...And Then Paints A Picture Of Aviation's NextGen Future

(Editor's Note: Below is the unedited text of the speech given by Ruth Leverenz, acting Deputy Administrator of the FAA (shown center, right) before the International Aviation Womens' Association on Friday.)

Good afternoon, and thank you, JoAnne [Young], for that kind introduction. I'm pleased to represent Secretary Peters and our acting administrator, Bobby Sturgell, here today.

I'd like to start of with a bit of a slide show. It's the FAA's 50th anniversary. In the course of the presentations we've made over the year, we've amassed a few slides that really tell a story. The story they tell is what I'm here to talk about.

That's Orville and Wilbur in 1903 (above).

Orville demonstrating his flying machine to the Navy in 1912.

The mail must go through in 1926. At the controls is Charles Lindbergh.

That's the first assistant secretary of commerce for aeronautics, by the name of Bill McCracken, on the left. N-1 is now an FAA G-IV.

This lighthouse helped "control" traffic from New York to Cleveland in the late 1920s.

This is DC's first airport, Hoover Field, which opened in 1926. It's on the Virginia side of the 14th Street Bridge, where the Pentagon now sits. Back in the day, the airport's one runway was intersected by a busy street, which had guards posted to flag down traffic during takeoffs and landings.

Archie League, America's first air traffic controller. This is 1929, Lambert Field.

Early flight inspectors, circa 1920s.

That's Jimmy Doolittle in 1929. On this flight, he became the first pilot to use only instrument guidance to take off, fly a set course, and land.

Air navigation at Chicago Center in 1936.

It's nice to look at all those old slides. You can really see how far we've come -- how far aviation itself has come. We went from the place where a major accident occurred every two or three weeks to where we are today. Right now, there is no common cause for an accident, because we've picked off all the low-hanging fruit. Today's accident is often a complex set of dominoes that fall in precisely the right way, and an accident results. If you remember ValuJet, you know that while oxygen canisters were a "cause," you also know that a string of people made mistakes that lead to the crash. If you take away any of those elements -- the mislabeled boxes, the failure to inspect the boxes, the failure to inspect the boxes as they were put in the forward hold, the failure to secure the spare tire in the forward hold -- that plane probably does not crash.

But it did. The human factors element is something that we'll never really "solve," because as we all know, when there's a human in the system, anything can happen.

Today, the "anything" that happens is "safety" 99 percent of the time. And that's a very good thing. But getting back to the pictures, if you noticed what I noticed, then you noticed that we are not in the picture. Aviation has, and I'd submit, continues to be dominated by men. Nothing wrong with that. When you run fast, you deserve to finish first. And I'm not taking anything away from the Bessie Colemans and the Amelia Earharts of the world. I'm just saying that for many, many years, women weren't a major factor.

Well, we are now. Look around. There's much more work to be done, but I'll talk about that in due time.

I've spotted a few trends over the years. I see lots of networking, and that's good. When you're young, your energy and your productivity and the results that come about from your efforts should be your calling card. I'd encourage you to give that tip to the next generation. It's very important to know people higher up the chain, but it's more important for them to know you because of your reputation for success.

And that leads to mentoring. If you're not mentoring several young folks, I'm talking about women and men, you're missing a great joy and you're probably short-circuiting a few careers. I don't know everyone in this room, but there are two women here who in my judgment go above and beyond in terms of mentoring. Kate Lang is FAA's deputy associate administrator for airports. She runs a $3 billion grant program. In addition to being a top-notch lawyer, Nancy LoBue is the FAA's acting assistant administrator for policy. She handles reauthorization, the environment and strategic planning.

Both of these women have jobs where the phone rings and it's the White House or the Hill or the New York Times calling. But they take time to mentor several people who are coming up the ladder. They do it right, and I'm proud to serve with them

I hope that encourages you to mentor. Give the younger ones time to bounce things off you. Let them hear about what happens when you put your hand on the stove without them actually having to go through it. Most of the younger generation knows that they're bulletproof. The signs like "Warning! 10,000 volts!" don't apply to them. You don't know anybody like that, do you?

My oldest son is in his second year of medical school. He has a habit of drinking a pot of coffee every night at 10 p.m. so he can keep awake to study. I'll admit I've opened my mouth to say, "You know, coffee at night is generally a bad idea, and a pot of coffee is a really bad idea," but he held his hand up, like this. "Mom, I know what I'm doing." "OK, son." Sometimes the mentees are unwilling, especially if they know you've seen them in diapers, but that's how that story goes.

I'm also hopeful that you're involved with feeding the pipeline -- making sure that we have enough people to fill the high-tech jobs that are coming on line. In the United States alone, more than 60,000 aerospace engineers will retire in the next 10 years. That's not a bow wave. That's a tsunami.

