On September 19, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden and other NASA Aeronautics personnel joined the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and American Airlines executives and representatives to tour the agency’s North Texas Research Station (NTX) facility, as well as an American Airlines operations center in the Fort Worth, Texas area, to see new and cutting-edge NASA aeronautics technologies being evaluated to improve air travel across the country.
Two NASA-developed technologies currently being evaluated at NTX are Precision Departure Release Capability (PDRC), which helps tower and en-route air traffic managers merge departing flights into busy traffic flows; and the Dynamic Weather Routing (DWR) tool, which helps airline flight dispatchers identify opportunities for more efficient routes around bad weather such as thunderstorms — the leading cause of delays in the national airspace system.
This picture, taken on the floor of the American Airlines Integrated Operations Center, shows the DWR tool being tested by controllers for Dallas/Forth Worth International Airport. “It was exciting, humbling and affirming to see DWR in a real working environment and to watch it deliver benefits in real time,” said Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.
In the picture, American Airlines Dispatcher Airman and ATC Coordinator Mike Sterenchuck (seated right) demonstrates DWR to (standing left to right) David McNally, DWR Lead Engineer; Kimball Stone, Vice President of the American Airlines Integrated Operations Center; Lewis Braxton III, NASA Ames Deputy Center Director; Jaiwon Shin; (seated left to right) Kelvin Solco, FAA Southwest Regional Administrator and Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator.
