2019 Renewal ADS-B Rebate - Supporting Statement A - current final

SUPPORTING STATEMENT A

Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) Rebate Program

2120-0769

1. Circumstances that make collection of information necessary.

On May 21, 2010, the FAA issued a final rule requiring Automatic Dependence Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) Out avionics on aircraft operating in Classes A, B, and C, airspace as well as certain other classes of airspace within the National Airspace System (NAS) no later than January 1, 2020 (75 FR 30160). To meet this deadline for compliance, the FAA estimated that 160,000 general aviation (GA) aircraft would need to be equipped with ADS-B Out by January 1, 2020. In developing the final rule, the FAA assumed that these aircraft owners would begin equipping new aircraft with ADS-B equipment in 2012, and begin retrofitting the existing aircraft in 2013, to minimize costs associated with retrofitting outside of the aircraft’s heavy maintenance cycle. In any given year, avionics installers are capable of completing approximately 35,000-45,000 installations. Thus, to balance demand for installations amongst all aircraft owners and the capacity of the avionics installers, beginning in 2013, approximately 23,000 general aviation aircraft would need to be equipped each year to ensure all aircraft are equipped with ADS-B Out by the compliance date. Data collected by the FAA indicated that the actual installations of ADS-B Out avionics by GA pilots are not achieving the desired goal. In addition, installation rates indicate that a significant portion of GA pilots may not equip.

Information received by the FAA indicates that owners of general aviation aircraft, who are particularly price sensitive, are likely to wait to install the ADS-B Out, expecting prices to drop. Given the capacity of the avionics installers, this delay would overwhelm and frustrate the aviation system, leading to denial of access to ADS-B airspace, with resultant disruptions to economic activities associated with this decrease in operations.

To help ensure installations occur at a rate that the system can manage and continue to incentivize general aviation pilots to equip with ADS-B Out, the FAA first launched a rebate program in 2016 to help defray costs associated with the equipment and installation for eligible general aviation aircraft. The rebate program was deemed a success. However, there remains a significant number of GA Pilot aircraft that still have not equipped. Extending the ADS-B Rebate program will address this problem.

Through the ADS-B Rebate Program, GA aircraft owners are permitted to reserve a rebate, validate their installation, and then claim their rebate through the ADS-B Rebate Program website. The information described below is collected for the FAA to issue the rebate:

1. Eligibility Checklist – Aircraft Owner will validate that they are indeed eligible for the program. Eligibility is determined by the following:

   • U.S.-registered, fixed-wing single-engine piston aircraft first registered before 1-Jan-2016 (i.e., new aircraft produced after 1-Jan-2016 are not eligible); this eligibility will be determined via the FAA Civil Aircraft Registry

   • Intent to Install new permanent Technical Standard Order (TSO)-certified avionics in a single aircraft in compliance with applicable FAA regulations

   • The FAA has not paid or previously committed to upgrade the aircraft to comply with the ADS-B mandate.

2. Rebate Reservation Form – Aircraft owners will provide their aircraft tail number, avionics equipment scheduled for install, planned installation date, and e-mail address.

3. Validation of Installation – Once the aircraft owner installs the avionics, the aircraft will need to fly per the program rules. The collection of data from aircraft necessary for this validation of installation was accounted for in the previously approved PRA package for the ADS-B Out rulemaking.

4. Rebate Claim – Aircraft owners will need to provide the aircraft number, Rebate Reservation Code, email address, and Incentive Code. The system will pull the following information from a copy of the publicly available information from the Civil Aviation Registry (CAR) based on the Aircraft Tail Number provided; Aircraft Owner Name, Aircraft Owner’s mailing address, and description of the aircraft. During the step, it is required that the information contained within this section is correct and meets the eligibility requirements of the program before continuing.

The following legal statutes apply to this information collection:

• US Code: 49 USC 44701, Name of Law: General Requirements

• US Code: 49 USC 40103, Name of Law: Sovereignty and Use of Airspace.

