The Federal Aviation Administration plans to deploy a troubled software effort to its 20 air route traffic control centers at a rate of 5 to 7 a year through Sept. 30, 2014, according to a corrective action plan obtained by FierceGovernmentIT through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The software, the En Route Automation Modernization system, replaces a three-decade old system called Host. The FAA once intended the new system, developed by Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT),  to have been nationally deployed by the end of 2010. The FAA, based on an October 2010 Mitre study (also obtained by FierceGovernmentIT through FOIA), recently estimated that ERAM will cost $330 million more than expected and not be fully deployed until the fall of 2014.

ERAM should allow planes to reduce their high-altitude separation range down to three miles and air traffic controllers to track 1,900 planes rather than the Host maximum of 1,100. ERAM is also an enabler for a slew of air traffic control modernization efforts collectively known as NextGen. Transportation Department Inspector General Calvin Scovel has said the FAA took delivery of ERAM from Lockheed Martin despite it "lacking some of the key software code."

Live ERAM testing in Salt Lake City revealed significant problems such as erroneous flight data tagged to aircraft and hand off difficulties between air traffic controllers, causing the FAA to place a moratorium in March 2010 on further operational testing in order to first fix more than 200 identified glitches. Testing has since resumed.

In a Jan. 25, 2011  FAA "Corrective Action plan Revision, version 3.0" prepared following a Nov. 9, 2010 "TechStat" meeting called by the Office of Management and Budget on ERAM, FAA officials said their plan is "to proceed cautiously transitioning each [ARTCC] through a sequence of limited, extended and culminating in continuous operations."

A Jan. 21, 2011 memo from then-Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra based on data presented by the FAA during its TechStat meeting specifies which ARTCCs are to receive ERAM in which fiscal year. Federal fiscal years end each Sept. 30.

The recent two-week partial shutdown of the FAA could further delay ERAM's roll out, however. An FAA official told Aviation Week for an August 10 article that the FAA's funding crisis has put at least the fiscal 2011 targets in doubt.

For more:
- download the  FAA ERAM "Corrective Action plan Revision, version 3.0" (.pdf)

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Scovel: ERAM delivered to FAA with missing software code 
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FierceGovernmentIT FOIAs OMB TechStat meeting info, Part II