ATC
FAA to consider comments on ADS-B NPRM
March 3 is the final date by which the user community can file its comments on the FAA’s Oct.

March 3 is the final date by which the user community can file its comments on the FAA’s Oct. 1, 2007, Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding the agency’s $2+ billion transition plan to the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system. FAA officials might be slightly apprehensive as the deadline approaches, since users are expected to raise cost-benefit concerns about a system that likely won’t be fully operational for two decades.

Industry associations have been generally guarded about the positions they will take, but concerns about costs and benefits are likely to be common themes. This could, according to an official of one of the leading aviation associations, speaking off the record to AIN, be the result of the way the FAA has presented its program, which he characterized as “expectations versus reality.”