NextGen Air Transportation System Vision
NextGen Video - Evolving Technologies for the Next Generation Air Transportations System
NextGen is a transformation of the National Airspace System (NAS), including our national system of airports, using 21st century technologies to support aviation's expected growth.
For the FAA, NextGen focuses on evolving the way the agency provides air navigation services, in order to support an expected doubling of demand from an increasingly diverse U.S. aviation industry. It also emphasizes efforts to build upon our impressive safety record and to improve aviation's environmental performance through advanced aircraft performance capabilities and alternative fuels.
With NextGen, FAA's role will transition from air traffic control to air traffic management. Today, the FAA is responsible for safe separation of aircraft, and, in most airspace, directs their movement on the ground and throughout flight. In the future, we will be able to predict an aircraft's trajectory – its position in any given space and time – more precisely than is now possible. FAA will negotiate with users on their preferred flight trajectories prior to and during the flight, so that the flow is improved across the entire NAS. For this to be successful, the aircraft must be capable of predicting, communicating, and maintaining its agreed-upon trajectory. Future aircraft will also share responsibility for maintaining separation with other aircraft. As aircraft performance capabilities increase, overall system performance increases. Successfully achieving NextGen will depend on taking full advantage of capabilities already resident in aircraft, as well as identifying, integrating and implementing additional capabilities to meet NextGen goals.
NextGen leverages aviation's move toward more precise navigation. More accurate and predictable flight paths, along with reduced runway to runway separation standards, allow for greater flexibility in airport design and enhancement, allowing airports to build runways closer together. This provides new opportunities for expansion and development within existing airport footprints, which otherwise may be constrained by geography and costly land acquisition. Furthermore, precision departure and approach paths avoid environmentally sensitive areas without impacting airport capacity.
In the NextGen system, most communications will be made through digital data, much of it transferred directly from computer to computer. Navigation will be satellite based, allowing for flight paths that are more precise than those dictated by today's ground-based infrastructure. Surveillance also will be primarily satellite based, providing full situational awareness of all air vehicles to both controllers and equipped pilots. The airspace will be managed dynamically, with air traffic control services not tied to a geographic location. Probabilistic weather and demand information will be integrated into the automation, and aircraft will be able to land in bad weather using synthetic vision, where the pilot flies with the help of a computer-generated image of the runway. These changes will allow for “equivalent to visual” operations during periods of reduced visibility.
Also in the NextGen environment, relevant information will be shared easily among system users through network-enabled information access. In other words, the right information will be available to the right people at the right time.
The challenge will be in integrating new systems into the foundation of today's NAS, and providing an efficient transition to new ways of providing services. The NextGen Implementation Plan and its supporting processes will guide the agency through this effort.
