Representatives of airline maintenance and engineering communities will gather today in Minneapolis for the AMC and AEEC annual meetings, which have been collocated for the first time in recent history.

Steve Gorman, Delta Air Lines chief operating officer and executive vice president, will give the keynote address to a joint opening session. Delta subsidiary Northwest Airlines is the host airline for both conferences, which are co-sponsored by Aviation Today’s Daily Brief’s sister publication, Avionics Magazine.

Avionics suppliers also participate in the two conferences and more than 40 will be represented, said ARINC, the conference organizer. The Annapolis, Md., company reported 700 pre-registrations.

AMC and AEEC are two of the three conferences organized by ARINC Industry Activities (IA), which also holds a flight simulator engineering conference. AMC, formerly known as the Avionics Maintenance Conference, represents the airline maintenance community. AEEC, the former Airlines Electronic Engineering Committee, represents engineers involved in the design and standardization of aircraft systems.

This year’s joint annual meetings, held at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, also represent the 60th anniversary gatherings for both organizations, which trace their common beginning to an action of the ARINC board of directors in 1949.

“Holding both meetings at the same time is a response to changing times and changing economics,” said Mike Rockwell, who heads ARINC IA. “Parallel meetings in one location are clearly more efficient for the many companies that want to attend both conferences each year.”

The collocation of the two conferences represents an ongoing evolution for ARINC IA. The unit since 2007 has operated under new ownership following the acquisition of ARINC by The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C., private equity firm. That same year, the three aviation conferences shed their longer titles for acronyms and transitioned to membership organizations. While AMC and AEEC are supported by a core group of airlines, they have been challenged in signing new airlines to membership agreements.

Explaining the collocation in a recent interview, AEEC Chairman Kuehl of UPS, said, “Our primary motivation is to get more benefit for the attendees, and getting more exposure to both aspects of the operations. There are relationships between the specifications and the maintenance sides and there are interdependencies and common concerns.”

Within the airline community, “there are questions of course,” Kuehl said. “Anytime you have something new, you’ve got concern for the change. But I think we are optimistic on most fronts. There should be some efficiencies here and it should save us some time and give us more benefit for our effort. Everybody’s certainly willing to give it a try.”

Industry has Reservations about Next Gen
The airline industry and aircraft manufacturers stand behind replacing existing navigation radars with satellite-based navigation, but believe more can be done to make the transition more financially palatable to the aviation community.

Speaking at last week’s ADS-B conference, industry officials justifiably expressed grave doubts about FAA’s ability to manage NextGen, as well as distrust that it can do so in a timely manner or provide the right incentives for industry to overcome its doubts. Related Story

They also reiterated their stance that the FAA’s requirements for ADS-B equipage are unnecessarily costly and do not provide the information or incentives needed for aircraft equipage. Airlines complained of FAA’s failure to include stakeholders in the development of its Next Gen rules. They also called for the interoperability of future nav systems in order to limit aircraft avionics installations.

Just last week, Eurocontrol put its future Global Positioning System (GPS) based air traffic control system, dubbed SESAR, into limited service. The data-processing infrastructure for the system is based in Maastricht, The Netherlands, and will initially control traffic only over Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and northwest Germany.

Experts predict that flights over Europe will more than double, from 10 million to 20.4 million by 2030, despite the current drop in activity due to the worldwide economic recession. Full implementation of the SESAR is targeted in Europe for 2025, which is five years after the U.S. plans to fully implement The Next Generation Air Transportation System, or NextGen, its own home grown GPS-based air traffic control system.

The flight data processing system is the first of its kind in Europe to be developed in accordance with European standards on interoperability between systems. It is tied to the Single European Sky, an initiative launched in 2004 by the European Commission to reorganize air traffic management in Europe into a flexible, harmonized and homogenous network.

Eurocontrol’s Maastricht Control Center will make it possible to reduce flight distances by calculating the most direct air routes possible. Some 1.5 million flights pass through the Maastricht Center’s area of responsibility each year, making it the second busiest air traffic control center in terms of traffic volume after London. During the summer, there can be as many as 5,000 flights per day.

Aircraft flying in the U.S. today are tracked, for the most part, by radar. A new system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), a key element of NextGen, uses GPS satellite signals to more accurately identify the aircraft’s location throughout the flight. In the near future, controllers will be able to safely reduce the separation standards between aircraft, which will provide increased capacity in the nation’s skies.

ADS-B will enable commercial aircraft flying under instrument rules to fly directly to their destinations, rather than jagged routes that use ground-based VHF omni-range (VOR) radio beacons to guide aircraft safely to their destinations.

