U.S. commercial
air carrier to conduct its own RNP flight validation, laying
the groundwork for faster procedure approvals.
Second point. RNP saves time, fuel, and emissions. The
numbers speak for themselves. For example, in 2008, Alaska
Airlines used RNP procedures 12,308 times. 1,774 of these were
called saves. A save is defined as an operation that would not
have been completed if RNP were not available. In other words,
the flight would either have been canceled or diverted. In
doing so, we saved 1-1/2 million gallons of fuel, which equates
to a savings of approximately 17,000 metric tons of CO-2
emissions. In addition, we realized a savings of $17 million in
operating costs.
Third, RNP is a key tool in the NextGen modernization
effort. The original purpose of RNP was to provide guidance to
runways without Navaids and to reduce minimums. However, RNP is
now taking a new path. As part of the NextGen effort, the same
technology can and should be used to enhance capacity and
create more efficient approach and departure paths. In order
for the operational and environmental benefits of these more
efficient paths to be realized, the FAA must implement new
standards and procedures that enable the technology to be fully
utilized. For example, the FAA must develop new reduced
separation standards that take advantage of RNP's technological
capabilities.
At Sea-Tac airport in Seattle, Alaska Airlines is leading
an effort, in partnership with the FAA, the Boeing Company, the
Port of Seattle, and Southwest Airlines, to use RNP in just
that way to create more efficient paths that will reduce flight
path length and in turn reduce time in the air, fuel
consumption, emissions, and noise. This Sea-Tac project is
leading edge on the RNP front in that it involves the use of
RNP in complex airspace, requiring air traffic to be sequenced
and spaced at altitude as opposed to in the terminal space.
The lessons learned from and the benefits of the Sea-Tac
project can be replicated at major airports across the country.
The benefits are impressive. Carriers equipped to fly these
procedures at Sea-Tac will save more than 2 million gallons of
fuel per year, which equates to an annual savings of 22,400
metric tons of CO-2 emissions. The airline industry and the FAA
should be leveraging the use of existing technology as much as
possible to create airspace efficiencies and reduce aviation's
impact on the environment. That really is the mission of
NextGen.
Alaska Airlines is proud to continue our history of
technological innovation in our use of RNP at Sea-Tac. We look
forward to replicating the benefits of this project for all
equipped users at airports across the country.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my oral testimony. I am
pleased to answer any questions from the Committee.
Mr. Costello. Captain Beck, thank you very much for your
testimony.
Ms. Calvaresi Barr, I have a few questions for you. One,
you stated in your written testimony that the FAA will need to
implement a formal oversight program to ensure that third
parties properly follow FAA design criteria and procedures for
key areas. I wonder if you might elaborate on that statement.
Ms. Calvaresi Barr. Absolutely. I think we did hear clearly
across the board that the role of the third parties is
currently unclear, and while the vision for their use is on the
development of public procedures as well as special procedures
that would benefit specific carriers, we call into question how
well thought out a business case that is and to what extent
they will be used.
The first thing that has to happen to have a formalized
oversight structure is you need to know who you are overseeing
and what you are asking them to do. So my short answer to this
is we need to step back, we need to rethink the role that the
third parties will play. Then we have to recognize what it is
we are asking them to do. We have to do an in-house assessment
of our own capabilities and skill sets to oversee what we have
been asking them to do. We need to have metrics in place to
measure the ability to achieve the goals, and we need to do
that on a continual basis.
And the final thing that I would add is if it is not
achieving the larger vision, then we need to go back, rethink,
and have a mitigation contingency plan in place to revision.
Mr. Costello. You also expressed concerns about how special
procedures may further complicate the workload for the air
traffic controllers and increase the complexity of the national
airspace. I wonder if you might elaborate on that as well.
Ms. Calvaresi Barr. Sure. I would be happy to.
I guess if I would put myself in the seat of a controller
and I was dealing with a number of mixed capabilities and mixed
procedures, the number one thing I would want to know is how
big is that mix, what is that mix, what is coming at me, and
what do I have to be aware of to do my job to ensure safe and
efficient flights?
This is an issue. We need to understand what the new routes
are going to be, what the new procedures are going to be, and
who is equipped with what, and all the players and
stakeholders, including the controllers, need to be aware of
that. They also then need to be properly trained to handle the
uniqueness of these routes and these procedures, and they have
to have the tools to do so.
Mr. Costello. Thank you. Mr. Brantley, you indicated in
your testimony, you talk about how the FAA must have a
strategic approach to deploying RNAV and RNP. I wondered if you
might elaborate on what you think that this strategic plan
should look like.
Mr. Brantley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I believe, as
was just stated, part of the difficulty with everyone coming to
grips with this or getting on the same page is differences over
what priorities there may be, how new procedures will fit into
the overall system, and right now I don't believe the agency
has a comprehensive plan that stakeholders have bought into
that they have been part of. I think everyone needs to
understand what the priorities are for the overall NAS and then
develop a plan on how to get there. Everyone can't just be in a
rush, and that is where we have concern with the best equipped,
best served philosophy.
It sounds good, but that doesn't necessarily take the
agency where it needs to go. If everything could transition
overnight, that is one thing. But since it is going to be a
phased evolution it has to be done in a logical, thoughtful
manner in a way that best suits the needs of the overall NAS
and the flying public.
So that may cause conflict with different constituents'
priorities, but I think that has to be grappled with and a plan
has to be developed to address that as much as possible.
Mr. Costello. Thank you. Captain Martin, you say that the
FAA must apply useful RNP procedures, starting with the
Nation's 35 busiest airports. In your opinion, what is the
biggest hurdle that the FAA faces in deploying useful
procedures?
Mr. Martin. First, let me define "useful." We define
"useful" at Southwest Airlines as a safe approach, an efficient
approach, and an accessible approach. We agree with the FAA's
OEP roll-out plan. We have done a cross inventory against the
roadmap. And if the FAA meets their plan for deployment, that
meets our return on investment. So we completely support the
FAA's OEP plan roll-out. But our definition of "useful" is any
procedure that we define as safe, efficient, carbon negative,
and accessible, sir.
Mr. Costello. Very good. The Chair now recognizes the
Ranking Member, Mr. Petri.
Mr. Petri. Thank you very much. I appreciate the effort
that went into each of your statements, and the complete
statements of course are part of the record. I wonder--there is
one area that was a theme in many of your remarks, and that is
that there seems to be something of a chokepoint in going
through the environmental clearance procedures for these
variable, more efficient routes into airports. And I sit here
listening and think to myself, well, if you had an
environmental impact requirement on the rule here, these more
efficient routes save time, fuel, reduce emissions overall. So
is the rule that you are supposed to achieve environmental
efficiency, is that causing overall environmental inefficiency.
