A recent article in Aviation Week provides some interesting insight to a report issued by the RTCA about how we will implement the NextGen air traffic control system in the United States. Unfortunately, I'm not comforted by what I read.

RTCA stands for Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics. They are an advisory board composed of people from all over industry and academia. The FAA goes to them for advice, as was the case with this report. I haven't read the full report yet. Why? I can't afford it. Maybe you can though. It's available on the RTCA website...for a few hundred bucks.

The point that Aviation Week focused on is the question of how the government expects to convince hundreds of thousands of pilots to outfit their aircraft with NextGen equipment. I shopped for an IFR GPS recently and was appalled by how much it would cost to get the full system installed. That was just for refurbished hardware. Installing factory-new equipment in an aircraft today is very expensive. Will just saying, "Here's NextGen. Everyone come play!" be enough? I'd assert that the majority of GA aircraft are happy operating in the current system the way it is and that the chances of getting them to spend more money NextGen benefits that may not actually help them are pretty slim.

The RTCA says that the government will need to offer incentives for equipping aircraft to operate in the NextGen system. Specifically, Aviation Week mentions low-interest loans, direct subsidies or income tax credits. I'd say that these tools will absolutely be necessary. It's tough enough to afford to operate an aircraft in a down economy, people are going to need some help if they're supposed to install new equipment at a cost guaranteed to be at least several thousand dollars.

One of the other startling facts that comes to light from this article is the fact that the FAA hasn't though through much of this yet. Even the RTCA report didn't specify how much aid should be given to ensure installation of NextGen equipment.

It goes beyond that though. The article mentions the FAA's proposed policy of "best-equipped, best-served" for NextGen. I posted an article about that earlier this year. Basically, I can't believe that the FAA would even admit to considering such a policy. According to Aviation Week, Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel has some misgivings about this policy as well. He notes that it would represent a major shift in American aviation and that nobody has actually thought through how it will work yet. I'd say he's being generous in his optimism regarding that policy.

If you don't believe me, take a look at FAA Administrator J. Randolph Babbitt's speech about the RTCA report. After reading about this report and this speech, what really scares me is the feeling that nobody has thought much about the specifics of how we're going to implement NextGen at all. Mr. Babbitt thinks that offering NextGen capabilities will be enough to convince people to shell out the cash to equip their aircraft. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that he is mistaken. The FAA is leaning so far forward wanting to implement the system that I worry they are going to fall over and hurt the rest of us when they go down.

I agree with all the officials, the capabilities of NextGen are good...they are worth having. However, as I have said over and over again, we are not ready for NextGen. We don't have the infrastructure to support it and now I see that we haven't even thought through the policies of using it.

Mr. Babbitt: how do you expect to accommodate three times the density of airline traffic at our already overcrowded Class B airports? How, specifically, do you plan to help the average pilot afford to equip their aircraft to operate in your new system? What specific equipment will be required and what specific services will that give us access to? If I can't afford to or don't want to install that equipment then how, specifically, are you going to try to impinge on my freedom to access the National Airspace System? Until you can answer these questions in a way that is at least somewhat fair to pilots across the board, would you please consider slowing down a bit and thinking things through? If you don't, you may end up spending billions of taxpayer dollars to implement a system without anyone having any idea of how it is supposed to work. That, sir, would be an unfortunate waste.