Airliners waiting in line for take-off illustrate the airport cogestion that prompted the formation of the Terminal Configured Vehicle (TCV) research program.

When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in July, 1969, it capped off a tremendous national effort that had absorbed most of NASA's attention and resources throughout the 1960s. As the Apollo program wound down, however, it created both an opportunity and a need for NASA to reevaluate its activities and direction. A number of people within the agency, including acting administrator Thomas O. Paine and Deputy Administrator George M. Low, felt that aeronautics should now receive greater attention and support.[Ref 2-1]

Congress also had begun to feel that the government needed to focus more on furthering aeronautical technology. A report issued by the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences in January 1968 emphasized the need for a national policy on aeronautics research and development. The report also recommended that NASA and the newly formed Department of Transportation undertake a joint study to evaluate the problems facing civil aviation and the potential benefits that might accrue from government support of Research and Development (R&D) in those areas.[Ref 2-2]

One of the members of the DOTNASA study team was Barry Graves, the head of the Flight Instrumentation Division (FID) at NASA's Langley Research Center. In addition to his NASA duties, Graves was also a private pilot and had a keen interest in the problems facing civil aviation. As work progressed on the DOTNASA Civil Aviation Research and Development (CARD) Policy Study, Graves also had a small group of people within his division evaluating ways Langley might be able to contribute to air transportation research. At the same time, John P. "Jack" Reeder, a famous NASA test pilot at Langley who was another staunch supporter of civil aviation, was formulating his own proposals for research to improve air transport operations.[Ref 2-3]

When the results of the CARD study were released in March 1971, the report concluded that a healthy civil aviation industry and transportation system provided a variety of significant benefits to the Nation. Consequently, the study recommended, the federal government should take an active role in developing a national aviation policy and conducting R&D to benefit civil aviation. The report also outlined priorities for these R&D efforts. The top two concerns were aircraft noise and congestion in the terminal, or airport, area.[Ref 2-4]

These problems had actually been developing for some time. By the late 1960s, air travel was no longer the privilege of the elite. As it became an accepted and highly popular form of transportation, however, delays were becoming commonplace. An example often used by the researchers at Langley was that in 1959, a propellerdriven Lockheed Electra took 40 minutes to fly from Norfolk, Virginia to Washington, D.C. In 1973, a Boeing 727 jet capable of flying twice as fast took 4555 minutes to make that same trip because of increased air traffic and terminal congestion problems.[Ref 2-5]

The advent of jets also increased the noise level around commercial airports, resulting in community opposition to additional air traffic or the building of new airports. In addition to driving research on quieter engines, this meant that there was an even greater need to make the most efficient and noisesensitive use of the country's existing airports.[Ref 2-6]

A couple of months after the CARD study was released, President Richard M. Nixon's Office of Science and Technology (OST) asked NASA to submit proposals on how NASA could contribute to research and development in the civil aeronautical sector. One of the six internal task groups that were formed to develop proposals looked specifically at air transportation research and development. In less than two months, the proposals were submitted and the OST asked NASA to develop its air transportation proposal into a detailed program and prepare to begin research. The task was given to the Langley Research Center.[Ref 2-7] Langley was the agency's oldest field organization, founded in 1918 specifically to conduct aeronautical R&D.

Although his proposals had been turned down by the Aeronautics Steering Committee in the past, Jack Reeder presented his ideas on improving airspace utilization to the group working with Barry Graves to develop the detailed air transportation research program. Reeder's ideas fit extremely well with the plans being formulated by the FID team, and the two were incorporated into a program plan that became the Terminal Configured Vehicle (TCV) program. The original name was actually the Terminal Configured Vehicle & Avionics program, but the "avionics" was soon dropped.[Ref 2-8]

The TCV program was an unusual research project for Langley. Instead of just looking at a single airfoil or aircraft component, the TCV program also included research into the pilot/airplane interface and the airplane's interface with the air traffic control system. This was a much broader scope of work, involving more branches, divisions, disciplines and directorates than the typical Langley research effort. But as the example of the Lockheed Electra and the B727 illustrated, the problems facing civil air transport had grown much more complex. In the 1920s, the development of a NACA engine cowling alone was able to make a significant impact on the efficiency of air travel. By 1970, even the most aerodynamically efficient airplane could not overcome the delays imposed by traffic congestion in the terminal area. The challenge had become a systems problem, and it required a systemoriented solution.

The broad goals of the TCV program were to conduct research into advanced technology for Conventional TakeOff and Landing (CTOL) aircraft,

....to provide improvements in the airborne systems (avionics and air vehicle) and operational flight procedures for reducing approach and landing accidents, reducing weather minima, increasing air traffic controller productivity and airport and airway capacity, saving fuel by more efficient terminal area operations, and reducing noise by operational procedures.

Specifically, the TCV program wanted to look at items such as curved or nonstandard approach paths for noise abatement and improved airport acceptance rates; cockpit displays of traffic information; profile and timebased navigation, which would use a computer to calculate an optimum fuelefficient flight plan that would deliver an airplane to its touchdown spot +/ five seconds to allow closer spacing of aircraft. Other planned experiments would look at data links, highspeed runway turnoffs, and optimum uses of the new Microwave Landing System (MLS) that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was developing.[Ref 2-10]