At the FAA, we're looking to do something about it. We're deeply involved with a project run by the Department of Energy -- the Real World Design Challenge. The goal is to align secondary education with 21st Century workforce needs. We hope it will strengthen professional development for teachers by providing training and facilitating industry collaboration.

So now you're saying, OK, I get it. What's the challenge? We're challenging students, and their teachers, to design the next generation wing. Kids get the engineering challenge of a lifetime. Teachers get professional development. They both get to work with science and engineering mentors from government and industry. They're working on a real aviation challenge defined by the industry. We're giving them professional engineering tools to do it. A couple of companies in the great Northeast have donated a million dollars worth of software.

Ten states will be participating in the Challenge this first year. They are: Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Kansas, Washington, Hawaii, Virginia, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

There's no reason for you not to be involved in a program like this. We have obligations to the next generation that go beyond mentoring, and this program is one of them.

Lastly, let me turn to the biggest thing on aviation's plate -- NextGen. In a nutshell, NextGen is the FAA's plan to modernize air traffic control. We're moving away from a system that's tethered to the ground. Instead, we're moving to satellites. For goodness' sake, we've been to the moon and back more than once. Isn't it time we gave passengers and pilots more than a peek at the technology that made it possible?

Let me tell you, it's in high gear. The introduction and widespread use of precision navigation tools represent the first step in our transition to NextGen. We are focusing deployment of RNAV and Required Navigation Performance, RNP, around our most congested airports. One of our earliest adopters is Alaska Airlines. With RNP approach procedures at Palm Springs on the West Coasts, Alaska Airlines reported that 10 percent of their flights were classified as "saves" in the first quarter of this year. Those are flights that would have been otherwise diverted to alternate airports because of bad weather. A "save" translates directly to savings for the carrier -- emissions, time, passenger convenience.

Partnerships with operators equipped to perform these procedures are yielding the biggest benefits from increases in operational efficiency and reductions in fuel use and emissions. We are also seeing benefits today from the introduction of Optimized Profile Descents that have shown fuel savings averaging about 50 to 60 gallons of fuel for the arrival portion of flights. It reduces as much as 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide per arrival.

NextGen doesn't stop there. We have other demonstration programs, such as the Atlantic Interoperability Initiative to Reduce Emissions and the Asia-Pacific region, the Asia and South Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions. That's AIRE and ASPIRE for those of you who track acronyms. Both are showing significant fuel savings in oceanic airspace.

Other near-term benefits stemming from targeted implementations of the NextGen acceleration initiative include the introduction of surface management tools at JFK. We're working with the Port Authority and the airlines to provide information about surface traffic. We provide intel on both movement and ramp areas on the airport to Airline Operation Centers, air traffic controllers and the FAA Command Center. This information gives common situational awareness that will allow airlines to better manage movement of their aircraft in crowded ramp areas.

Farther down the East Coast, we plan to continue these activities in an integrated test bed approach that focuses on Florida, the east coast, Texas, and the Gulf of Mexico. That area is also taking advantage of early ADS-B deployment. We have more than 20 partners from the airlines, industry, academia, and other government agencies that are involved in demonstrating the effectiveness and safety of integrated NextGen capabilities.

ADS-B has made quite a bit of progress over the last year. Since the national contract was awarded last summer, the program has deployed the ground infrastructure in the Southern Florida key site area. For the first time, the system has equipped pilots to receive traffic and weather in the cockpit for enhanced situational awareness. We'll make a decision for essential services for commissioning into the National Airspace System in a month.

While the agency has been busy with deploying the ground equipment, we are also simultaneously working on the rulemaking for ADS-B. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was published a year ago. The comment period closed in March. We will consider all the recommendations from the aviation community in developing the final rule, which we estimate will be published in 2010. There was quite a bit of discussion about equipage and the need for dual frequencies and digital data communications. That's being looked at right now.

Let me close now with just a few more thoughts, all of which relate back to the pictures from the slide show. We want women in the pictures for the 100th anniversary, and it needs to be happening now.

How do you get in the picture? Commit to being up to speed with NextGen. If you don't know NextGen, you're not going to be in the picture. NextGen isn't just technology; it's the next generation of controllers, pilots, mechanics, engineers, aviation lovers, et cetera. Mentoring and networking are things we need to do more of. And the Real World Design Challenge? That's a sure-fire way to get into the picture. If we want to get in the picture, we've got to belong there. There are more than a few people this room who already do. I look forward to seeing a group shot that includes all of us.

FMI: www.faa.gov, www.iawa.org