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.

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 FAA-8:)

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:)

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:)

Colonel MAY. This is a view of the routes that are so currently heavily traveled and are expected to be even more so in the future across the Atlantic, you can see our involvement. Our neighbors' involvement is great, too. Canada controls all of this traffic; this is the Gander flight identification region and this is the one operated jointly by the British and the Irish, called Shanwick.

And now a quick look

Mr. HOLIFIELD. The volume of your communications is much heavier over the Atlantic, I suppose

Colonel MAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Than the Pacific. About what ratio?

Colonel MAY. I would say at least 75 percent more, sir. It is very heavy. That is the reason why our first satellite we would propose should be located equatorially orbited, of course, at synchronous altitude and at about 15 to 18 degrees west. This will give us the coverage that we feel we need initially to relieve our current congestion.

(Referring to chart 6, p. 417.)

Mr. HOLIFIELD. Why is it equatorially situated rather than further north in the hemisphere where most of the population is? Colonel MAY. Because it is easier to hold it here, sir.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. I see.

Colonel MAY. Yes. It is just like Syncom II and III, it is just easier to hold it on the equator for perfectly good physical reasons which I don't profess to fully understand, but Comsat assures us that the steering problems and, as a matter of fact, the initial placement problems are infinitely simpler there and since we are not really concerned about such areas as Iceland and the polar regions at the moment, this would be quite adequate.

Mr. HOLIFIELD. You can make your communications with an equatorial orbiting satellite without any trouble?

Colonel MAY. That is correct.

One of our objectives, of course, in planning the operational concept for the use of the satellite across the Atlantic was to make the translation, the transition, from high frequency to satellite use as simple and straightforward as possible, and it can be unbelievably simple. Today we go through a high frequency ground station, usually operated by Aeronautical Radio, Inc. He is the middleman. He is the man who is talking with the pilot in flight via high frequency radio. By going to satellites, we eliminate the middleman completely, and here (referring to chart 4, p. 414) you have your aircraft controller sitting in his position in the air route traffic control center talking directly to the pilot in flight and it is relatively that simple. That is the reason why the translation is so easy and here are the coordination channels you asked me about, Mr. Roback.

That, then, is the simplicity of the operation of satellites.
Mr. DAHLIN. What is the proposal on the ground stations?

Colonel MAY. The Comsat proposal was that they would use Andover, Maine, on the east coast, as the U.S. terminal, and that the British would place one near Shannon, at Shanwick (Ireland), as the terminal on that end. They have had discussions with the British relative to how it would be built and who would pay for it, and that has been their discussion and not ours. In our discussion with them we have asked for a packaged solution to our problem on a leased basis.

Mr. DAHLIN. What is the frequency problem that you speak of? Colonel MAY. The frequency problem, as Mr. Conerly says, is a very simple one. If you fly on VHF at all, that is if you fly using VHF, you know how crowded the channels are today.

Mr. DAHLIN. How about the decision on frequencies in this system! Colonel MAY. Well, how to place it within the already crowded band of 118 to 136 megacycles.

Mr. DAHLIN. Is there any problem on the 6-4, up and down?
Colonel MAY. Not at all. In fact

Mr. DAHLIN. You are only taking a portion of the 6-4 area?
Colonel MAY. Yes, only a tiny piece of it, as a matter of fact.

Mr. DAHLIN. There will be no interference with Comsat's other satellites?

Colonel MAY. None at all.

We could have almost an infinite number of voice channels through there if we wished this. But in the VHF spectrum it is entirely different. You will recall, Mr. Roback, that I told you in some detail of one proposal to slip these satellite channels into existing channels. It happens that as the frequency stability of the airplane equipment has become better over the years it has been possible to use less bandwidth and we are now using 50-kilocycle channel spacing. We can put a 25-kilocycle FM band between the existing aircraft channels without interfering with adjacent channels.

Hughes has done test work on that. While it is far from being the final word at least it looks highly promising. However, the desision with respect to going this way has not been made yet.

Mr. DAHLIN. Can you give us a little more of the background on what the ATS relation to this proposal is? What have you tried to work out with NASA on the ATS?

Mr. CONERLY. We have a complete test plan worked out with NASA to conduct tests over the Pacific as soon as the ATS-B is in orbit. Mr. ROBACK. For what, air-ground?

Mr. CONERLY. Not air-ground; air-satellite-ground; yes, right. Using their facility.

Mr. DAHLIN. This same arrangement with these circuits?

Mr. CONERLY. Essentially the same with the

Mr. DAHLIN. With these frequencies?

Mr. CONERLY. It will be in the 136; 135.9, and 148 are the two fre

quencies used.

Mr. ROBACK. That will have VHF?

Mr. CONERLY. VHF.

Mr. ROBACK. In the ATS?

Mr. CONERLY. Right.

Mr. ROBACK. Can you use that for a couple of years?

Mr. CONERLY. Well, one of the frequency

Mr. ROBACK. The FCC or the DTM-if I use all these initials I hope you can follow-said that they don't want the ATS to be used for traffic, for administrative traffic.

Do you use it for administrative traffic?

Mr. CONERLY. Our intent is not to use it.

Mr. ROBACK. Or traffic control? I am not asking about your intent; I am asking technically whether you can use the ATS for an experimental program of air-ground satellite communication?