The only real modernization that my wife and I have performed on our 21-year-old Cessna Skyhawk has been to the panel. When we bought N734EY some six years ago it had a freshly overhauled engine, new paint, and a good interior. But we quickly scrapped most of the original Cessna 300 radios in favor of some compatible slide-in units. At my wife's insistence we added a panel-mount Trimble VFR GPS. The price for all these investments was substantial, but we figured that our airplane was certainly equipped for the future. We were wrong.
Over the past year, AOPA has been spending considerable time and energy on committees composed of airlines, the military, and general aviation that are attempting to reach consensus on the air traffic system of the future. Part of the new reality will be the replacement of every piece of avionics on today's GA panel. You read that correctly — our panels will be obsolete when the full transition has been completed. All of this change is in support of National Airspace System (NAS) modernization.
Although the words National Airspace System modernization have been around for almost two decades, they have resulted in little modernization — despite the expenditure of almost $40 billion in aviation tax revenues. Adopted in the early 1980s as an $11 billion project, it was to be completed in 10 years. At almost four times that amount of money, and nearly 10 years late, the FAA and we — as the users who fund a majority of the system through taxes — have little to show for it.
To make matters worse, the hardware in the air traffic facilities is getting old and the software code is an old military type that needs a complete rewriting. Radio frequencies are scarce — just listen to any unicom during a VFR weekend. The land-based system of VORs and NDBs is not only aging, but expensive to maintain. How far should the repair of older equipment or the installation of new ILS approaches go when GPS appears to be the future for primary navigation? Before replacing the aging radar stations, the FAA must look seriously at a different method of surveillance; ground radar interrogation of transponders could be replaced with position reports broadcast from each aircraft. Add it up and this means replacement of our com and nav radios, as well as our transponders.
As your association staff members sit through endless hours of meetings on these subjects, one thing is quite clear: NAS modernization must be a collaborative effort between the government and our civilian and military aircraft fleets. The government can realize huge savings during the design process if it approves a modernization plan that moves the financial burden to the airplane, funded by the aircraft owner or operator. In this debate, both the airlines and military are on the side of GA — they don't want the burden of new equipment mandates any more than we do. The major air carriers are insisting on 25-year returns on their avionics investment.
The FAA, on the other hand, faces a massive task. It must modernize in a relatively short period of time if it is to accommodate the projected growth in airline traffic over the next seven to 10 years. The almost-20-year-old NAS Plan has resulted in very little improvement because, as AOPA has been telling Congress over the past year, the agency has traditionally used the "Big Bang" theory: Embark on giant programs that bureaucrats can build careers around, yet will never be completed as they were envisioned. This is the approach of making changes in a revolutionary way.
Your association has been advocating an evolutionary process. Take "bite size" projects that can bring immediate benefit, instead of trying to do the whole thing at once. We have pointed out that while modernizing the air traffic system, the FAA also has to operate the world's busiest facilities. You can't just shut the system down and start with new equipment, software, and procedures. In congressional testimony I have likened this to remodeling a house that you have to live in at the same time. You do it one room at a time, and you pick the rooms that offer the greatest benefit to continuing to live in the house.
We can do the same with NAS modernization. Pick the programs that are in the low hundreds of millions of dollars, rather than the multibillion-dollar level; and as they are completed, make sure that they bring immediate relief to the capacity constraints of tomorrow's system. This gives the airlines what they need for the short-to-medium term, and it brings GA closer to a navigation system designed around GPS. Most important, it puts off the need for total equipment changes in all our panels. If these concepts are adopted, the evolution of new aircraft requirements will span enough time for most of us to plan for the transition.
The first major change will be in navigation equipment: IFR-approved, WAAS-capable GPS receivers will replace VOR receivers in our GA aircraft. Sometime in the period between 2010 and 2020 we'll be looking at a replacement for our present communications receivers, since new digital technology will replace the analog boxes. And finally, the transponder will become a thing of the past, since GPS will transmit our position over a datalink to other aircraft and the ground.
Rest assured that AOPA is involved in this modernization effort to ensure that general aviation is not mandated to carry new equipment that brings us little benefit, or that restrictions are placed on our use of airspace or airports because we don't carry expensive new technology. Following the concept of evolutionary rather than revolutionary change will ensure that this modernization gets accomplished in a manner affordable to all aviation users.
