Implementing Network Centric Technologies in the Cockpit

We are on the door step of a new age in aviation. A place where we step from the darkness of a purely ground based air traffic control system and into the light of a network centric environment (NCE) which enables the distribution of air traffic management. As we cross over the terminator that divides the old from the new we must take with us the lessons of the past as we employ new technology to meet the needs of the end users. Many of the rules and regulations used today were designed to ensure the safety of a system that could not produce the situational awareness achievable with today´s technologies. Applications like Oceanic In-Trail Procedures and Tailored Arrivals that are enabled by a NCE start the industry on a path which takes lead to a fully integrated National Airspace System (NAS). To maintain safety and make additional responsibility for pilots possible the new technologies must also enhance the pilot´s situational awareness. How these NAS modernization technologies are implemented into the cockpit is just as important as which ones are employed. To merit implementation new technologies need to bring a clear and distinct improvement in operational capability to the cockpit. Operationally relevant research needs to be completed before these new technologies can be implemented. If NASA Aeronautics refocuses its research effort back to basic science approach there is a significant risk that gap form between where NASA research efforts end and where development of applicable technologies picks up. This gap in the development of technologies occurs at point that is beyond the capabilities of commercial enterprises to address. If the research community withdraws from conducting operationally relevant research at a time when the airlines are hamstrung by competition our nation´s aviation industry and the traveling public suffer