ABSTRACT
This chapter describes some of the modernization ideas and trends that call for an increased role of the flight deck. It also describes the advanced concepts of operation and the enabling flight deck technologies that may drive these trends in airspace modernization. For the near-term future, there is an emphasis in both NextGen and SESAR to make increased use of existing airborne capabilities. Modern flight management systems are capable of accurately predicting and flying energy-efficient flight paths that meet a required time of arrival at a point in the flight plan. Many operational feasibility issues must be resolved to make use of existing aircraft capabilities. Less-capable aircraft must be managed using traditional air traffic control procedures. When NextGen was initiated by Joint Planning and Development Office in 2003, it was intended to be transformational, providing revolutionary changes to today’s operations to achieve a system that scales to meet a tripling of traffic demand or more.