There is something wrong here with this procedure, because with
more flexible routes and changes and having to approve all of
them, it is delaying efficiency in the overall system and it is
counterproductive.
Could you comment on that? And is there some way we can
stand back and figure out a more efficient approach to achieve
the legitimate goals of these environmental requirements, and
really achieve them rather than saying we are meeting the
formal requirement when in fact what we are doing is causing
more pollution and use of fuel and all the rest of it? Who
would care to comment? Maybe Mr. Fuller or----
Mr. Fuller. Yes, sir, I will start. If you think about the
approval process and you think about rolling out what we think
are thousands of approaches that take into account aircraft
performance in order to gain efficiency, we have to think about
defining the process start to finish that can be achieved and
repeated very quickly and robustly. The organizations
responsible for approving the approaches have absolutely got to
be engaged in the machine, in the factory that produces these
approaches. And the environmental impact piece of it needs to
be addressed--what I would consider rationally--against a
balance of constraints. In other words, if 20 percent of your
approaches are flying a ground track as described by a visual
approach, we don't understand the need for reevaluating the
environmental impact if they are roughly the same track over
the ground.
Mr. Petri. They take into account evidently noise and
emissions right in that area, they don't take into account fuel
savings, time savings, overall improvements to the environment
that aren't related to those two factors. So it is kind of a
weird thing. It pretends to be an environmental impact
statement. It is really a not-in-my-backyard for people who
live near airports requirement as best I can tell.
Mr. Fuller. It most definitely could be.
Mr. Petri. Any other comments?
Mr. Day. Yes, sir. First of all, we can't take shortcuts.
And I think everybody agrees on safety and on our environmental
responsibility. And our approach to date has been runway by
runway. And what we propose moving forward is to look at the
National Airspace System and that when we look at these areas,
to look at an integrated approach to these performance-based
procedures so that as we look at the impact on the environment,
we are looking at adjacent airports and airspace, and we can
show the overall effect or savings as far as fuel and noise and
impact on the environment and on the communities.
So we believe that making the shift from looking at
individual procedures, to looking more at regions and more of
an integrated system in the communities, we can streamline the
procedure and be good stewards of the environment at the same
time.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the Ranking Member and now
recognizes the gentlelady from Hawaii, Ms. Hirono.
Ms. Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have been talking
about NextGen for quite a while in this Committee, and I
confess that just sometimes I get very confused as to what we
are really talking about and today for the first time we are
talking about something very concrete. So I thank all of the
panelists.
I am curious to know--I commend Southwest and Alaska for
taking the lead. I am wondering why it is that the other
airlines such as United, American, Northwest, why they have not
proceeded to implement RNP since it saves money, fuel, lowers
carbon footprint, efficiency? It sounds really good. Anybody
care to opine? FAA person. Sorry. Mr. Day.
Mr. Day. Certainly. It is tough times for the airlines and
they do have to make difficult choices in this environment. I
think everyone is committed and sees the value of these
performance-based procedures and the larger NextGen system as
we look at other capabilities and operational improvements. But
they are oftentimes faced with very difficult decisions. We are
absolutely delighted that we have had such champions and early
adopters as Alaska Airlines and American and Delta, and most
recently, Southwest to be those leaders. And we do think from
these measurable benefits that Dr. Sinha described, we will
excite and show the business case for making an investment in
this capability for these airlines.
Ms. Hirono. Are some of the other--did you want to say
something?
Ms. Calvaresi Barr. I would just also like to add that in
order to invest that kind of money in the types of avionics
that these carriers will be required to put on their aircraft,
they have to be assured at some point that the routes and the
airspace have been aligned in order to maximize those benefits.
So if I was buying a system, I would want to make sure that I
have an environment in which that system would be able to
return its investment, and right now I think with what we have
learned, the vision that FAA has currently on the books is just
overlays of what was the traditional ground-based radar system.
Ms. Calvaresi Barr. I am very encouraged to hear Mr. Day
say that they are taking a step back and they are thinking
about ways to maximize the airspace. I think once that is done,
you may see other carriers willing to step up and say now it is
time to put that kind of money into those high-cost avionics
because I think I can realize the benefits.
Ms. Hirono. I think that makes a lot of sense to me.
Mr. Day, sir, does FAA have some kind of a time frame in
which they can put in place the kind of procedures and
basically, I guess, procedures so that other airlines can make
these kinds of decisions moving forward.
Mr. Day. Yes, ma'am. So first of all, we have been on track
with our Flight Plan and also from the recommendations from the
performance-based aviation rulemaking committee to deploy
procedures. And from the community we are gathering an interest
and a desire to really move out more quickly in putting out
those procedures of value that have measurable benefits and
solve real operational problems. So we have the NextGen
Operations and Planning Office, and the Integration and
Implementation Office, which is responsible for helping to
integrate all of these operational improvements.
And as I mentioned before, we are making a shift from just
production to looking at the National Airspace System in
geographical areas, and when we go in there, looking at the
airspace, the airports, including the satellite airports from
the air transport airports, and taking a redesign of the
airspace so that we really can provide the value and the
benefit of having not only the vertical integrity of the
performance aircraft----
Ms. Hirono. My time is about to run out, so I am glad that
you are taking a comprehensive approach.
But what kind of time frame are you talking about? I don't
want to rush things. That is not what we are talking about. I
understand the testimony that says we are not just wanting to
have numbers here, we want to have qualitative improvements. So
is there a time frame for you to put these in place so that
more airlines can use this kind of system?
Mr. Day. Yes, ma'am. We have a NextGen integration plan. In
August, we will be getting the recommendation from the RTCA
NextGen Midterm Implementation Task Force which has over 300
participants. And we expect them to make recommendations that
are actionable for us to give that kind of clarity and focus to
our steps moving forward.
Ms. Hirono. Mr. Brantley, are you being consulted or are
you at the table with the FAA in all these discussions and
planning?
Mr. Brantley. Not to date.
Ms. Hirono. I think you should be.
Mr. Brantley. I agree. We would love to be.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentlelady and now
recognizes the gentlelady from Ohio, Mrs. Schmidt.
Mrs. Schmidt. Thank you. And I really appreciate Mr.
Costello for holding this hearing.
