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Flight in the U.S. is generally procedural right now. Procedures are the rules under which air traffic control is actually conducted. Facility standard
operating practices and letters of agreement, as well as traffic flow management
plans, proceduralize flight to the extent of designating which airway
an aircraft must fly, or which altitudes the aircraft must fly, or speeds
the aircraft must fly. These procedures make it difficult for the operators
of aircraft to optimize their flights, to be able to choose the best combination
of routes, altitudes, and speeds to satisfy the business need and the
bottom line. The evolution
towards Free Flight suggests that this will change and that the rules
that govern the controller's activities will evolve.
Central to the concept of Free Flight is the reduction of constraints
applied to populations of aircraft indiscriminately. Free Flight accepts that proceduralized flight
may be necessary at times, but such procedures need to be applied when
they are required by the traffic situation, and eliminated
as soon as the requirement has ended.
In the near-term, and in support of the FAA's NAS Operational Evolution Plan, MITRE/CAASD is aiding in the evolution of that National Airspace System towards Free Flight with its work in developing new procedures necessary for changing traffic patterns and aircraft with enhanced capabilities. We also are working to identify traffic flow constraints that can be eliminated. The work includes establishing a set of random navigation (RNAV) routes into and out of the nation's busiest terminal areas. RNAV Routes, once established and certified, can help maintain the throughput of busy terminals by segregating arrival or departure traffic away from possibly interfering traffic flows.
In
order to establish RNAV Routes, MITRE/CAASD built a simulation capability, the  Terminal Area Route Generation, Evaluation and Traffic Simulation (TARGETS). This simulation is able to model terminal area operations
with pretty high fidelity. MITRE/CAASD uses the model as a basis to determine,
then to evaluate the effects of, new RVAV Route procedures. TARGETS is
an item on the list for technology
transfer from MITRE to industry.
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