The international aviation industry has embraced a revolutionary future concept of operations known as "free flight". The free flight concept allows each aircraft to travel between destinations using flexible fuel efficient routes rather than the current fixed jet routes. Flying the present inefficient fixed routes costs the airlines millions of dollars annually in fuel and personnel costs. Additionally, because there are only a limited number of the current "highways in the sky", aircraft in the United States and Europe regularly experience delays waiting for their turn to access the jet-routes. This present system also constrains future air traffic growth, particularly in oceanic airspace.

To address these deficiencies, direct pilot-to-controller communications are required in oceanic airspace managed by the United States. This functional requirement for direct pilot-to-controller communications is not being met by the present oceanic air-to-ground communications system.

Using a systems engineering approach, this project determines the feasibility of extending domestic air traffic control communication systems into the U.S. managed oceanic airspace over the Gulf of Mexico. Two feasible alternatives are evaluated for achieving this capability.