Like many on this Subcommittee, I have spent a great deal
of time looking at ways to stop the flight delays that we are
seeing, and there are many causes. And I think one of the ways
we can easily stop the delays is technology and NextGen.
Everyone on this panel has opened my eyes to the potential and
the problems.
I am going to focus my question to Mr. Fuller first, and
anyone else that would like to answer, simply because Mr.
Fuller represents my community. General Electric is in my
community. The headquarters is just outside my district, but
they test the engines in People's, Ohio, which is in my
district. And it is very important, and I want to thank GE for
all that they do to make my district as robust as it can be in
these tough times.
So, two questions for you, Mr. Fuller. The first is: Do you
have any suggestions on how the FAA might streamline the
lengthy environmental review process for special RNP
procedures?
And the second is, the RNP-equipped airline fleet has the
potential to save an airline significant sums of money, reduce
emissions, and contribute increasingly to the efficiency of our
national airspace system. Has the FAA done enough to
incentivize equipage for airlines? Two parts: speed it up,
streamline it and incentivize the process.
Mr. Fuller. Just real quick on the environmental piece, I
think, getting back to the thought that we need thousands of
these approaches in a short amount of time frame. To my
knowledge, the FAA--the United States infrastructure has never
had this kind of step change over this short duration of time.
All the aircraft that come out today, every 737 is RNP-capable
if it has dual FMS. And so we are not going to wait for the
airplanes to equip the airplanes will not be the delay.
So the machine that certifies the approach has got to be
robust and it has got to operate just like every other machine
that we would have in our facilities or our plants. It has got
to take the procedures through a process quickly and
expeditiously, and it has to find means of approving procedures
on time schedules that would make sense and achieve the kind of
goals that we are trying to achieve.
The second part of your question, you know, I think if you
looked at what really has to happen, performance, the aircraft
performance, the performance of each aircraft is what drives
one approach to be excellent and provide benefit or another
approach to not provide any benefit at all. And so unless we
create a system that allows the cooperation of industry and the
cooperation of the approving authorities, we are not going to
get to the approaches which take into account aircraft
performance. All aircraft do not fly alike. And so the
approaches that he wants are not necessarily going to be the
approaches that are optimum for every other aircraft. But the
efficiency gains for 737, A320 narrow body aircraft are
enormous, and so we have to get to that point where we can
deliver aircraft performance-based procedures.
Mrs. Schmidt. Does anyone else care to answer the two-part
question? Or one part of it?
Mr. Thomann. Ma'am, I would like to point out, in Ohio
there is a company called NetJets.
Mrs. Schmidt. That is a pretty decent company. I like that
company.
Mr. Thomann. And we need to consider them as well, because
the business aviation environment--NetJets is, what, 700
aircraft roughly? It is huge. And they have the same needs that
we need in the commercial environment. And they certainly
deal--we all deal in that same airspace. So we need these
solutions not only for the commercial side but for the business
and general aviation aircraft.
Mrs. Schmidt. I do have Lunken Airport in my district,
which NetJets probably go into quite a bit.
Mr. Thomann. Yes, ma'am.
Mr. Costello. The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from
California, Ms. Richardson.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning.
Mr. Day, could you please share with this Committee to what
degree the air traffic controllers have been involved in RNAV
and RNP in terms of its creation and implementation?
Mr. Day. As you know, the RNAV/RNP is a complex technology
requiring a lot of sophisticated software and design
characteristics. And so, while the overall design makes use of
engineers, mathematicians and whatnot, when the rubber meets
the road and we have to apply these procedures we need to
engage our controllers.
For example, the National Air Traffic Controllers
Association was invited and participated in the NextGen RTCA
Task Force that was making recommendations in August and did a
yeoman's job in helping us tackle some of those difficult
issues, and we look for recommendations.
Likewise, while the design may occur in other offices, when
we go to the facility for implementation, we do need the
participation of the controllers in making sure that we solve
some of these complex problems that have been described as far
as fitting equipped and nonequipped aircraft into the
operational environment safely. So they have participated in
that area, as well as the task force, and we look forward to,
as we get the recommendations out of the task force, their
continued involvement.
Ms. Richardson. On July 3rd, Secretary LaHood came to the
Los Angeles International Airport and met with the air traffic
controllers. And I don't believe, based upon what I heard in
that meeting, I did not walk away with the impression that they
felt they were fully engaged. And I would venture to say that
being more involved in a simple stakeholder and an occasional
meeting probably wouldn't be sufficient. Although we have
engineers who might deal with the mathematic aspects, it
doesn't mean that an ongoing personal, up-close personal
involvement throughout the entire process wouldn't be helpful.
Would you agree with that?
Mr. Day. I would agree that, as we do go to the location,
it is essential that we have the operators directly involved in
the implementation of these procedures.
Ms. Richardson. Are they engaged right now in every step of
the way of what you are doing?
Mr. Day. I can't say that they are involved in every step
of the way. I know that I certainly have engagement with
different representatives from the workforce in this, and we do
engage subject matter experts as we implement these procedures.
Ms. Richardson. I would strongly recommend, if you would
refer back to the staff with the Secretary based upon the
meeting and what was said, and ensure that to whatever degree,
because we don't want to reinvent the wheel, and it is far
better to have people involved all along the way, consistently,
as opposed to whenever you happen to show up at a particular
location for them to assist in training or implementation.
Mr. Day. I will take that IOU. And I was an air traffic
controller so I do know how important it is to have them
involved in the process.
Ms. Richardson. Great.
Ms. Barr, based upon your testimony and the work that has
been done so far, in your testimony you said that you would
recommend that this Subcommittee in particular would keep its
attention in regard to these two programs. What did you mean by
that and what specifically are you asking us to do?
Ms. Calvaresi Barr. I think this is an excellent step right
now, continued oversight with regards to how FAA is thinking
about the strategy for RNAV and RNP. Clearly this is an
enormous undertaking and task, but the benefits can just be
tremendous. Based on what we know so far, we have raised a
number of issues with regard to their implementation strategy,
which has for the most part relied on an overlay of existing
routes. That is not going to get us the benefits that can be
realized by these two systems and clearly will not get us to
what the NextGen goals are. So a continual look and focus on
the vision and the implementation plan by FAA on that front is
critical.
The second point that I would make is, given the discussion
we have had thus far regarding the role of the third parties,
if they are, in fact, needed for their expertise to develop
these kinds of avionics and these kinds of routes, then the
role has to be clear. All the stakeholders have to know what
each other is supposed to do, and it has to be put together in
an integrated and synchronized way.
