The FAA remains on track to deliver its new Data Communications (Data Comm) system to more than 50 ATC towers and Tracons next year, followed by the en route centers in 2019, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta told attendees of an Aero Club meeting yesterday in Washington, D.C. The agency, which has been testing the system in Newark and Memphis for the past two years, expanded Data Comm to Salt Lake City in August and then to Houston last month. The trials in Newark and Memphis “are delivering great results,” Huerta added.
Considered a key part of the FAA’s NextGen efforts, Data Comm transitions pilot/controller communications from the current analog voice system to primarily digital text. “Data Comm promises to ease congestion on our frequencies and to reduce the potential for misunderstanding critical safety information,” he said.
While the FAA expands Data Comm, Huerta noted a number of other key milestones the agency has reached as part of the NextGen efforts, including deployment of the En Route Automation Modernization (Eram) in March and completion last year of the installation of 634 ground transceivers that make up ADS-B core technology. He also noted that the agency has implemented numerous new satellite procedures in Houston, Washington, D.C., and Northern California, saying those efforts as well are saving millions of gallons of fuel. “NextGen is arguably the most ambitious project we have taken on as an agency,” he said. “It’s a commitment that the entire agency has embraced.”