NASA Study Will Look At VLJs, SSTs, Heavy Transports And UAVs

Raytheon will lead a team of air transportation experts from industry and academia to study the impact of new classes of aircraft on the next generation air transportation system, or NextGen.

The four new classes of aircraft -- very light jets, super heavy transports, uncrewed aircraft systems and supersonic transports -- will soon enter what many believe to be an already overburdened air transportation system.

"In 10 to 20 years we expect more than one billion passengers will travel annually by airplane and thousands of new consumer jets will fill the skies," said Andy Zogg, Raytheon vice president of Airspace Management and Homeland Security. "We are committed to working with NASA and our partners to help address the complex issues facing the modernization of our air transportation system."

The Raytheon team's work will augment NASA's Advanced Concept Evaluation System, a fast time simulation model of the National Airspace System, using existing environmental and safety models to quantify how the new air vehicles and operational procedures will impact NextGen.

Initially, the team will focus on developing recommendations for future operational procedures, identifying air vehicle characteristics and establishing system level metrics.

"Raytheon's extensive experience with air traffic management operational procedures and our working knowledge of the Joint Planning and Development Office's enterprise architecture will allow us to perform valuable system trade studies," said Zogg.

FMI: www.raytheon.com, www.nasa.gov