So with that, I think much remains to be done. And I think
keeping a watchful eye over it is a good thing. I can assure
you the OIG has plans to continue to look at those two efforts
overall.
Ms. Richardson. Thank you so much and thank you, Southwest,
for your participation. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentlelady and now
recognizes the distinguished gentleman from Alaska, the former
Chairman of the Full Committee, Mr. Young.
Mr. Young. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is always nice to
be recognized as a former Chairman; but I will tell you it is
nice to be the Chairman, Mr. Oberstar, it really is.
But Captain Beck, I am brave, I fly your airline a lot,
Alaskan Airlines, and I think I know this answer. But I have
two questions of you. How does the RNP benefit the residents of
Juneau since you have instigated the RNP technology?
Mr. Beck. First of all thanks for your business. We
appreciate it.
But secondly, we have had a number of saves and I define
"saves" in my testimony; that is, a flight that would have been
canceled or diverted if we had not had RNP. And for Juneau
specifically, through June of this year we have had 338 saves.
Last year we had 956. This goes all the way back to 2005. I
believe we had about 550 saves that year. So every year, Juneau
is about one-third to one-half of all of the saves that we
experience with RNP.
Mr. Young. Do you use that same system in any other place
in Alaska?
Mr. Beck. Yes, sir. We have got RNP approaches at a number
of cities. Cordova comes to mind, Ketchikan, Kodiak,
Petersburg, Red Dog Mine, Sitka, and I believe Wrangle also.
Mr. Young. Now when you have a save, literally how much
does that save the airlines; do you have any idea?
Mr. Beck. Yes, sir. Last year it amounted to a little over
$17 million in savings. Since 2005 through June 2009, the total
amount of savings is $61 million.
Mr. Young. So this is a case where the equipment, although
expensive, can be paid for pretty rapidly because of the saves?
Mr. Beck. That is correct, sir. Our investment in RNP is
somewhere around $35 million. That includes the equipage. The
equipage is about $300,000 per aircraft, and it includes
equipage and training of our flight crews so you can see the
ROI on it has been very good for us.
Mr. Young. Like I say, I feel very good that you have that
equipment, because I used to fly into Juneau a lot and still
do. And it is a little bit awesome, if my members have done
this, because it is surrounded by mountains. I believe it is
the safest airport now with this equipment that we have in the
State, probably because before it was a little bit
questionable. Now we get in there most of the time, and I just
want to compliment the airlines for putting the equipment in
and making it modern.
I would like to see this done across the Nation because I
do believe in the long run it saves the pollution and it will
take and make money for the airlines. And I yield back the
balance.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman, and now
recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Bocceri.
Mr. Bocceri. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate this
discussion we are having today. It is very important we get
this right.
To Mr. Day, current procedures, departure procedures, SIDs
and the like, and instrument approaches into air fields are
already TERPSed, are already evaluated for performance-based
procedures. I am not real clear on why there is such delay in
putting weigh points through the RNF system overlaying existing
routes or existing points that have already been TERPSed,
already been evaluated for environmental conditions and the
like. Can you explain to me what the delay is with respect to
that?
Mr. Day. I am not sure I understand the question. If it is
just: is there a delay in production on overlaying the
departure procedures over ground-based procedures?
Mr. Bocceri. Yes. For ground-based NAVAID systems, we have
the automarker, you have the funnel approach fix and the like.
Why can't we just overlay our NAV positions, our NAV weigh
points over top of these? Is there some sort of complication
with technology with respect to that?
Mr. Day. We can and we do. And I don't know of a specific
issue that we have. Part ofthis is as you go to the more robust
performance-based procedures, it requires certification of the
air crew, the training program, the avionics, and then
certainly flying and testing the procedure and validating it
before it goes to publication. So there was just a normal cycle
time to produce those, but they are not technologically
difficult.
Mr. Bocceri. So surely that if we have existing ground-
based landing systems in ground-based NAVAIDs that had existing
routes, that have already been tested for environmental,
already have been performance-based on category of aircraft--A,
B, C, D--that we could put overlay RNF points along them to
save time. Or you are saying that is not a relatively
complicated measure?
Mr. Day. No, sir; it is not.
Mr. Bocceri. Why hasn't the FAA implemented that if it is
not very complicated?
Mr. Day. I think in my remarks, I noted that we have
published over 8,000 performance-based type of approaches; and
the overlays, which were the priority early in the life cycle
performance-based navigation routes, were where the focus was.
It was on the overlays. And one of the things that we believe
is important is to shift more towards where the greatest
benefits are; and as other members on the panel have discussed,
where we can change the route over the ground and cut miles
short to really add additional value to the procedures.
Mr. Bocceri. And I think that the airlines are talking
about using these RNF procedures because they are very precise.
They use NAVAIDs and INS systems to make this a very precise
approach. Does the RNAV program that you have running right
now--and RNP program--eliminate NextGen, eliminate ground-based
NAVAID in the future, looking out into the future?
Mr. Day. Looking out in the future, we do have to solve the
issue of backup to make sure that we have the safety component
covered. So, well down the road, because we do have a mixed
equipage environment, which will depend on ground-based
navigational capabilities for some time, as the equipage level
comes up we would expect to see that we will be able to retire
some of these ground-based assets, which we have already done
in some cases. I think you mentioned the outer markers and/or
the ADFs, you know, some of these legacy navigational aids. So,
yes, over time we will be able to retire some of those assets.
Mr. Bocceri. I know most pilots love redundancy, and from
the "department of redundancy department," we should make
certain that we have a backup, and ground-based NAVAIDs seem to
be that route.
Speak to me, as my time wraps up here, about the IKO, in
international--it seems as if Europe and some of our other
friends who have much more compressed airspace than we have,
have already implemented to sort of RNP procedures. Why is
there such a delay with respect to what we are doing when we
have much broader airspace than what they are doing?
Mr. Day. For one, the airlines operate worldwide, and
business aircraft as well, so we definitely want to harmonize
internationally those procedures. And we have a number of
standing Committees working with ICAO, CANSO, and other
organizations and air navigation service providers to
synchronize those efforts. And we are making very good progress
in the area. Also in some air navigation service providers in
country states, they mandate the equipage, so they could leap
ahead in the development of those routes. But we are very
closely harmonized, and I have a number of efforts going to
harmonize those efforts with other air navigation service
providers.
Mr. Bocceri. I think we can be the leaders in this and not
just followers in terms of what Europe is doing and what other
countries are doing. It is important that we get this right.
