Microjet taxis may transform travel

If the nation's 429 commercial airports are too crowded, there is an alternative, aviation visionaries say: using a new generation of microjets, with two engines and just five or six seats, as air taxis or charters to connect the 5,400 airports scattered around the country that now have no scheduled service at all.

It may be a Buck Rogers fantasy, or it may be the early phase of a new transportation network of point-to-point travel between little-known cities like this one.

Using new or improved technology, including satellites and on-board computers, to handle air traffic at places with no control towers and to provide better navigation support than airliners receive at big airports, the new mode of transportation could be safe and reliable, say advocates for the new generation of technologies, known as the Small Aircraft Transportation System. Following the inevitable tradition of aviation, it is known by its acronym, SATS.

"The only thing small about SATS is the size of the aircraft," said Marion C. Blakey, who heads the Federal Aviation Administration. "The system itself holds enormous potential for the way we fly as a nation."

The aviation agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, half a dozen universities and a variety of private companies showed off possibilities at a three-day technology demonstration here this month. One of the more audacious was a robot air traffic controller, essentially a computer box on the ground that receives requests for permission to land from planes a few miles away. The computer system, devised by NASA, gives the planes a number in the queue.

The system is said to be able to manage 12 to 15 takeoffs and landings an hour, even in bad visibility. At the moment, many small airports are lucky to see four takeoffs or landings an hour, especially when the weather is poor.

Source: MATTHEW L. WALD - New York Times News Service