Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC
WILCOX ELECTRIC IS in danger of losing its $475 million contract to develop and produce the global-positioning-system (GPS) wide-area augmentation system (WAAS) for the US Federal Aviation Administration.
On 18 March, the aviation agency advised the US-based subsidiary of Thomson-CSF that the WAAS contract may be terminated unless Wilcox, which is the prime contractor, takes action before 2 April to correct serious performance deficiencies.
Word of problems with the WAAS project came as a surprise to observers, since Wilcox won the contract only in August 1995. It was reported, however, that the firm missed a WAAS system design review (SDR) scheduled for December 1995. The SDR had been moved to March because of software glitches, but project officials believed that the technical problems would not delay the WAAS deployment.
FAA Administrator David Hinson says that the warning "...reflects the agency's resolve immediately to address potential problems in major FAA acquisition programmes as soon as they appear".
The FAA says that programme-management weakness is represented in "...Wilcox's failure to make adequate progress in key areas and to meet major performance and schedule criteria".
Continuing problems with the WAAS would force the FAA to consider alternatives to make the GPS useable for all phases of civil flight.
The Air Transport Association has suggested that another project, known as the National Satellite Test Bed, could do the work of the WAAS at a fraction of the cost.
The WAAS would consist of 35 ground-reference stations, plus ground- and satellite-communications systems. It would improve integrity and availability of GPS signals in support of operations, from oceanic navigation through to Category I approaches. The FAA has yet to determine whether the WAAS can provide enhanced GPS accuracy to enable precision-approach operations down to Cat I.
Operational testing of the WAAS is planned to start in early 1998, and it is expected to be operational by 2001.
Source: Flight International