And I think we have to move with a sense of urgency, especially
around our congested airports. To help save money, fuel
efficiency and the like are very important to the airlines to
keep them solvent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman and now
recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, the former Chairman of
this Subcommittee, Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Day, let me ask you this. In Vision 100 we had an
environmental streamlining provision that allowed airports to
help provide funding and even use AIP funds at times to hire
additional staff to help speed up the NEPA or the environmental
procedures and reviews. Has that provision been used very much,
to your knowledge, or should it be expanded in any way?
Mr. Day. I can't speculate on the expansion of the program.
It has been a good program, particularly where we are putting
down new runways and infrastructure in airports. It has been
helpful to use some of those AIP funds to help fund the
environmental aspects of those operations related to the new
runways.
As you move out from the runways, certainly you get into
the airspace where then it becomes the responsibility of others
in the FAA and other budgets to work the environmental issues.
So we work very closely with the Council on Environmental
Quality in a lot of efforts to try and streamline the process.
But at times, based again on ground tracks of aircraft, it can
be a very lengthy and complicated process.
Mr. Duncan. Has the FAA made any estimate as to how many
environmental assessments and full environmental impact
statements might be necessary to fully implement this program?
In our briefing paper, it says you have got 2,000 to 4,000
development targets in the RNAV/RNP procedures, 800 to 1,200
RNAV and RNP routes; 1,000 to 2,000 RNP approaches; and then we
get on over, several pages later, and it says it normally takes
12 to 18 months to do an environmental assessment, and it says
that these environmental assessments are going to cost $250,000
to $1 million, and several millions of dollars for a full EIS.
We have got another estimate saying that up to $5 million and
as long as 8 years for one of these environmental studies.
And I just wonder, have you made any estimate or rough
guess as to how much and how long all this might take?
Mr. Day. I will have to take an IOU. I am not aware of
those estimates. I will say, however, that the shift that we
are making to step away from the legacy and look more towards
an integrated approach to airspace design meeting up with
performance-based procedures as well as integration with the
airports themselves. We believe this will help improve the time
and the efficiency and use of appropriated dollars to complete
those environmental studies.
Mr. Duncan. Well, is the estimate of 800 to 1,200 routes,
is that accurate? It is in a briefing paper we have.
Mr. Day. Yes, sir. We believe that is accurate at this
point in time. And we do believe that that may need to be
modified once we get the recommendations from the RTCA Task
Force.
Mr. Duncan. And would all of those require--or how many of
those do you think would require full environmental reviews?
Mr. Day. I can't speculate on what that number will be.
Again, if we overlay existing routes, we can normally cover
that with the existing environmental study and any Record of
Decision relative to those operations. As we move away and put
aircraft where they hadn't been before, sometimes depending on
the numbers and the altitudes, the numbers of aircraft and the
altitudes they fly, it could trigger anything from a
categorical exclusion to an environmental assessment, all the
way up to the most complex and expensive environmental impact
study.
Mr. Duncan. All right. Thank you very much.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman and now
recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. McMahon.
Mr. McMahon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Day, in your response to my colleague from California,
Ms. Richardson's, question about the air traffic controllers
being part of the NextGen planning process, I was just reminded
it seems that--I am from New York, Staten Island and Brooklyn,
New York--and it seems that in the planning for the
reconfiguration of the airspace there, the air traffic
controllers were not consulted in that process.
Am I correct in that belief? And if so, how does that
comport with what you said about the FAA working so closely
with the air traffic controllers?
Mr. Day. If you are referring to the New York/New Jersey/
Philadelphia airspace redesign, that project has been going on
for some time. And there was quite a bit of involvement, direct
involvement with the line controllers during that time. There
was a period where there was not as much involvement, although
there were subject matter experts that were involved, and we
continue to talk with the representatives of the air traffic
controllers and work towards more direct involvement in these
airspace projects.
Mr. McMahon. So you will agree with me that that is
something that should be achieved and they should be part of
that process?
Mr. Day. Yes, sir.
Mr. McMahon. As well as they should be NextGen. Thank you,
I appreciate that.
Mr. Fuller, in your written testimony that had been
submitted, you state that the advanced RNP technology is
"shovel ready," very important word to Congress and to America.
And could you just--and it could begin being implemented today.
Could you explain that more fully for us?
Mr. Fuller. Sure. Well the work that Alaska Airlines did
back in the nineties was with the flight management system
computers of GE Aviation. And the work that Southwest Airlines
is doing, upgrading their airplanes, is with GE Aviation
displays and flight management system computers. So new
aircraft are all capable of RNP today, by and large, every
narrow body and most of the larger business aviation airplanes.
So we are ready. The airplanes are ready to go.
Mr. McMahon. A broad question. I am almost asking you to
state the obvious, and I will ask if anyone on the panel--or as
many as can at a time--what, in your opinion, could Congress be
doing, what could we be doing to help speed up this processing
to get the next NextGen up and running? I am not stating the
obvious, but if you have any specific suggestions we would
certainly appreciate it.
Mr. Fuller. Was that specifically for me sir?
Mr. McMahon. If you would start, and if you have some
thoughts, I would be glad to hear them, Mr. Fuller.
Mr. Fuller. Sure. We continue to say that the airplanes
have the capability and it is aircraft performance that counts
the most; the vision of getting the FAA to realize that time is
the critical next element in the vision, the narrowing the
ellipse around the aircraft as it relates to its trajectory
negotiation is critical in forming the system of the future.
So as we talk about accelerating the things that are
important to us is that we collaboratively, the FAA, the
manufacturers, the airlines, collaboratively and quickly
demonstrate to ourselves that we can do this amongst a region
with a little less challenge; that we take those learnings to a
little more complex region. And we take those learnings to a
little more complex region; but we continue to learn through
the process, and we don't lose the opportunity to take those
learnings from sector to sector to sector, because it is just
absolutely critical that we take the two decades of learnings
that Alaska has and the 6 or 7 years that the Southwest has
been working on this and start pushing those into other
airlines in other regions.
Mr. Beck. Sir, if I may comment. I think we really need two
things. We need an expedited--and we know this is part of the
obvious--expedited certification and operational procedures
approval process. And secondly, we need a prioritized list of
where these procedures provide the most bang for our buck.
Mr. Martin. Sir, I would like to add also from Southwest
Airlines, as we move through this project I believe defining
environmental as carbon in addition to just noise. Our business
case was also built on fuel reduction and carbon savings. And
then also establishing the metric; how will we know if we
succeeded? We can do overlays, we can do special procedures, we
can do public procedures; but how do we know if we have
succeeded; what is the metric?
