The Federal Aviation Administration's airspace control modernization effort, known as NextGen, faces serious long-term challenges, said Transportation Department inspector general before a House panel April 21.

In prepared testimony before the House Transportation and Infrastructure aviation subcommittee, Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel warned of a host of problems in key NextGen technologies.

The En Route Automation Modernization system--a $2.1 billion effort developed by Lockheed Martin for managing high-altitude traffic--is experiencing trouble in its initial operating site in Salt Lake City. Problems include radar processor failures, problems in handing off traffic between controllers and critical flight information being paired to the wrong aircraft, Scovel said.

The FAA is spending $14 million a month to resolve those problems and deploy ERAM to other sites--but the FAA acknowledges that it's unlikely that all 20 ERAM systems will get fielded by the original December 2010 deadline, Scovel noted.

In addition, recent problems with the FAA's Telecommunications Infrastructure (FTI) program "raise questions about whether the system can be relied on for NextGen initiatives," Scovel said.

FTI is a $3.5 billion effort primed by Harris Corp. and it underwent a major failure last November, delaying 800 flights nationwide and requiring five hours of troubleshooting before the outage was repaired. The cause, said Scovel, was from mistakes that occurred when the contractor was transitioning to a new fiber optic network.

"Our work shows that FAA's oversight of the contractor was not as effective as it should have been," he added.

Also, the FAA has yet to make key decisions about NextGen, such as how much tracking responsibility can be delegated to pilots, the level of automation in traffic management, and facilities consolidation.

For more:
- check out the House panel's hearing website, full of prepared statements and archived video
- go directly to DOT Inspector General Calvin Scovel's prepared testimony (.pdf)

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