The FAA first rolled out ADS-B in Alaska, a site chosen because the rugged terrain severely limits radar coverage. Aircraft were equipped with ADS-B avionics, including a cockpit display. This display provided the pilot with the aircraft’s location, the location of other aircraft, and graphical and textual weather information on a moving map. The fatal accident rate for aircraft equipped with ADS-B avionics, which gives pilots a cockpit display showing where they are in relation to bad weather and terrain — dropped by 47 percent.

In the lower 48, United Parcel Service (UPS) voluntarily equipped 107 of its aircraft with ADS-B avionics in order to save time, fuel and carbon emissions on flights to and from its Louisville hub.

Pilots flying in aircraft equipped with ADS-B avionics in South Florida now receive free traffic and weather information on their cockpit displays marking the first time that pilots are able see the same traffic information that’s seen by air traffic controllers. The display of traffic information (called Traffic Information Service-Broadcast, or TIS-B) and weather information (Flight Information Service-Broadcast, or FIS-B) was made possible by the installation of 11 ground stations in South Florida by ITT.

The ground stations transmit satellite signals showing aircraft locations to pilots and controllers. Flight information now being broadcast free to pilots includes graphic displays of bad weather tracked by the National Weather Service and essential flight information, including special-use airspace and temporary flight restrictions.

ADS-B coverage will soon come to the Gulf of Mexico, where the FAA, in partnership with the Helicopter Association International, is installing ADS-B ground stations on oil rigs. This will bring surveillance services, aircraft locations and weather data to both low-altitude helicopters servicing the rigs and high-altitude commercial flights operating beyond radar coverage in the Gulf.

The FAA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding the agency’s transition plan to the ADS-B system. FAA’s planned implementation would require installing ADS-B on all aircraft operating in U.S. air space by 2020. The proposed rule garnered more than 300 comments, some centering on the fact that mandated equipment on board aircraft would provide only the ADS-B “out” service, where signals transmitted out (identification, GPS position, altitude, heading, speed and other data once per second) would be used primarily by the air traffic control system.

Pilots would not be provided with information about other traffic around them, a capability available only with ADS-B “in” equipment, the addition of which was not mandated by the proposed rule. Aircraft equipage of ADS-B “in” and cockpit displays was optional. Some operators view the mandated equipage as providing them little or no benefit, although they acknowledge improvement to controller provided information.

The ADS-B ARC’s report presents specific recommendations to the FAA concerning the proposed requirements for ADS-B Out. The Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) could not reach consensus on whether the FAA should mandate equipment meeting interim ADS–B Out standards, three years earlier than the NPRM proposed compliance date, to achieve early benefits in certain airspace. The ARC recommends that the FAA retain the 2020 compliance date, but incorporate into the ADS–B Out program additional benefits for all NAS users as developed by the ARC. The ARC also advocated that the FAA approve the use of interim ADS–B Out equipage for separation service in the Gulf of Mexico and for non-separation applications in radar airspace well before the 2020 compliance deadline.

The FAA also should incentivize operators to voluntarily equip early for the 2020 mandate. Airlines are wary of the new requirements because they have voluntarily equipped in the past only to see such equipage unable to be used because of the FAA’s slowness in rolling out its corresponding equipment. The Air Line Pilots Association recently testified to airline frustration with mothballing aircraft equipped for modernization that was never used to full advantage. The ARC identified additional measures that would benefit the low altitude community, and recommends that the FAA take advantage of this opportunity to provide a positive business case for that large segment of the aviation community.

ADS-B is strongly supported by the Air Transport Association (ATA) and its member airlines, but ATA said the ADS-B NPRM “was not warmly received because it lacked industry input prior to its publication.”

The FAA’s ability to successfully implement NextGen is threatened by the lack of a detailed plan and measurable goals and the air carrier’s reluctance to equip aircraft, according to officials monitoring the multi-billion dollar program.

The Government Accountability Office’s Gerald Dillingham said the FAA has made progress in planning for and developing NextGen with recent versions of NextGen planning documents partially addressing some of the GAO’s concerns about their usefulness. “But industry stakeholders continue to express frustration that the documents lack any specific timelines or commitments,” he testified.

Industry stakeholders have suggested that the FAA focus on maximizing what can be done with existing, proven capabilities and existing infrastructure. Partly to help accelerate the implementation of NextGen capabilities in the midterm, the FAA has created a NextGen Midterm Implementation Task Force, which is to report its recommendations to FAA in August. The task force plans to identify and prioritize capabilities that can be implemented in the midterm and potentially be deployed regionally to address key bottlenecks.

