SATS Program Benefits

Cost

• SATS can reduce intercity travel cost on the order of half in many markets, while increasing the number of communities served by air transportation by more than ten-fold in the longer term.

Time 

SATS will reduce doorstep-to-destination travel time and create access to more communities in less time by leveraging underutilized small airports.

• SATS provides an alternative to delays imposed by gridlock, hublock and urban sprawl. SATS reduces economic disparities imposed by the concentrated transportation systems of the 20th Century.

Availability 

SATS will provide reliable, on-demand, widely distributed access to more communities in less time, thereby improving mobility and quality of life.

• SATS increases the radius of action of daily life by ten-fold, the first increase of such magnitude since the cars displaced horses for intercity travel.

Safety 

SATS will provide a proven and safe travel alternative from current transportation system delays.

• Additionally, SATS has the potential to ease some of the environmental impacts of the ever-expanding transportation consumption of the nation.

SATS aircraft technologies will make small airport access possible

SATS technologies will include enhanced vision, Highway in the Sky (HITS), software-based flight controls, airborne internet, emergency auto-land, and collaborative seperation procedures.  These technologies will allow simultaneous operations by multiple small aircraft in non-radar and non-towered airports without expensive ground-based instrumentation and with reduced land-use impact.  This will create accessability to virtually any landing site in the nation in nearly all weather conditions.