How many of you remember back when they used tapes to listen to their music or audio recordings in their car or house devices? It wasn't that easy to get rid of them and implement the CD or USB readers, and it took long time, decent amount of money, and patience from people to adapt slowly to the CD or USB. So, don't you think that is the same exact concept with NextGen in aviation industry?
To begin with, for those who have limited clue, NextGen is a comprehensive and ongoing transformation of our National Airspace System and is a continues roll-out improvements and updates. It's major components of change and benefits are: Moving from radar-base system to a satellite just like your GPS system in your car, it tracks and guides traffic precisely and efficiently, it reduces aviation environmental impact, for passengers there will be fewer time delays, it's the largest and safest system providing great ATC service for both civilian and military, safer or more predictable to use allowing more aircraft to be close flying in the air with less margin of error.
But how does NextGen work and why do we need it? It works by installing a ADS-B system inside aircrafts that connects the pilots in the air with ATC on ground. As the aviation industry grow, it needs accommodation to its growth. In 2009, having 5000 airplanes in the air, there were 689 million flights, 36 billion pounds of cargo transferred, and an increase prediction of 50% by the year 2025. As we know, the aviation industry contributes 11.5 million jobs, 396 billion wages, 1.3 trillion to U.S. economy, and 5.6 GDP ratio growth. Because of the demand and growth of the aviation industry, we need a reliant program that gives us the best results.
Despite all the positives benefits and FACTS that NextGen brings, there are three things that are considered as obstacles in the way which are cost, time, and people. The ADS-B device is expensive that cost thousands of U.S. dollars that is hard to comprehend how we are going to afford it. The more manufacturing there is, the grater competition we have that can drive its price down by giving it more time to elapse and less government involvement that can make it possible to be adapted.
To conclude, no new technology that evolved was an easy concept to adapt because it always involves money, people and time to approve the demanded change....
It is staggering to look at those economic numbers and hear people talk about funding problems that would clearly upgrade the system. Being able to help reduce emission is also a huge plus. Just as we get funding to fix roads (some of them at least) the highways in the sky need some major repairs.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem is that no one will buy into the system until there is infrastructure to support it. Also tax payers will no accept putting in infrastructure if no one can use it. So the chain has to start somewhere.
ReplyDeleteInteresting numbers, that really paints a picture of the possible effects this new system will have on these operations. I also agree with the first comment on reducing emissions. NextGen definitely needs to be looked at as a long term investment that will actually cut costs in the future.
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