Claim Slower-Moving Aircraft May Cause Traffic Jams

It's a familiar complaint... but as more and more very-light-jets come online, more and more air traffic controllers and airline pilots are expressing doubts the small jets will be able to smoothly integrate into the nation's air traffic control system.

A recent report by USA Today states controllers in Florida are already taking steps to keep VLJs out of high-altitude airways during busy times. Controllers note the small jets fly at speeds at least 100 mph slower than larger airliners and business jets, and they can't climb as fast.

"They don't mix very well" with larger jets, said David Cook, who heads the National Air Traffic Controllers Association chapter at Jacksonville Center. Steven Wallace, who holds the same title at Miami Center, adds controllers must keep VLJs out of airways when traffic is busy.

While it appears the VLJ market is several years away, at best, from the small jets "darkening the skies" as airline interests once implied... ATC and airline pilots alike say as more small jets become available, they carry the potential to increase problems.

So far, most of the experience in handling VLJs comes from Florida-based DayJet, which operates a handful of Eclipse 500s on short runs throughout the Southeastern US. Controllers, including Wallace and Cook, admit it's been easy to handle DayJet flights so far, especially as most of its planes don't climb to the upper flight levels on their short hops.

That's with a couple dozen planes, however... plus a couple hundred other EA500s and Cessna Citation Mustangs throughout the US, most of them in private hands. If predictions by NASA and the FAA come true, however, one day there could be thousands of VLJs, and that poses a bigger issues.

An airliner cruising along the same airway behind a comparatively slow-moving Eclipse 500 would be "a bit like following a farm vehicle," said Captain Rory Kay, safety chairman for the Air Line Pilots Association.

Kay also cites concerns about the level of equipment carried onboard VLJs. No Eclipse 500 carries even a basic traffic collision advisory system (TCAS,) for example (Cessna does offer TCAS I technology on its Mustang) even though the planes are allowed to fly at the same altitudes as commercial aircraft, and TCAS II is mandatory in all airliners with 30 seats or more.

Eclipse CEO Vern Raburn and DayJet founder Ed Iacobucci both insist new technologies -- presumably tied to the FAA's oft-touted "NextGen" air traffic control network -- will allow the planes to one day operate in congested areas, without affecting airline operations.

FMI: www.natca.org, www.faa.gov, www.dayjet.com