Mr. Brantley. I will try to be brief. I think doing what
you have done today, providing oversight, bringing the issues
to light, is very helpful. And I think continuing to do that
will be great because so many things have come up today that I
believe have to be addressed.
One of the things I have heard a lot is trying to speed
up--whether it is the review process, the approval process--
development. Those are all great things if it is necessary. I
think without knowing how many procedures are needed, where
they are needed, when, who is going to benefit, which ones do
need environmental reviews, without knowing the answers to all
that it is hard to say that anything has to go quicker, or if
it has to go more quickly what needs to be done to expedite it.
I think that the FAA really has to get their arms around
the priorities and what is doable. We know we can't implement
this all at once, so at some point the agency has to decide who
is first, and when, and lay that out for everyone.
Ms. Calvaresi Barr. Yes, I would also just like to
comment. I think "oversight" is an operative word, but here is
what I would add to that. These are the things I would want to
oversee.
I would want to oversee that FAA is moving from the old
ground-based system to the new one and the benefits that can be
achieved. I would want to make sure that they have an
integrative plan that aligns and synchronizes RNAV/RNP with
airspace redesign, with ground infrastructure improvements, and
new avionics, and that their policies and procedures are
updated to reflect that. Also, that the controllers and pilots
are trained and that there is an oversight strategy. That is
the business model. There is a lot within that.
Third, I would say we need to clarify the role of FAA and
then the role, alternatively, of third parties. And, finally,
someone needs to figure out what type of incentive structure we
need to equip the aircraft with the avionics they will need to
maximize the benefits.
Mr. McMahon. Thank you. I see my time is up. I thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman.
To clarify a point, Mr. Fuller, you indicated that the
newer aircraft have the equipage. How new? How far back do we
go?
Mr. Fuller. Right now the standard 737 coming off the line,
if it is equipped with dual FMSs, RNP, .1 out of the box, and
the A320 is also RNP, .15, then capable of .1 as well. So all
the narrow bodies that are being delivered today are capable of
RNP. And then a good number of the large business aircraft are
capable as well.
Mr. Costello. And how long has that been the case? How far
back?
Mr. Fuller. I don't know. I might refer that question to
Captain Martin or Captain Beck.
Mr. Martin. Yes, sir I can help you with that. Just as a
breakdown of our fleet all of the 737 NGs, airplanes we have
probably taken delivery of in the last 7 to 10 years, are RNP-
capable. Two hundred of our airplanes we refer to as the
classics require the modifications. So it is safe to say any
airplanes that have rolled off in the last 7 to 10 years, dual-
FMS-equipped will be RNP, .10.
Mr. Costello. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes the
gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Dent.
Mr. Dent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Day, good morning. I have a few questions for you. For
months the FAA has touted its best-equipped, best-served policy
promising more efficient routing for airlines who invest in the
NextGen technologies. How will the FAA implement this policy?
Mr. Day. Thank you, sir. The best-equipped, best-served is
really a notion that we actually have today. If you are
equipped with a Category 2 or Category 3 ILS capability, you
have access to an airport that others not equipped don't have.
Likewise, when we implement the Mode C Veil rule, we, for
safety reasons, require transponders with altitude and
reporting.
So taking those types of policies and applications, we
realize the best-equipped, best served does not mean
necessarily best-equipped, first-served. It does mean that we
create the opportunities, certainly in high density areas,
where we can provide a service for the profile in the
trajectory the aircraft wants to fly, so that they can make
utilization of their investment. It is complicated, and it is
going to take a lot of industry involvement from many people to
figure out in an applied fashion how we can introduce that type
of policy in some of these areas where we want to take
advantage of the equipment on the aircraft.
Mr. Dent. Can I also ask you what is the FAA's estimate for
the cost of training the air traffic controllers to handle the
larger volumes of the RNP-equipped air traffic. I want to know
what your estimate is for the cost of training air traffic
controllers to handle larger volumes for the RNP-equipped air
traffic.
Mr. Day. I don't have a cost estimate for that. We can get
some feedback.
Mr. Dent. The Committee would like to have that
information. Thank you very much.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Dent. And how have air traffic controllers, how are
they accommodating each special RNP procedure designed for
individual air carriers; for example, the special procedures
written for Alaska Airlines?
Mr. Day. One of the challenges on moving to a performance-
based environment is the mixed equipage and the different
profiles that the aircraft will fly. We have trained the
controllers on what these profiles look like. There still is a
lot of complexity and cognitive challenges for our controllers,
and we are working to get them some tools that will help them
space these aircraft, and early, very early, identify any
deviation from course or altitude so that they can do an
intervention to keep it safe. It is part of the integration of
these procedures into the existing system that is a major
challenge of implementing NextGen and where we are putting a
lot of effort.
Mr. Dent. Also in your testimony, you noted that
harmonization with the international community is important.
What are some of the most pressing concerns that must be
addressed with the international community as the RNP and the
RNAV procedures are being implemented?
Mr. Day. Well, building the consensus is certainly one of
them. And one of the things we have heard from the operators
and the manufacturers is they do not want to put double and
triple equipment for the region of the world that they fly in.
So that harmonization is important, to identify at a high level
and get agreement on what the requirements are for aircraft,
either retrofit or forward-fit, so they can operate worldwide.
And we are making some good progress on that and continue to
make that a priority.
Mr. Dent. And Ms. Barr, my question to you is: Some have
counted the RNAV and RNP among the low-hanging fruit for near-
term realization of NextGen benefits. Do you think that
characterization is accurate?
Ms. Calvaresi Barr. I actually don't. In my statement I
refer to those two systems as sort of the legs to the table.
And our understanding is that these two programs, RNAV and RNP,
represent, out of all the operational capabilities that will be
needed for NextGen, 50 percent of that. So I would say that
they are not low-hanging fruit.
This is an opportunity to redesign our airspace, to take
greater advantage of it, to have more precision in our flying,
to achieve a whole bunch of efficiencies. And my understanding
is that is, in large part, the vision for NextGen. So these are
major components.
Mr. Dent. Thank you, and I yield back the time.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks the gentleman and now
recognizes the distinguished Chairman of the Full Committee,
Chairman Oberstar.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Petri, and
Committee staff for the splendid work in preparing for this
hearing and for your continued vigilance, Mr. Chairman, on
these matters of aviation technology.
The testimony is both edifying and--well, it is edifying at
the same time it raises a number of questions. And I think, Ms.
Calvaresi Barr, you raised the most important issue. It is a
question I had prepared for myself to ask, but you sort of laid
the ground work for it.
