NextGen soon

With ADS-B operations under way in Philadelphia and Louisville, the FAA takes another major step forward to NextGen.

Commercial aviation has engaged in a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario over the last couple years when it comes to the FAA's NextGen air-traffic-control initiative. A number of airline CEOs have said they would like to equip their aircraft with the avionics systems necessary for satellite-based navigation but don't want to spend the money necessary to do so if the infrastructure is incomplete and only a fraction of other airplanes are so equipped. In essence, they say, the business case needs to be made first before they will invest in the technological leap to NextGen.

Well, in late May, the FAA said that the decision whether to equip aircraft with the proper avionics or to not equip is not the airlines' to make. It mandated that aircraft operating within certain airspace must begin broadcasting their position via Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) by 2020.