The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is considering many new technological solutions to improve the efficiency and capacity of the National Airspace System (NAS). Most of these technologies require the addition or modification of equipment not only on the ground, but also in the aircraft that operate in the NAS. If these aircraft equipage costs are too high, the owner/operators may not equip their aircraft and the overall program might not proceed as desired.Presented is a methodology that can be used to define and forecast the range of user responses to new technologies that require aircraft equipage. The responses can be linked to potential FAA actions and policies regarding the technology, which could include: relying solely on voluntary user equipage, supplying subsidies for all or a portion of the avionics cost, and creating rulemaking to require certain capabilities in specific airspace. This user response forecast, when combined with model-or type-specific aircraft knowledge, provides an estimate of the future mix of aircraft capabilities, and can be utilized to determine overall fleet upgrade costs for unequipped aircraft. An example is shown for Automatic Dependent SurveillanceBroadcast (ADS-B) that draws upon previous avionics costing work for the FAA by the same authors published in MTR 05W0000082.

Aircraft approach the terminal area on different arrival paths, merge and ultimately arrive at capacity-constrained runways on the ground. Upon entering the terminal area, air traffic control manually controls the aircraft in order to merge and sequence arrivals on different paths, and establish longitudinal spacing between aircraft. These operations are termed merging, sequencing, and spacing operations.New technologies available in air traffic control facilities and in the flight deck create the possibility of improving on the manual operations used today. Several alternatives are currently in operational trials. Unclear is what alternative will prove to be most desirable for implementation. This paper seeks to enumerate some alternatives, and their characteristics, and establishes a framework for assessment.

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NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) and The MITRE Corporation (MITRE) have developedand successfully demonstrated-an integrated simulation-to-flight capability for evaluating sense and avoid (SAA) system elements. This integrated capability consists of a MITRE developed fast-time computer simulation for evaluating SAA algorithms, and a NASA LaRC surrogate unmanned aircraft system (UAS) equipped to support hardware and software in-the-loop evaluation of SAA system elements (e.g., algorithms, sensors, architecture, communications, autonomous systems), concepts, and procedures. The fast-time computer simulation subjects algorithms to simulated flight encounters/ conditions and generates a fitness report that records strengths, weaknesses, and overall performance. Reviewed algorithms (and their fitness report) are then transferred to NASA LaRC where additional (joint) airworthiness evaluations are performed on the candidate SAA system-element configurations, concepts, and/or procedures of interest; software and hardware components are integrated into the Surrogate UAS' research systems; and flight safety and mission planning activities are completed. Onboard the Surrogate UAS, candidate SAA system element configurations, concepts, and/or procedures are subjected to flight evaluations and in-flight performance is monitored. The Surrogate UAS, which can be controlled remotely via generic Ground Station uplink or automatically via onboard systems, operates with a NASA Safety Pilot/Pilot in Command onboard to permit safe operations in mixed airspace with manned aircraft. An end-to-end demonstration of a typical application of the capability was performed in non-exclusionary airspace in October 2011; additional research, development, flight testing, and evaluation efforts using this integrated capability are planned throughout fiscal year 2012 and 2013

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