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A glimpse of coming air-traffic technology

Sky high between Atlantic City and Philadelphia, Arthur Sullivan was flying in the airplane of the future.

Sky high between Atlantic City and Philadelphia, Arthur Sullivan was flying in the airplane of the future.

The Federal Aviation Administration official from Washington was watching a display screen showing small blue crescents, each a nearby airplane sharing the sky. The screen showed the terrain below, other airports, the weather, and a continuously updated digital picture of traffic and weather at 3,000 feet.

The FAA invited reporters Wednesday to glimpse the air-traffic-navigation system of the future, using global-positioning-satellite technology, and called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast.

ADS-B is a key part of a nationwide aviation overhaul, called NextGen, that will replace traditional radar with signals from satellites over the next decade.

"For the first time, the pilots and the controllers will actually be able to see the same thing," said Sullivan, looking at a display in the passenger cabin of the plane, a Bombardier Global 5000, at the FAA's William J. Hughes Technical Center in Egg Harbor Township, N.J.

On Wednesday's flight, NextGen technology was not in the cockpit. FAA pilots Dan Dellmyer and Jim Marrs were still flying with traditional aircraft instruments based on radar used since World War II. They talked with controllers on the ground to learn the location of other airplanes.

By 2020, all aircraft flying in U.S. airspace are to have the ADS-B technology, and radar will be secondary. "We'll always have some level of radar in the system," Sullivan said.

The issue with radar is not safety, but efficiency. Radar updates more slowly and has gaps in coverage over mountains and water. Aircraft are kept five nautical miles apart to ensure safety.

The real-time technologies are designed to reduce delays, allow planes to fly more direct routes, save fuel, increase safety, and provide air-traffic controllers and pilots more accurate information to keep aircraft safely separated in the sky and on runways.

The U.S. air-traffic system handles 35,000 to 37,000 commercial flights a day, and 5,000 aircraft are in the sky over the United States "at any given moment," FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto said. The FAA projects 1 billion air passengers yearly by 2023.

As the FAA plane flew toward Philadelphia on Wednesday morning, the GPS screen became crowded with blue crescents showing all the airplanes around Philadelphia International Airport.

Only one plane on the digital display also had ADS-B on board - it appeared as a green triangle instead of a blue crescent.

NextGen technology lets pilots see both radar- and satellite-guided aircraft.

"See the drastic difference in the number of airplanes," Sullivan said, referring to the screen as the FAA plane neared Philadelphia. "These are the Philadelphia airport runways. These are planes taxiing around the airport."

FAA pilots requested permission from Philadelphia air-traffic controllers to fly a low approach over the airport. The landing gear was lowered and the Global 5000 dropped to 100 feet, glided past the control tower, rose over the Delaware River, and returned to Atlantic City International Airport.

The FAA pilots had filed a flight plan that allowed them to fly over the Philadelphia runway. "You don't want to surprise them at the last minute. We don't want F-15s scrambling on our wings here," Sullivan joked.

During the flight, data from ground radios provided constant digital updates of changes in altitude and terrain, including pictures of the Delaware River, the South Jersey countryside, and the Atlantic Ocean. The flight was bumpy because of strong winds. A reporter from Washington threw up.

"In Alaska, where a lot of small general-aviation airplanes have this technology, we've seen a drastic reduction in accidents," Sullivan said. "It has really made a difference."

Many NextGen technologies are being developed at the FAA technical center on 5,000 acres near Atlantic City.

"A lot of the NextGen research has, and is going on here," FAA spokeswoman Holly Baker said. "This is the main research and development center for the FAA." The FAA also has an aeronautical center in Oklahoma City.