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Mr. CONERLY. We would hope the same arrangements for paying for the cable circuitry as worked out by ICAO would eventually be worked out for satellites.

Mr. ROBACK. Are discussions going on now to determine the pattern of support because, obviously, if you don't have an agreed pattern of support then you may not be able to really go through with a contract. Mr. CONERLY. We are definitely working

Mr. ROBACK. What?

Mr. CONERLY. We are definitely working directly with the United Kingdom and the Canadians in trying to get an overall understanding of this whole problem, technically and so forth.

Mr. ROBACK. Well, is the ICAO the forum for getting agreement on this or is this Intelsat or who?

Colonel MAY. No; we are not bringing it up before the ICAO. There is an interesting point here, Mr. Roback, under the 1944 ICAO convention the United States actually assumed the obligation of providing this service, anything related to air traffic control, at no charge to the user. It just happens over the years there has developed an entirely different pattern so I guess the precedent has been set for user charges loud and clear, but we feel, as Mr. League said, we have to have a firm cost figure first and we don't have that.

So, the answer to your second question is, "No, we are not planning to bring up the funding question in ICAO in Montreal."

Mr. ROBACK. Let me ask you this. Can you make a contract with Comsat and then worry about whether you get some cost sharing later? That is, whether you make a contract with Comsat will depend really on what kind of funding availability you get.

Colonel MAY. Yes; we have to see the proposal first because we are talking about an uncertain number of channels over two at the moment. In fact, if the transponder turns out to provide four channels instead of two Comsat has told us informally the total cost originally quoted would cover the additional channels as well.

Mr. ROBACK. As I recall an ancient statute, you have to have some funds available before you can make a contract. Isn't that so?

Mr. LEAGUE. That is true.

Colonel MAY. I am sure we won't proceed that far without a complete understanding.

Mr. ROBACK. On a timing basis does that mean you will have a budget item, what is it, in your 1967 budget?

Colonel MAY. Not 1967.

Mr. LEAGUE. I don't think it will be that soon; no, sir.

Mr. DAHLIN. What was the original date you were working on when you had this proposal coming up before?

Colonel MAY. September of 1967 as being operationally available. Now, Comsat has slipped that by about 6 months so if we should go along with the Comsat proposal, should it be acceptable to us, we are talking a 6 months later availability, in other words, the summer or spring of 1968.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. When would you require funds, what fiscal budget1968 or 1969?

Colonel MAY. 1969, sir.
Mr. HOLIFIELD. 1969?
Colonel MAY. Yes, 1969.

Mr. ROBACK. You are a member of the NCS on long-haul but you don't work this arrangement through the NCS?

Colonel MAY. No; they had made a legal determination, Mr. Roback, and it was found not necessary and I have that correspondence here. Mr. ROBACK. Will you submit that for the record?

Colonel MAY. Yes; I would be pleased to.

Mr. ROBACK. Is this part a legal interpretation relative to the President's instruction to the executive agent?

Colonel MAY. Yes.

Mr. ROBACK. That any dealings with Comsat had to go through the Secretary of Defense?

Colonel MAY. It explains this in here.

Mr. ROBACK. It explains that?

Colonel MAY. That rationale is in here as well.

Mr. ROBACK. We will take that for the record.

Colonel MAY. This is a memorandum for General Starbird, copy furnished to us.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. We will accept it for the record.
Colonel MAY. It makes it very clear.

(The following letter was submitted for the record :)

FEDERAL AVIATION AGENCY, Washington, D.C., September 13, 1966.

Hon. CHET HOLIFIELD,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Military Operations, Committee on Government
Operations, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: During the course of the hearing held by your subcommittee on September 1, 1966, we were asked to supply information relative to FAA's authority to negotiate directly with the Communications Satellite Committee for air/ground satellite communications rather than through the NCS. As stated in Mr. League's opening statement, the FAA is an active operating member of the NCS, and in accordance with President Kennedy's Memorandum of August 1, 1963, we both contribute to and share in the resources of the NCS. However, our participation in the NCS is limited to our long-haul, point-to-point, trunk communications since, also in accordance with the President's memorandum, it is of these systems that the NCS is primarily comprised. Air/ground communications, however, are considered to be tactical communications. Therefore, they are not included within the purview of the NCS assets and tasks, but rather are within the general statutory authority of the Federal Aviation Agency to procure communications services to meet its operational requirements.

Also, there is enclosed, pursuant to your request at the hearing, a copy of our test plan for the airborne VHF communications, ranging and interference. experiments with the applications technology satellite (ATS-B).

Sincerely,

Signed ROBERT L. RANDALL,
Deputy General Counsel

(For Nathaniel H. Goodrich, General Counsel).

Mr. ROBACK. Proceed. Colonel MAY. Back to the ICAO meeting in Montreal which occurs: October-November. The United States is going forward with a very strong position recommending a VHF satellite across the Atlantic. In that position we have have the full support of the Air Transport Association, representing all the U.S. air carriers; in fact, they are working closely with us and have worked closely with us in formalizing the U.S.-ICAO position.

We also have been working informally with the International Air Transport Association (IATA), we have had a meeting with them in Paris some several months ago explaining what we mean by a VHF

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satellite across the North Atlantic for air traffic control and have found general support.

IATA is meeting in Montreal right now in a preparatory sense for their position at the ICAO meeting, and I understand informally that they have shown great interest in the satellites, so their position is not changed.

We still have problems, of course.

Mr. League has touched on the funding question, we accept this as a problem. We are going to work it out. As he said in his statement, we are calling this a practical pioneering effort, and we want to get on with it because we are in trouble now on high frequency.

Mr. ROBACK. It is possible as a part of the new Department of Transportation you will find that a congenial environment for progress.

Colonel MAY. I have a feeling just, and this is Colonel May speaking, that the U.S. air carriers would not be opposed to some sort of a cost-sharing basis. They, too, are extremely interested in getting on with this job.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. We have great problems in communications for transportation facing us. I was impressed by the increase in the number of flights that you predict for the next 10 or 20 years, and this is going to magnify your problem of communication.

Colonel MAY. Yes, sir, it is.

The operational concepts, strangely enough, are the easiest things to resolve and I will go into that very quickly.

Mr. League mentioned the 10 areas with which we are currently concerned. This is our Pacific responsibility, it extends all the way from the complete west coast, Alaska, Honolulu, and Wake Island to Guam.

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Colonel MAY. In other words, FAA has all air traffic control responsibilities including that of controlling military traffic all the way out, and to give you a feel for the nature of the routes, these are the longhaul routes we are talking about, thousands and thousands of miles. (Referring to chart FAÃ-8:)

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Colonel MAY. What are we using now? High frequency communication.

Is it adequate? Minimal.

And the only reason why high frequency does not give us the same extent of problems in the Pacific as it does in the Atlantic is because the traffic volume is not as much. If we had the same volume of traffic (as in the Atlantic), we would have the same problem.

That being a quick look at our Atlantic responsibilities, these are the remainder: (Referring to chart FAA-9:)

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Colonel MAY. There are New York, San Juan, the two Miamis split on either side, Houston, and of course, Panama.

The Air Force, I think, is still controlling air traffic down at Santo Domingo so you can consider that in a problem area as well.

(Referring to chart FAA-10:)

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