Mr. ROBACK. This would be your first area to experiment with?
Colonel MAY. Yes.

Mr. ROBACK. Where your heaviest traffic is?

Colonel MAY. For Atlantic coverage only they had quoted us and this was as of December 1965, $5.2 million annually for a two-channel satellite, $8.6 million, these are all annual totals now, $8.6 million for two satellites to cover both the Atlantic and Pacific and for the whole world, three satellites, $12 million.

Mr. ROBACK. How many, at any given time? How many ships could be communicating over those satellites, say you had two.

Colonel MAY. We allot 5 minutes per air-ground contact and this is quite generous. Actually, the average contact is about 3 minutes or less.

Mr. ROBACK. What are your channel requirements in your initial system?

Colonel MAY. We feel that two will provide our communications requirements until about 1969-70, Mr. Roback..

Mr. ROBACK. Two full duplex voice channels?

Colonel MAY. Five minutes per contact comes out to 12 contacts hourly and, obviously, 288 contacts per day.

Mr. ROBACK. That is, all ships could get access to it?

Colonel MAY. Yes; they are not calling at the same time, of course, which would be most unusual. At 3 minutes per contact the figure goes way up to 480 contacts per day possible. This is on a single channel, multiply that by two and you have a feel of the volume possible.

There has been both pessimism and optimism expressed on this particular point but we honestly think the two satellite channels will hold us until 1969.

Mr. ROBACK. Comsat, having given you a ball park figure based on their in-house studies and maybe preliminary discussions with the trade, then found that the single offer they got was beyond those estimates, or at least they were not in position to maintain that kind of a cost estimate to you, is that right?

Colonel MAY. That is correct.

Mr. ROBACK. So they want to make another effort?

Colonel MAY. That is correct.

Mr. ROBACK. Is there any reason-do you get the understanding that the research and development still needs to be done, that this is a little bit new!

Colonel MAY. Well, I defer to our research and development man on that.

Mr. CONERLY. I think there is definitely some technical trade-off that has to be made between the satellite and aircraft capability. A lot of these questions have not been answered as of yet, but they don't look insurmountable by any means.

Mr. ROBACK. What is the cost estimate of the black boxes that would have to go into the aircraft?

Colonel MAY. If we were to adopt the Comsat proposal for a FM system the design of the boxes is immediately available, Mr. Roback. Mr. ROBACK. How much would they cost for installation, total cost including installation!

Colonel MAY. I don't recall the last Bendix price, Bendix has the equipment and I understand that Collins is also interested.

Mr. ROBACK. What would it be, $25,000?

Colonel MAY. No, it is much less than that, it is about half that amount for the equipment.

Mr. ROBACK. About $12,000. Is the research and development prob lem in the frequency?

Mr. CONERLY. There is a research and development problem in the frequency. Right now we have pretty good usage of our complete VHF band. We are doing experimentation to determine if we can get this satellite communication link in without interference, this is our main problem.

Mr. ROBACK. Why do you use VHF rather than UHF?

Mr. CONERLY. This is where most of our civil traffic, of course, ha their equipment, and we would like to use

Mr. ROBACK. There is off-the-shelf equipment for VHF?

Mr. CONERLY. Yes.

Colonel MAY. All their planes are equipped.

Mr. LEAGUE. They are equipped for VHF and not UHF. The would have to reequip.

Mr. ROBACK. Is that any advantage in UHF?

Colonel MAY. Not at the UHF band, perhaps, you are thinkin about; that is, the military UHF band of 200 to 400.

Mr. ROBACK. They are not the same?

Colonel MAY. You have to go way, way up from that, in othe words, to get any technical advantages.

Mr. CONERLY. The next band available is in the L-band 1.4 gig cycles, I think.

Mr. ROBACK. This would be a dedicated satellite.
Colonel MAY. That was our original intention.

Mr. ROBACK. To be used only for that purpose?
Colonel MAY. That was our original intent.

Mr. ROBACK. Would it be available for long-haul commuincations? Colonel MAY. Only to the extent that the up-link and down-link on either side do provide a channel through it, kind of an order wire like in most of the satellites.

Mr. ROBACK. Would there be any bonus value in long-haul communications from such a system?

Colonel MAY. Yes; it would mean if it were available without undue costs we would use this instead of our ground coordination channels. Mr. ROBACK. Who is going to pay for this system? You said FAA would have to reimburse or pay Comsat for its satellites for so many channels of service-this would be 24-hour service, I assume.

Colonel MAY. Yes.

Mr. LEAGUE. Yes.

Mr. ROBACK. What is the relationship, the present arrangement, whereby the airlines support their own service? In other words, this would be a shift in cost obligations from the industry to the Government, is that right?

Colonel MAY. That is right.

Mr. ROBACK. Offhand why won't the industry do this? Why don't you tell the industry, "Since you are paying for the service now, why don't you continue paying for it in a new more important way?" I am just asking the question.

Mr. LEAGUE. Mr. Roback, the funding, the financing for this has not been worked out so I can't answer your question. We haven't progressed that far.

Mr. ROBACK. It is not inconceivable that industry would be a contributor?

Mr. LEAGUE. This is possible.

Mr. ROBACK. You are not proposing to give the industry something free which they haven't had before?

Mr. LEAGUE. At this stage we haven't gotten into it that far. We are not proposing at this point to do that; no, sir.

Mr. ROBACK. If you were making a contribution to the industry, you would have to defend the budget item for that purpose. Mr. LEAGUE. This is true.

Mr. ROBACK. And so the cost of the service as conveyed by Comsat is relevant to what you consider the budget possibilities are? Mr. LEAGUE. This is true.

Mr. ROBACK. If it is too high, it doesn't look like you might be able to get it through.

Mr. LEAGUE. Yes, sir; this is right. That is why we have to wait for this figure before we can proceed with our planning for funding. Mr. ROBACK. What are the possibilities, because after all, you are talking about getting you talked with Comsat over a period of time about getting some hardware, and-if you haven't worked out who is going to pay for it, are you going on the assumption the Government would pay for it?

Mr. LEAGUE. Well, this would probably be a cost-sharing type of thing, perhaps with other countries even.

Mr. ROBACK. It is conceivable that even though you would be the prime contractor, so to speak from the standpoint of all the users, that they would all be contributors to the cost.

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 interferenceexperiments with the applications technology satellite (ATS-B).

Sincerely,

Signed ROBERT L. RANDALL,
Deputy General Counsel

Mr. ROBACK. Proceed.

(For Nathaniel H. Goodrich, General Counsel).

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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