Dillingham said essential to the mid- and long-term success of these efforts is persuading the airlines to make costly investments in NextGen equipment. Having been burned in the past, the industry is reluctant to go forward with equipage without clearly demonstrated benefits. Incentives that could encourage such investments include operational preferences — such as preferred airspace, routings, or runway access — and equipment investment tax credits. FAA will also have to validate, certify, and issue rules for these capabilities.

“Recent changes in the management structure for NextGen, though designed to address industry stakeholders’ and others’ concerns about fragmentation of authority and lack of accountability, have not fully addressed these issues and have raised further questions about parties’ roles and responsibilities. Indeed, the reorganization raised Congressional ire recently since it directly contravened stated wishes in not only Vision 100, the last reauthorization legislation to be passed, but proposed legislation that has been introduced since its expiration two years ago.

“Additionally, human capital issues remain to be resolved, including the degree to which key stakeholders, such as controllers and technicians, are involved in NextGen efforts and whether FAA is able to acquire the systems engineering, contract management, leadership, and other skills needed for NextGen,” he added.

“The FAA faces challenges in addressing ongoing research needs, reconfiguring and maintaining existing facilities, and enhancing the physical capacity of airports,” Dillingham testified.

Department of Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel said “developing NextGen is a high-risk effort involving billion-dollar investments from both the Government (new ground systems) and airspace users (new avionics). The challenges with NextGen are multi-dimensional and involve research and development, complex software development and integration for both existing and new systems, workforce changes, and policy questions about how to spur aircraft equipage.”

He said the FAA faces significant challenges with key NextGen transformational projects. The FAA has established initial cost and schedule baselines for the first segments of two key NextGen initiatives: ADS-B and SWIM. “Our work shows that both programs face considerable risk associated with development and implementation and will require significant oversight,” said Scovel.

FAA Senior VP-NextGen and Operations Planning Victoria Cox said the FAA is working closely with all aspects of the aviation community to make NextGen a reality. “We are working steadily and carefully to bring NextGen to fruition. Our programs are currently on track, our partnerships are strong. We have mapped out our course and we are moving towards our goals.”

Cox conceded that aircraft equipage is critical, and former FAA administrator and current Aerospace Industries Association President and CEO Marion Blakey says aircraft are not required to be equipped with ADS-B technology until 2020, so there is a seven-year gap between rollout of ground stations and mandatory equipage. She said Congress should provide incentives for users to install the equipment before that deadline, allowing users to take early advantage of the benefits of NextGen.

Air Transport Association President and CEO James May agreed. “We have arrived at a pivotal moment for U.S. aviation. Industry stakeholders support the FAA NextGen program – an event not to be overlooked – and the FAA has developed a comprehensive implementation plan. The plan’s flaw, which delays NextGen benefits for too long, can be overcome by an immediate boost in funding to jump-start equipment deployment on the ground and in the air.”

Mike Lewis, Boeing’s director of ATM programs, says “ADS-B is as simple a concept as you can have. The 1990s concept made sense then and it makes sense now. But the challenge of getting even a simple technical idea into an air traffic control management system is daunting and will take a lot of coordination.”

He said ADS-B must have: a solid ground infrastructure, aircraft equipage and set procedures and regulations. “The three circles must come together,” he believes.

“Boeing supports ADS-B as a key part of ATM transformation. We are working on ADS-B developments around the world. We need ADS-B standards and aircraft equipage and global interoperability is critical.” Lewis said, citing recent FAA/Eurocontrol coordination as “encouraging.”

The Boeing executive said multiple equipage cycles are problematic and must be avoided if a business case is to be made. “We encourage the FAA to find ways to use current equipage while the FAA and industry establishes final standards.”

He said equipage readiness is uncertain as are user benefits and the current economic crisis is not promoting spending on technology advancements. Lewis said the FAA must define, develop and deploy ADS-B enabling operations while recognizing the need for global interoperability as a first order of business.

He also advocates “financial support to close the business case for early adopters. It does seem that some kind of financial incentive is potentially necessary, clearly desirable, especially as regards ADS-B Out, if you want to accelerate ADS-B operations, closing the gap between the FAA mandate and some minimum level of operational benefits users might get.

“It seems there is room for some innovative financial thinking and leveraging of not too many dollars as compared to the multi-billion dollar investment being made and the multi-billion dollar payoff that’s possible by moving toward ADS-B. I can’t see this (ADS-B) being held up by not getting that critical mass of first users because of investment hurdles,” Lewis said.