NBTA, Airline Industry Push For 'Cleaner' Planes
ALEXANDRIA, Va.—The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) and 10 other organizations from the commercial and general aviation community recently submitted a letter to Congress requesting stimulus funding to jumpstart NextGen—the Federal Aviation Administration's plan to update the ground-based air traffic system.
Bill Connors, NBTA executive director and chief operating office, said NextGen would help to equip aircrafts with necessary technologies to reduce carbon emissions. "NBTA is proud to join the aviation community in encouraging Congress to invest in accelerating the modernization of the nation's aviation infrastructure. In doing so, we can speed up the plan to improve aviation environmental contribution and achieve greater airline safety and performance, reducing delays for corporate travelers across the globe."
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released an update to its NextGen Implementation Plan on Jan. 30, 2009. The FAA provided these these facts about NextGen:
What is NextGen?
The Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) is the FAA's plan to modernize the National Airspace System (NAS) through 2025. Through NextGen, the FAA is addressing the impact of air traffic growth by increasing NAS capacity and efficiency while simultaneously improving safety, environmental impacts, and user access to the NAS. The FAA is implementing new routes and procedures that leverage emerging aircraft navigation capabilities, including Performance-Based Navigation (PBN), which is helping FAA to achieve its NextGen goals.
What is Performance-Based Navigation?
PBN is a framework for defining navigation performance requirements (embodied in "navigation specifications") that can be applied to an air traffic route, instrument procedure, or defined airspace. PBN includes both Area Navigation (RNAV) and Required Navigation Performance (RNP) specifications. PBN provides a basis for the design and implementation of automated flight paths as well as for airspace design and obstacle clearance. Once the required performance level is established, the aircraft's own capability determines whether it can safely achieve the specified performance and qualify for the operation.
What Is RNAV?
Area Navigation (RNAV) enables aircraft to fly on any desired flight path within the coverage of ground- or spaced-based navigation aids, within the limits of the capability of the self-contained systems, or a combination of both capabilities. As such, RNAV aircraft have better access and flexibility for point-to-point operations.
What Is RNP?
Required Navigation Performance (RNP) is RNAV with the addition of an onboard performance monitoring and alerting capability. A defining characteristic of RNP operations is the ability of the aircraft navigation system to monitor the navigation performance it achieves and inform the crew if the requirement is not met during an operation. This onboard monitoring and alerting capability enhances the pilot's situation awareness and can enable reduced obstacle clearance or closer route spacing without intervention by air traffic control.
Certain RNP operations require advanced features of the onboard navigation function and approved training and crew procedures. These operations must receive approvals that are characterized as Special Aircraft and Aircrew Authorization Required (SAAAR), similar to approvals required for operations to conduct Instrument Landing System Category II and III approaches. For more about NextGen, visit the
FAA's website.
