Next Generation Air Transportation System: Linking Test Facilities Can Help Leverage Resources and Improve Technology Transfer Efforts

This testimony discusses the use of test facilities as a means of leveraging public, private, and academic resources to deliver technologies for the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen). NextGen will affect nearly every aspect of air transportation and will transform the way in which the air transportation system operates today. It is a complex undertaking that requires new technologies--including new integrated ground and aircraft systems--as well as new procedures, processes, and supporting infrastructure. The result will be an air transportation system that relies on satellite-based surveillance and navigation, data communications, and improved collaborative decision making. Transforming the nation's air transportation system affects and involves the activities and missions of several federal agencies, though the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the lead implementer. In addition, NextGen was designed and planned to be developed in collaboration with aviation stakeholders--airlines and other airspace users, air traffic controllers, and avionics, aircraft, and automation systems manufacturers--in order to facilitate coordinated research activities, transfer technologies from FAA and partner agencies to the private sector, and take advantage of research and technology developed by the private sector that could meet NextGen needs, as appropriate. Three NextGen test facilities, collectively referred to as the NextGen Test Bed, are designed to foster the research and development of NextGen-related technologies and to evaluate integrated technologies and procedures for nationwide NextGen deployment. These test facilities provide access to the systems currently used in the national air space (NAS) and house various types of hardware, simulators, and other equipment to allow for demonstrations of new technologies. They also provide opportunities for stakeholders--public and private--to collaborate with FAA, academia, and each other. This statement today discusses (1) the role of the NextGen test facilities in the development of NextGen technologies and how private industry and partner agencies participate in projects at the NextGen test facilities, and (2) our previous findings on NextGen technology transfer and FAA's efforts to improve the transfer and implementation of NextGen-related technologies. This statement is based on our prior NextGen-related reports and testimonies, updated with information we gathered from FAA and test facility officials in October 2011. The GAO reports cited in this statement contain more detailed explanations of the methods used to conduct our work, which we performed in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.