Turbulence Ahead for FAA's NextGen

The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledges there is still a lot of work to do on its ambitious $20 billion program to replace the nation's aging radar-based air traffic control system with a satellite-based network by 2020.

Speaking at the Avionics RTCA Fall Symposium in Washington on Wednesday, Steve Bradford, chief scientist for NextGen at FAA, said the agency continues to make progress and while they have hit some milestones, the program "may not show as much momentum as I'd like."

And, "The heavy lifting is still there," Bradford said, adding that there will most likely will be bumps in the road ahead, or is that the runway?