the pilots penalized for using excess fuel or rewarded for conserving fuel?

Captain GERBER. I can speak for my own airline, and I think most other ones, that this simply is not done. In fact, in all of our jet operations, we are on IFR flight plans at all times. There is no such thing as a VFR operation on our jets. If they have positive control, we want to be under positive control under all circumstances.

In this regard, we've heard a lot of comments about the "see-andavoid" concept. We commented on it in our paper about how both the FAA and NTSB have said quite emphatically that in the modern day and age this is an outmoded, unreliable, unsatisfactory solution to aircraft separation; and the FAA and also some of our general aviation friends here have made quite a point in both their testimonies that this is a primary means of aircraft separation. Yet the FAA said, "We have not had any midair collisions in air carriers in 6 years, mainly because we have gone to positive control, to TCA's, to relieve the pilots of the see-and-avoid concept." And statistics show that most midair collisions are between two general aviation aircraft at uncontrolled airports where the only means of separation is the eyeball.

Now, it seems a little illogical that they are both contending that "see and avoid" is the primary means, yet the FAA has gone the other way to avoid midair collisions in air carriers. They have produced a system which does not depend on "see-and-be-seen". And the general aviation people do not have an enviable record in uncontrolled airports in "see-and-be-seen."

So, I would love the luxury of being able in my airliner of looking out the window. I don't spend a lot of time doing it for two reasons. One, the aircraft is so constructed that I can't see a hell of a lot, particularly down and to the sides. Second is that the workload in a cockpit pretty much precludes much looking out the window.

I'll give you an example. I had a flight, Boston to Washington, an hour and 17 minutes. We logged the number of frequency changes, contacts, times we had to have our head in the cockpit, one man flying all the time, abiding by the clearances, the other man operating the communications. I made the communications. I made 131 frequency changes and contacts where my head was down. I could not be looking out the window. I would love the luxury of looking out the window, but I don't have it. It's impractical. In the present day and age, it's totally impractical.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a good point you've raised because we have received very conflicting reports on the question of the cockpit displays.

Captain GERBER. You have.

The CHAIRMAN. Your statement is very strong on this, and many individual pilots have either told us or the FAA informally that they're skeptical about another piece of equipment in the cockpit. They tell us they have enough to do without trying to duplicate the controller's job as well. Now, isn't there a point where additional equipment becomes useless or dangerous?

Captain GERBER. John, would you like that, or Jack?

Mr. HOWELL. I'd like to answer that.

Captain GERBER. All right, fine. Mr. Howell.

Mr. HOWELL. The display that we're advocating in our paper, we hope to bring it to the point where it will inform the pilot visually

and simultaneously of all the factors that are affecting his routine of flight. The "T" in CDTI right now stands for "traffic." In my own mind, I would like to see it stand for the word "total," the cockpit display of total information, please tell me everything that the system knows about my flight.

What I'm saying is that we hope with the CDTI to assimilate in a single location information on all the factors that are affecting the route of my flight.

Mr. O'BRIEN. I'd like to add just one thought to what Jack just said. What we're talking about is not a new or additional display in the cockpit. That one statement we had in Ray's comments was to the effect that the new generation of aircraft, Boeing 757, 767, will have several of these types of displays in the cockpit; it is part of the basic instrument panel display, and all this information we're talking about can be displayed along with the regular information or data that you use to normally conduct your flight. It's not additional workload. It's utilizing the data that is available in a more efficient manner.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you saying that it wouldn't really increase the pilot's workload by the addition of that equipment?

Mr. O'BRIEN. Just the opposite. It would reduce the pilot's workload by better utilizing the information that's available.

The CHAIRMAN. If the FAA DABS system does, in fact, perform as advertised, it would provide better protection to many more aircraft because of the ground-based computer potential at a relatively low cost to the private aircraft owners. Would it make sense to ÅLPA to continue developing both the DABS and BCAS, which is compatible with DABS, once that system is implemented?

Captain GERBER. John?

Mr. O'BRIEN. Yes. What we would propose is parallel development. We have voiced several statements of concern over the concellation of the trimodal BCAS development work. We do not propose the cancellation of the DABS link or ATARS. What we would propose is that the FAA spend a few hundred thousand dollars that are required to complete the joint development. It's not actually development work. It's actually demonstration evaluations to show that the concept is valid.

