Required Navigation Performance Archives

Reading government documents isn’t very much fun sometimes, but it often reveals informative tidbits, such as this table found on page 43 of the FAA’s NextGen Implementation Plan of March 2011.

It’s clear that GA is way behind the airlines when it comes to preparing for the Next Generation Air Transportation system, and the airlines aren’t doing that great either, when you consider the 2020 deadline will be here faster than most people appreciate.

Yeah, the whole NextGen project isn’t perfect, it’s not on time or budget, and our elected officials can’t agree on or pass the FAA appropriation let alone anything else. Despite it all, NextGen is making progress, and the FAA has made it clear that in the new world, those best equipped for NextGen will be served first. GA operators who procrastinate will pay a premium if they wait until the deadline to think about NextGen upgrades.

This is especially true for operators who fly GA instead of the airlines. Yes, I know, it is expensive, but what in aviation isn’t? So in taking the first step toward NextGen, take a lesson from Southwest Airlines, which earlier this year finished a four-year upgrade of its 737-700 fleet of 345 airplanes with required navigation performance (RNP) approaches. Fuel savings is the primary return: an estimated $16 million a year based on 11 airports that now have RNP procedures and $60 million when all of Southwest’s destinations are so served.

Mention the Next Generational Air Transportation System to pilots and the first thing that comes to mind is money and the pain resulting from complex changes. If you’re a GA flyer, add unkind words for the airlines, the primary beneficiary of the satellite-based NextGen system.

Or are they? Numerous articles have recently floated the idea that NextGen systems could reopen the runways at historic Floyd Bennett Field (that’s FBF on the left), across Jamaica Bay and 5 miles from JFK. This opportunity, and what it means to general aviators nationwide was a cold slap that screamed SNAP OUT OF IT, breaking the endless circle of cynicism and despair stemming from the inconvenience of change that NextGen represents.

Nationwide, there are hundreds of airports like FBF, buried under Class B airspace that, one way or another, inconveniences, limits, restricts, or shuts down their operations. There are 119 such airports under the inverted airspace wedding cake pounded into DFW.

ny map It just so happens that the FAA’s NextGen team is, this year, working to streamline approaches and departures in the DFW metroplex. The FAA’s goal is to “deconflict” 21 such areas by 2016. Next up are Atlanta, Houston, Southern and Northern California, and Charlotte. And they are going to do it by putting airliners on narrow, satellite-defined tracks. They are already in place at JFK, and in time more airliners and their crews will be capable of using them. That gives GA flyers some more breathing room, and surely is a benefit due to NextGen.

Southwest Offers NextGen Lesson With RNP

NextGen & Congestion-Closed Runways