And that question, Mr. Day, is has your office--have the
FAA created a progression graph showing where each of these
technologies fits in, moving from current NAVAIDs through RNAV/
RNP into whatever other elements there are of NextGen and how
each fits with the other and how they fit into the grand plan?
Or are you just doing step at a time without any overall all-
encompassing scheme?
Mr. Day. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman. And,
yes, we are, in the design of NextGen, which has a number of
solution sets, which I think you have been briefed on, where we
take the readiness level of the aircraft and apply the
performance-based navigation capabilities along with the
automation to support those, along with capabilities like
Automatic Dependent Surveillance as a surveillance source and
DataCom for decreasing voice communications and getting more of
an Internet-type of connection with the cockpit to transfer the
information that is needed.
These are laid out in our NextGen Implementation Plan, and
that is led by Vicki Cox, our senior vice president of NextGen
and Operations Planning, and we work with her office to
integrate these and approach these plans.
Mr. Oberstar. Do you have a graph that you could submit to
the Committee for our review of how each of these steps, each
of these new technology initiatives fits in, lays the ground
work for, is a stepping stone toward the next level, and the
cost both for air carriers and for FAA, and where this is going
over the next 15 years? You have a 15-year projection plan for
NextGen? I know you have repeatedly--FAA told this Committee it
is going to take that long.
And I ask that because over my years, 25 or so overseeing
aviation, we have gone from one technology to another. This one
is going to be the stepping stone to the next piece, and the
next one is going to be interoperable and it is going to be
interchangeable. And what we are dealing with is piecemeal
progression, not within a comprehensive overall plan, so that
we really know where one piece fits into the next.
And I give FAA enormous credit, which it doesn't receive in
the secular press. The aviation press, to put it in broadest
terms, does a good job of following these. But since 1985, if
my numbers are about right, FAA has installed 65,000 pieces of
technology to improve safety, improve navigation, improve
workload of controllers, improve the-- make easier the work of
pilots and air traffic controllers and professional air systems
specialists and so on.
But we turned a corner in all of that. We have gone through
the AAF, advanced automation system. We have gone through the
new STARS TRACON technology, we have gone through the end route
technology, and probably pushed those technologies about as far
as they can go. Now we are into satellite-based navigation
technology, and it is going to take a much greater level of
coordination than ever before, much greater control of costs.
So I would like you to answer that inquiry.
Mr. Day. Thank you, Chairman, and we will get that
information for you. And we have been criticized before for
lining up programs in a very linear fashion. And that is one of
the reasons why we developed our Enterprise Architecture with
clear milestones and have an Integration Implementation Office
to make sure that these system-of-systems that we are deploying
are synchronized and are aligned and executed well, using the
taxpayers' dollars and including a lot of stakeholder
involvement. But we will certainly go back and give you a very
detailed description of that.
Mr. Oberstar. I think the Committee would benefit from
this.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Oberstar. And other Members have asked the question of
engaging the air traffic controllers and the professional air
system specialists in the design and development of these new
technologies. And you have indicated--but I want to get a more
clear statement from you--yes, we are engaging controllers,
professional air system specialists as we develop these
technologies.
Mr. Day. I think one of the major commitments that the
Administrator made, and the Secretary, is to get more line
involvement in these types of technologies, and we are
committed to improving those relationships and that involvement
from our subject matter experts.
Mr. Oberstar. As STARS was being developed--and goodness
knows, I went to Raytheon, I went to Lockheed Martin and others
who were--Lockheed was developing their famous Ollie competitor
system. And each time I did, I found, well, they are going back
and redesigning this, because after the engineers at FAA--the
engineers who were implementing FAA specs at the contractor
level--presented their ideas to the controllers, they thought,
Oh, there are major things that we didn't anticipate, we didn't
ask them about, such as the fixed trackball; it is over here
for right-handed air traffic controllers; well, what about
lefties? We are going to have to reach all the way across. So
that led to the moveable trackball.
Simple things could have avoided hundreds of thousands of
dollars of redesign if you just brought them in earlier in the
process. It isn't a matter of, oh, we want to feel good and ask
their input after we have designed it. You need to engage them.
They are the practitioners.
What benefits do you anticipate for the most complex
airspace from RNP? Like the new New York TRACON, like the
Southern California TRACON? The Southern California TRACON
handles, for those who don't really know why I am asking the
question--I suppose most of the people in the audience do--but
it handles more air traffic than all of Europe combined. And so
does the New York TRACON. It handles navigation for 45
airports. That is 2-1/2 million operations a year, those two
alone. We have, what, 30 million operations a year handled by
TRACONs, and that is more than 10 percent of the whole
operation in those two TRACONS. How are they going to benefit?
What do you anticipate?
Mr. Day. First of all----
Mr. Costello. And my next question is: How does this fit
into the east coast design?
Mr. Day. Thank you for the question, sir. And the real
exciting part about this is we are moving from that hard-wired,
ground-based, point-to-point, not scaleable system, to one that
is network centric, very flexible and agile in fitting the task
to the design.
And the exciting part of this is that by using technologies
like performance-based navigation, particularly the highest
type, the RNP/SAAAR types of capabilities, we are able to take
the airspace and the approaches and departure and segregate
them, both the major air carrier port from the satellite
airports and the routes that they fly. So particularly where we
have legacy airports that are land-constrained and we can't add
any more runways, we will be able to take what I call those
tightly coupled interdependent operations and segregate them by
the performance of avionics on the aircraft. And then, of
course, we will need the automation systems.
But that is where the tremendous value is here with these
advanced capabilities is: to untangle the old legacy system.
But it does require automation. It does require airspace
design, and it is going to need the involvement of a lot of
stakeholders, operators as well as controllers and technicians,
to make this work.
Mr. Oberstar. I would estimate the FAA has spent something
like 10- to $15 million on the several east coast airspace
redesigns, each one shelved because some other group said, oh,
no, we are going to be impacted by the noise or we don't like
these approaches or something else has come up in the meantime.
So, I want to get back to my question: What benefits are
there going to be for, say, the New York TRACON? How is this
going to make their--how is RNAV going to make their job
better? RNP, excuse me.
Mr. Day. One is the confidence of the precision of the
approach or the procedure being flown. Right now there are a
lot of touch points. As you mentioned, the New York TRACON
interfaces with all the adjacent towers in the centers, and
technology is no longer the limiter on the performance of the
system.
