The Williams-Rutan V-Jet Ii is due to fly in 2000 with power by two new Williams FJX-2 engines.

The Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiment (AGATE) program, which started in 1994 as a partnership between NASA and industry, is now nearing completion. In particular, two advanced engines should fly in the coming year, and a Lancair with a redesigned cockpit should also be flying by next summer.

The General Aviation Propulsion (GAP) program is an important part of AGATE because one of NASA's goals is to reduce the cost and noise of general aviation powerplants, as well as to eliminate their dependence on high-octane fuel. NASA has provided half the funding for two new engine prototypes: Teledyne Continental Motors' CSD 283 200-hp diesel engine, and Williams International's FJX-2, a 700-pounds-thrust turbofan.

The CSD 283 is a four-cylinder, highly turbocharged diesel of the "uniflow" type, in which air and fuel enter the cylinder via ports which are uncovered as the piston reaches its lowest position, and exhaust escapes through valves. It incorporates a new counterbalance system to reduce vibration, and is designed for a 3,000-hour life. Specific fuel consumption should be 25% less than today's comparable engines, and it will burn Jet A fuel. Prototype engines should be flying by next summer on a Cirrus SR20, a Lancair and a Piper Seneca.

Weighing under 100 pounds, the FJX-2 is designed as a breakthrough in price for efficient turbine engines. The engine is designed to cost less than $100,000, and may be priced as low as $50,000 if production rates are high enough. Williams is developing turboprop and turboshaft versions of the engine, and also sees it as a suitable core for small, distributed power generation systems. Features of the engine include a starter/alternator mounted directly on the high-pressure shaft (eliminating mechanical accessory drives) and a one-piece composite nozzle.

The engine will make its first flight aboard the Williams-Rutan V-Jet II, a specially built demonstrator aircraft, and is expected to be flying at next year's Oshkosh show. However, a number of companies, including VisionAire and the UK's Chichester-Miles Consultants, are looking at the FJX-2 as the basis of small, quiet jets costing around $700,000 or $800,000, or little more than the price of a fully equipped Bonanza.

Another important AGATE demonstration is a low-cost "glass cockpit" based on commercial PC technology. Developed by a team including Avidyne, AvroTec, Raytheon and Lancair, the cockpit is based on two large screens. One carries a moving map display-which can potentially include near-real-time weather, terrain information and the location of other traffic-and the other is a primary flight display. The initial version will fly next year, and a software enhancement, to be demonstrated in 2001, will feature a "highway-in-the-sky" display-a graphical representation of the airplane's projected flightpath.

A major objective of the glass cockpit design is to make flying easier and safer, particularly under instrument conditions, and to reduce the cost of training.

In association with Embry-Riddle and the FAA, NASA has already demonstrated a "unified curriculum" which combines basic and instrument training and reduces total training time and cost by 25% compared with traditional methods. Training techniques which exploit the clear, intuitive glass-cockpit design are expected to reduce the costs even more.

NASA and industry leaders believe that the AGATE technologies and less costly training could lead to a ten-fold improvement in safety and return general-aviation production rates close to the 18,000 aircraft per year of the late 1970s.

As AGATE comes to an end, NASA is planning to launch a massive program to provide near-all-weather access to "all runway ends at public-use landing facilities," according to AGATE director Bruce Holmes.

The new Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) stems from NASA studies which show that the U.S. airline hub-and-spoke system will start to run out of capacity in the early 2000s, leading to increasing congestion, delays and rising fares. And, as hub congestion and delays get worse, small communities will be increasingly isolated from the mainstream of U.S. commercial activity.

NASA is using the studies to persuade state governments to support SATS and expects that, ultimately, states and local communities will help fund airport modernization projects. Today, fewer than a quarter of the United States' 5,400 airports are equipped with ILS.
The key to SATS is the development of automated landing aids which cost far less to install and operate than today's landing guidance systems.

The SATS airport will include automated weather and flight information services, and largely automated control of air and ground traffic based on GPS and datalink equipment on both aircraft and ground vehicles. Ground vehicles appear on the synthetic vision display as an aircraft approaches the airport, and pilots will be warned if a vehicle is moving towards a runway.