The General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) is happy that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finalized the industry-wide technical standard orders (TSOs) for Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) since it is the backbone of NextGen.

 GAMA believes ADS-B will migrate the existing radar surveillance infrastructure from the ground to a distributed aircraft and ground-based system. Previously, manufacturers did not have the standards necessary to design and build ADS-B equipment needed to meet the performance required for NextGen.  These standards will now permit manufacturers to move forward with the production of ADS-B equipment.  If the necessary financial incentives are also made available by the federal government, there will be a dramatic acceleration of NextGen benefits including improved safety and reduced costs for the FAA.