House approves Transportation appropriations
<BR><SPAN class=twodeck>Bill heads to Senate</SPAN>
- Improvement in the Dissemination of Notams
Legislation provides that $1 million shall be used for the transfer of notice to airmen (notam) services onto the special-use airspace management system (SAMS). The FAA is directed to take the central notam processing function and rehost it on the SAMS platform to ensure that notams are properly disseminated. - Increase in Number of Nonprecision GPS Instrument Approaches
Legislation provides $5 million to increase the number of nonprecision GPS instrument approaches developed and published for airports that are not Part 139 certificated, and to develop GPS routes to help supplement the current airway route system. These routes will provide important safety and other benefits to GA pilots, including access to currently inaccessible airports. In addition, the FAA is to assure that the GPS instrument approaches provide the necessary procedural information known as LNAV/VNAV minima, to enable their use by pilots in obtaining guidance to the runway once the Wide Area Augmentation System is in place. - Increased Benefit for GPS Users
Legislation provides an extra $5 million for initial funding of geostationary satellite services, bringing the total funding to $80.5 million for the continued development of WAAS. The FAA is also encouraged to certify individual applications for the WAAS signal rather than waiting for certification for the entire WAAS program, a measure that could provide all general aviation users equipped with GPS systems with immediate benefit. - Safe Flight 21
Legislation provides a substantial increase to $39.3 million in the Safe Flight 21 account, $13.3 million over the President's request.- Prevention of Runway Incursions
Legislation supports the continuation of project to place maps of general aviation airports on moving-map equipment in the cockpit. A potential benefit is the reduction of runway incursions by allowing pilots to know precisely where they are on an airport. Accordingly, the FAA is encouraged to disseminate the database of airport diagrams at no cost to manufacturers. - Funding for Capstone/Safe Flight 21
Conferees approved additional resources provided for the Capstone to be used for the development of additional cockpit weather software and continuation of a Capstone test bed. Capstone is an aviation safety initiative that involves global positioning system navigation, terrain avoidance technology, traffic alerting, and datalinking of weather conditions directly to the cockpit.
- Prevention of Runway Incursions
- Replacement of Computers in Flight Service Stations—OASIS
Legislation provides full funding of the Operation and Supportability Implementation System, know as OASIS, which is designed to replace the aging computers currently used by flight service specialists in the FAA's 61 flight service stations to provide GA pilots with preflight and in-flight weather briefings. The current system dates back to the 1970s, and parts are not always available for repairs. - Aviation Fuels Research
Legislation provides an increase of $400,000 over the President's budget request for the General Aviation Propulsion—Compression Ignition Test and Evaluation Program (GAP CITEP), a joint NASA and FAA effort to evaluate durability testing of alternative fuels (Jet A and diesel) to facilitate the transition away from leaded aviation fuels for general aviation.
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