So as we converge the technology with the automation
equipment, we will be able to give them very good situational
awareness, very good tools to help them know precisely where
the aircraft will be, and will alert them when they are out of
conformance. So I think they will be very excited and see a lot
of benefit in these tools because their business is providing a
service. And they care about that. They want to provide the
best service. And with these tools we believe the RNP as well
as all the other capabilities that we envision----
Mr. Oberstar. That is a good step in the right direction.
It is not a test and I am not challenging you, I am just trying
to unfold the pieces of this system. Is the software going to
have to be changed in the TRACONs? Are the screens going to
have to be changed as part of this? Is this going to require
some additional hardware and software cost investments?
Mr. Day. We know the life cycle of the equipment that is
out there, and we have road maps from surveillance as well as
navigation and automation, and even facilities that we see in
the future that we are going to have to make design changes.
But that will likely involve a number of changes from displays,
increased use of colors, and different alerting, some new tools
to help them sequence and separate aircraft, so there will be a
lot of change over time. But the good news is it will be
organized, not program by program, but really more as a
portfolio and an integrated approach to making these very
needed changes in the system, but doing it in an orderly and
organized way.
Mr. Oberstar. There has apparently been a success in
Alaska. Alaska Airlines says they like these changes; it saved
them. Southwest. Southwest likes the changes. But you have had
experience, so in those airspace--up in those airspaces, if you
will, what have been the technology or equipment changes
required?
Mr. Day. In Alaska, for example, we were able through the
Capstone project to put displays in the cockpit so that they
would have situational awareness of other aircraft in their
vicinity, so----
Mr. Oberstar. Both on the flight deck and at the controller
level.
Mr. Day. Yes, sir. At the Anchorage Air Traffic Control
Center, we are able to surveil and separate aircraft using ADS-
B targets with the radar targets up in the Bethel area. So we
have been able to--where they didn't have that type of safety
and service before--at least in the demonstration project, to
prove that we could use these technologies to provide that
safety and service.
And as the gentleman from Alaska Air mentioned, we have
been able to have just an awful lot of saves, and safety as
well as good service, for the citizens of Alaska into Juneau.
Mr. Costello. Will general aviation, not corporate
aviation, but will piston engine, general aviation aircraft
benefit, be able to use RNP?
Mr. Day. Yes, sir. And they are using it now. There is an
expense, and so not everyone, all facets of general aviation--
--
Mr. Oberstar. King Air. What would a King Air have to do?
Mr. Day. Many of them are equipping now with some of the
advanced avionics. Certainly RNAV equipment. There is more
expense involved as you go to the higher levels like RNP, and
they may not need it, dependent on their----
Mr. Oberstar. They wouldn't need it flying into a
noncommercial airport. But in flying into one of the 429
commercial major airports in the country, you certainly want to
be--if they want to fly in that airspace they will want to use
that technology. What would it cost to equip a King Air or
Queen Air to use that technology?
Mr. Day. I don't have it off the top of my head but I know
we do have those estimates for different states of equipage,
whether it be from the low end to the very high end, or also
whether it is a retrofit or a forward-fit for those aircraft.
We can get that for you.
[The information follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Oberstar. We have probably 100,000 of those types of
aircraft that use the commercial airspace, and it is of
importance. And when I have to travel around my district, and
need to go from the Canadian border, International Falls to
Minneapolis/Saint Paul, and there isn't Northwest Airlines
service, I have to charter. And I want to know that my charter
operator is going to be able to--and I hear this from other
Members as well. It is a general question so it would be useful
to have that.
Mr. Thomann, will Jefferson/Boeing--it is so sad that
Jefferson disappeared on its own. Such a great name in
aviation. It was swallowed up by Boeing. But at any rate----
Mr. Thomann. We are privileged.
Mr. Oberstar. Good answer. I am sort of a nostalgist. Some
of these things it would be nice to be left alone. But at any
rate, will you continue to produce hard-copy charts, or will
this remarkable progress in technology succumb to simply
changing the software on the computers on board aircraft?
Mr. Thomann. It will be both. So we are continuing in this
digital transformation. As you know, it is a 75-year-old
company, with good old Captain Jeff, started drawing those
charts on that little black book. We are still drawing those
charts. In fact, we print about a billion of them. And that is
down from about 2.2 bil.
As we get new technologies and the general aviation
aircraft--which, by the way, are capable of flying RNP--and
they use them in smaller airports or, like, going into Eagle,
Colorado, where it is very terrain-challenged, RNP allows an
airplane to get in there, where normally it would take a 1,200
AGL above the ground for this person's minimum with 4 miles
visibility. With RNP, you are pushing it down to 400 feet, a
mile and a quarter. So it allows these aircraft also to
participate.
To answer your question, sir, we are going to continue to
print the paper charts until we can get a total digital
transformation, which is our end goal.
Mr. Oberstar. All the Digital Age is wonderful. I do not
demean it in anyway. And I love seeing those pilots with stacks
of charts this thick. And I worry when they come on board with
something this size that will have 1,200 charts in it and
something blows a fuse.
Mr. Thomann. So you can get our charts that way now, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. I know. And then there is going to be the
day, as happened to me, when the pilot turns to me and says, Is
that White Iron Lake down there? And I say, It sure is. And he
says, I have never flown up here before, I wasn't sure.
So, yes, I am not a Luddite. I think these are great. But
when they fail, then you are really out of luck.
Mr. Thomann. They can be--and there is enough redundancy,
and I am a pilot with a pacifier myself, sir. So when I fly a
little Cirrus, it has all the avionics that I could possibly
ask for and the electronic charts. But I still have my pacifier
in the left seat, which is a paper chart.
Mr. Oberstar. That is a good idea.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for being vigilant. I thank our
staff for their splendid work on this complex matter. And we
will continue to revisit, and we ask the IG to continue your
vigorous oversight, and thank Southwest and Alaska for real-
world participation.
Mr. Costello. The Chair thanks you, Chairman Oberstar.
And do other Members have questions? If not, let me assure
you and the IG's Office, Ms. Calvaresi-Barr, that we will
continue to provide vigilant oversight at the Subcommittee
level.
As you know, we have had a number of hearings on NextGen.
We will continue. And we have had roundtables too, not just
formal hearings, but we have sat down informally with not only
folks from the FAA but the inspector general's office and
others in the industry to get updates, reports, and try and
stay abreast as to what progress or the lack of progress is
being made.
So I think some very good points were made this morning. We
appreciate all of your testimony. And this concludes the
hearing today. And the Subcommittee will stand adjourned. Thank
you.
[Whereupon, at 12:01 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]