FAA Liaison Lectures about Air Traffic Management at Florida Tech Oct. 27

MELBOURNE, FLA.—Guy Boy, Florida Institute of Technology university professor in the College of Aeronautics, will host a lecture by Nigel Makins from the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL), an agency for air traffic management akin to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration(FAA). The lecture, titled, “Turning Research into Reality: Validating a Complex Socio-technical System—Air Traffic Control” will be on Oct. 27 at 9 a.m. in Gleason Performing Arts Center on campus.

The lecture aims to show the value of research in the field of air traffic controlsystems. One result of this research is the European Operational Concept ValidationMethodology, which is now embedded in the system engineering methodology of theSingle European Sky Air Traffic Management Research Program (SESAR). Althoughsuccess of the methodology is still to be proved, the presentation will provide details ofhow it is intended to address the difficult issues surrounding complex socio-technicalsystem re-engineering.

Makins is the official liaison for the SESAR and NextGen, Next Generation Air Transportation System, at the FAA in Washington, D.C. The SESAR in Europe and NextGen in the U.S. are major programs for the design and development of the next generation of air traffic management. Makins’ main emphasis is on global harmonization of operational issues.

Makins who joined the EUROCONTROL Experimental Centre in 1992 also worked with the Boeing ATM team in Seattle. Since 2002, he has been a validation manager while establishing a methodology that is now part of the SESAR program.