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May 26, 2010 - The
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) awarded three separate Next
Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) contracts totaling up to
$4.4 billion over 10 years. Under the contracts, the companies will
perform work that will demonstrate NextGen procedures in real time on a
large scale within the current air traffic system.
“NextGen is an
economic opportunity that will challenge innovative companies to expand
their workforce and help us modernize our National Airspace System,”
said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “Under NextGen, air
travelers will be able to fly to their destinations safer and faster.” Boeing, General Dynamics and ITT were awarded the contracts worth up to $4.4 billion. The three contracts, like one for $280 million awarded last month to CSSI, Inc., are part of System Engineering 2020 (SE2020). |
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Two more contracts
are expected under SE2020, which has a ceiling of $7 billion, making it
the largest set of awards in FAA history. Boeing, General Dynamics and
ITT will conduct large-scale demonstrations, including the use of
aircraft as flying laboratories, to see how NextGen concepts, procedures
and technologies can be integrated into the current system.
“NextGen is an
intricate network of systems that involves everything from air traffic
control to weather,” said FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt.
“We need to have the right tools to make sure we integrate all
these different components safely and smoothly.”
The FAA will work
with these companies to develop and demonstrate new procedures in four
dimensions, adding the element of time to the current three-dimensional
profile of an aircraft’s latitude, longitude and altitude. Introducing
time to this profile means that under NextGen, pilots and controllers
will know not only where an aircraft is with greater precision but when
the aircraft is supposed to be there.
Unlike the current
system of “roads in the sky,” 4-D operations will allow aircraft to fly
from Point A to Point B more directly, while taking into consideration
factors such as heavy traffic and bad weather. |
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