So, what we're advocating is parallel programs here, and the primary reason is not because we're endorsing a particular concept or a particular manufacturer's proposal, but because we understand that the trimodal BCAS offers a full capability system in a much shorter time span than the FAA full capability system. If this is true,

we should concentrate on it.

The CHAIRMAN. From your point of view, should a controller be required to inform a pilot that he's getting a conflict alert, despite the fact that the pilot has previously acknowledged he has visual separation with the aircraft?

Captain GERBER. Absolutely. We would like as much information as he has. There should be no secrets. We don't believe there should be any secrets between us.

The CHAIRMAN. You stated that the FAA's priority on CAS is too low. The FAA 1979 budget called for $9.4 million to be spent on DABS and $5.8 million to be spent on BCAS. That's approximately 19 percent of the FAA's total R. & D. budget, which sounds like a fairly high priority that the FAA has placed on that item.

Mr. O'BRIEN. Granted, those figures sound pretty impressive, but, you know, some of those DABS and the DABS data link dollar figures came about because of a substantial cost overrun in the early development of DABS. The basic reason we're working on DABS is not for collision avoidance. That's a spinoff of the DABS system. So, if we were to look at that money to find out what part of it was actually specifically expended on collision avoidance work, I think that the figures might be a little different.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, the $5.8 million alone on BCAS is pretty substantial, isn't it?

Mr. O'BRIEN. That's correct. But, again, if we look at the amount of money spent on the trimodal system versus the FAA full-capability system and the cost of running programs in parallel, we're going to spend a little money, but we feel that the expenditures were less on the more promising system, on the system that could have been available in a year rather than longer.

The CHAIRMAN. Congressman Anderson?

Mr. ANDERSON. I have no questions. I just want to commend Captain Gerber and Jack Howell and Mr. O'Brien for their very fine presentation.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ertel?

Mr. ERTEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I only have two questions. Captain, you seem to indicate because of the greater number, general aviation has experienced more collisions, there's a lot more of them than the air carriers. That seemed to condemn general aviation. Do they do a lot more operations than the air carriers?

Captain GERBER. I didn't catch the question.

Mr. ERTEL. Do the general aviation aircraft conduct a lot more operations than the air carriers, so you have a higher incidence just by probabilities?

Captain GERBER. That is true.

Mr. ERTEL. I just wanted to make that clear.

Captain GERBER. The point on the see-and-be-seen concept-the point I wanted to make clear-is where they're having the collisions, a majority of them, is where they're depending on the see-and-be-seen concept. In the high-density traffic areas where they have positive controls, where they have TCA's, the midair collision has almost been eliminated or had been for 6 years; so we think this is the proper direction to be going, positive control, to better control and not depending on the eyeball.

Sir, the human eye is easily deceived. You remember the old tricks concerning your perception and everything else. It's one of the most easily deceived things in the world. And you cannot depend on it for things such as this. I've just had too many bad experiences with trying to pick something up out the window.

Just as an example, coming into Kennedy, a controller very logically said, "Your traffic is a United DC-8." Clear day, you know, unusual in that in the New York area it was a clear day. You could see a hundred miles. And we're coming on approach from out over the water; and he said, "Your traffic at 12 o'clock, 3 miles, is a United DC-8, do you have him in sight?"

I said, "Yes."

He said, "Follow your traffic." As you indicated before, it is now my responsibility. The controller has passed me the ball. He has no responsibility now once I accept that.

Suddenly, my copilot says, "Hey, there's a guy off to the right. Who is he?" Well, we had one aircraft like this and another coming like this at 90° to him. I had seen this aircraft, but the United DC-8 was this one. I was too far away. I didn't know he was United. I didn't know he was a DC-8 and certainly couldn't read the tail markings on it. But I had accepted the fact that that aircraft was the one the controller was talking about. I never did that again. I never did that again.

And this is the type of thing you get into with see-and-be-seen. In perfectly clear weather, the eye can make a mistake. You can make a mistake in distinguishing aircraft. It's not the safest. I would much rather have positive control.

