27 February 2007
The FAA has approved national deployment of ADS-Bas the cornerstone of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (aka NextGen or NGATS). The Agency’s Joint Resources Council (JRC) approved the move late last week.
ADS-B is part of the attempt to move air traffic controlling from a ground-based to a satellite-based activity, and will give pilots more information in the cockpit about other aircraft, and more accurate data to controllers about aircrafts’ positions, thereby – potentially – allowing more aircraft to fly in the same airspace, more safely.
NextGen is the controversial programme which the FAA wants to put into place by 2025, with the apparent intention of making the skies over the USA safer. However, to pay for the programme, the FAA wants to charge <a href=”newsfeed.php?artnum=444″>user fees</a> from all airspace users – effectively it’s a new tax on general aviation.
