Multiple sources had been working on the general concept of network connectivity for aircraft in the 1990’s, including the U.S. military and its contractors. One of the earliest suggestions of what came to be known as “Airborne Internet,” took place in July 1999 at a NASA Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) Planning Conference. The
Federal Aviation Administration’s Ralph Yost suggested a civil system for airborne network connectivity that started as a supporting technology for SATS. The name “Airborne Internet” was actually coined by NASA’s Dr. Bruce Holmes, then the Program Manager for SATS, who conveyed it to Yost. Although it was ultimately used by SATS in their multi-aircraft, high volume operations flight demonstration at Danville VA, NASA chose not to invest further in the development of Airborne Internet. Because NASA declined to pursue Airborne Internet further, and based on his originally proposed concept, Yost then cultivated his original Airborne Internet idea and subsequently started the Federal Aviation Administration’s own Airborne Internet research project at the FAA William J Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City N.J. (The Airborne Internet capability that supported SATS was subsequently the winner of NASA's "Turning Goals Into Reality" Mobility Award for revolutionizing aviation). Yost started (and still owns) the web site
www.AirborneInternet.com. Yost then went on to form the Airborne Internet Collaboration Group (AICG), which matured into the
Airborne Internet Consortium (AIC). Once the AIC was formed, it was handed over to interested corporate entities to manage, and government participation was withdrawn. Originally called “Airborne Internet,” the “Internet” moniker was not received well internally by FAA management. The name of the FAA R&D Airborne Internet program was subsequently changed by Yost to “Airborne Networking.” The name changed appeased the FAA management and added synchronization to similar efforts by the U.S. military. All mentions and publications about “Airborne Internet” or “Airborne Networking” most likely refer to the same research program initiated and conducted by Yost. Yost worked with two early developers of Airborne Internet capabilities, each with completely different approaches and different operational capabilities. Each company had similar ideas about air-to-air networking, but implemented them in completely different ways. The first system in the FAA’s Airborne Internet R&D program was developed by Project Management Enterprises Inc. (PMEI), of Bethesda, Md., headed by Prasad Nair. It was used by all aircraft in NASA’s SATS multi-aircraft flight demonstration conducted at Danville VA. The PMEI system utilized a standard aviation VHF radio channel, and therefore was a low bandwidth system. But PMEI had smartly developed their networking capability to uniquely work in the low bandwidth radio, including the ability to report aircraft position to every other aircraft on the network. They further refined network capability and applications that allowed weather, and other useful information, to very effectively function in the low bandwidth VHF radios. The PMEI system, supporting a narrowband 25Khz channel and a 19 kbit/sec link, combined a standard aircraft omnidirectional VHF antenna with a small multichannel data radio using network protocols, and offered an additional voice channel that could be used simultaneously. Internal GPS could optionally be used to provide own-ship position data, which could then be shared (as a simple application) with other network users to enhance situational awareness. The system connected with a standard
local area network (LAN) on the aircraft. In contrast to the PMEI low bandwidth approach, the second system in the FAA’s Airborne Internet R&D program was developed by AeroSat (now Astronics Aerosat) of Manchester, New Hampshire, and provided very high bandwidth. It included a single, high-gain directional antenna, for long-range connectivity, and two omnidirectional units, for use over ranges of about 100 nm. This combination supported two TCP/IP data communications options: 90 Mbit/sec – that is, 45 Mbit/sec in each direction in the Ka and Ku-bands - for aircraft in the network “backbone,” and a 1-2 Mbit/sec L-band link that allowed secondary aircraft to access the backbone. The concept of operations brought by Aerosat was to establish a very high backbone network between aircraft, then have lower bandwidth aircraft connect (directly or relay) into the backbone. Based upon the early flight tests conducted, Aerosat estimated that only 8 aircraft would be needed to extend the network over the Atlantic from shore-to-shore. == Airborne Internet Flight Tests ==