Mr. ERTEL. I understand your position on that; but there's also another reason possibly for more crashes in uncontrolled airspace. You might have less sophisticated pilots there and more sophisticated pilots will come into the TCA's positive control space. Would that also be true, a lot more experience

Captain GERBER. Yes, true.

Mr. ERTEL. I just wanted to point that out.
Captain GERBER. True.

Mr. ERTEL. I think those things ought to be used

Captain GERBER. I'm not trying to be critical or put a burden on the general aviation pilot. I'm simply pointing out what the facts are, what the statistics show, and this is what they show.

Mr. ERTEL. Of course, statistics show a lot of things. There's a lot of reasons behind statistics, as we're all aware.

One more question. The trimodal that you're talking about, do you have any idea what that's going to cost?

Captain GERBER. John?

Mr. O'BRIEN. I believe that estimate is $20,000, depending on what type of airplane you're putting it on. If the airplane has a sophisticated computer capability, it's a matter of a few printed circuit boards put into the basic computer on that airplane; so it's not very expensive at all. If you're talking about an old 727 or DC-8, then you're talking about doing something up in the cockpit in addition to adding a black box; it's much more expensive.

Mr. ERTEL. Are you suggesting this for anyone, in addition to the general aviation, or a more simplified system for general aircraft?

Captain GERBER. That's correct. The general aviation aircraft receives protection from the air carriers because the general aviation aircraft need have nothing additional at all.

Mr. ERTEL. I was just trying to make sure if you were making a distinction.

Captain GERBER. This is one of the things that is most attractive about the trimodal BCAS; that is, when you spend your money, you get the protection. The other guy also gets some fringe benefits, because you're not going to run into him. You spend your money, and you get your money back.

The other one is it operates in the remote areas over oceans, for instance, where the DABS will not operate. You have to have ground equipment every place for DABS, whereas the BCAS, the trimodal one particularly, has the advantage of both worlds.

You'll notice that Mr. Albrecht of the FAA this morning made quite a point of the difference between the active and the passive, and he spoke as if they were competitive with each other. The thing about the trimodal, it has active, it has passive, and a combination. It has the best of all worlds, and this is precisely why we have advocated that this is the way to go, and there's nothing wrong with it. The fact that BCAS is not going to be needed when the DABS comes up 15 years from now is beside the point. We need it now, and we think it's available.

Mr. ERTEL. Well, I think you've answered all my questions. I thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have an estimate for what it would cost to outfit the entire civil air fleet?

Mr. O'BRIEN. No, but we could calculate that and supply it to you.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish you would supply that information for the record, because based on the estimate that I have, it amounts to about $250 million. That's the figure for the whole fleet.

[The following information was subsequently received for the record:]

The estimated cost of equipping an aircraft already in airline service is $70,000. Based on the current total of 2,375 aircraft in airline service under FAR Part 121, the total estimated cost of equipping the entire civil air fleet would be approximately $166 million.

The estimated cost for installation in a new aircraft model such as the Boeing 767 would be $20,000 if the aircraft already had a cathode ray tube (CRT) display installed. If a CRT had to be installed as well, the cost would approximately double.

Bear in mind that these costs are initial estimates. Also, many of the current airline aircraft will be retired before a collision avoidance system is ready for installation in them.

Captain GERBER. That could very well be; but, remember, the airlines have gone and equipped their fleets with the INS navigational system. On our airline we have three of them on each airplane. I think originally it was like $30,000 or $40,000 apiece. I believe when we first did it, it was $125,000 an airplane. So, you're talking about an investment, but you're talking about getting something back. And they had no trepidation about doing that.

Mr. O'BRIEN. You'll also remember the ground proximity warning system that came into being after a serious safety hazard caused a significant initial investment. The cost went down very significantly after the thing went into production though, and there may be some benefits there at the

The CHAIRMAN. I'm sure there would be. There's bound to be. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Captain GERBER. At the present rate that lawsuits are going at, if you prevented one collision, it would pay for the whole industry being outfitted.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, sir.

Congressman Van Deerlin, we're very happy to have you here and take time from your busy schedule to come over and visit with us on this very important subject.

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