2. How, by whom, and for what purpose is the information used.

Participation in the ADS-B Rebate Program is voluntary. However, participation is required in order to receive the rebate. The program is offered only to GA pilots who own fixed wing, single-engine piston aircraft registered before January 1, 2016 in the US. By means of the FAA website, each GA pilot determines eligibility, reports the aircraft information in the online rebate form, validates equipment installation, and claims the rebate. The GA pilot’s interaction with the FAA website is required one time. The collected information is used by the FAA ADS-B Rebate Program Office to determine the GA Pilot’s eligibility for the rebate.

The data collected for the ADS-B Rebate Program is used by the following FAA entities:

1. By the Air Traffic Organization lines of business to reserve a rebate for the aircraft owner who is eligible to receive a rebate through the ADS-B Rebate Program Website.

2. By the Air Traffic Organization lines of business to validate the installation of the avionics on the aircraft through the Public Performance Monitor. The Performance Monitor is a National Airspace (NAS) safety application that currently supports continued airworthiness and enforcement activities. The Performance Monitor processes ADS-B surveillance data (aircraft position and avionics data), identifies ADS-B equipped aircraft operating below FAA performance requirements, and generates a list of non-compliant aircraft.

3. By the Air Traffic Organization lines of business to validate that the aircraft owner has completed all steps in the ADS-B Rebate Program process and is eligible to claim the rebate.

4. By the Air Traffic Organization lines of business to process the rebate claim form and send the rebate to the registered aircraft owner.

The FAA will continue this ADS-B Rebate Program in order to incentivize GA Pilots to equip with ADS-B Out, especially those GA pilots who might otherwise not equip. ADS-B Out equipped aircraft allow increased situational awareness among all aircraft within congested airspace.

FAA ADS-B Rebate Program will retain control over the information and safeguard it from improper access, modification, and destruction, consistent with FAA standards for confidentiality, privacy, and electronic information. Information collected will not be disseminated nor used to support information that will be disseminated.

3. Extent of automated information collection.

This data collection is 100% electronic and automated for the respondent. The respondent will be able to register, validate the installation, and claim the rebate by entering information into the Web-based forms. The FAA utilizes ADS-B Out data automatically collected by the Performance Monitor to validate the installation. The rebate application information provided by GA pilots is entered at the following website; https://faa.gov/nextgen/equipadsb/rebate.

4. Efforts to identify duplication.

The FAA uses a combination of information already available and new information to administer the ADS-B Rebate Program. Specifically, the FAA utilizes the Civil Aircraft Registry (CAR) information already collected by the FAA. Information from the CAR is used to validate eligible aircraft and used to send checks to the aircraft owner‘s address of record.

New information collected for this program includes the aircraft owner’s e-mail address that is required to send the applicable Rebate Code and Incentive Code needed to claim the rebate once the avionics is installed. Other new information collected on the forms is necessary to determine eligibility to participate in the new ADS-B Rebate Program and subsequently necessary to claim the rebate.

5. Efforts to minimize the burden on small businesses.

The FAA has made the effort to minimize the burden on any aircraft owner eligible for the program that chooses to participate by developing a streamlined web-based rebate program application that uses a combination of information already available to the FAA and only minimal additional input to participate. This includes small businesses or other small entities.

6. Impact of less frequent collection of information.

Collecting the information once from each GA Pilot is sufficient to allow processing of the rebate application. If this information is not collected, the FAA will not be able to continue the ADS-B Rebate Program (i.e., offer rebate reservations, validate installations, or offer aircraft owners the rebate).

7. Special circumstances.

There are no special circumstances.

8. Compliance with 5 CFR 1320.8.

A Federal Register Notice published on April 12, 2019 (84 FR 15036) solicited public comment. No comments were received.

There were no comments or criticisms from government respondents or other non-FAA stakeholders concerning the usefulness of the information to be collected, the clarity of instructions and whether burden and cost estimates are accurate and reasonable.

9. Payments or gifts to respondents.

FAA is continuing to offer a monetary incentive in the amount of $500 to help owners of less expensive general aviation aircraft who, because of equipment cost considerations, are delaying equipping with ADS-B Out avionics. The rebate will be available to incentivize equipage of ADS-B Out avionics.

10. Assurance of confidentiality.

The ADS-B Rebate Program offers no assurance of confidentiality.

11. Justification for collection of sensitive information.

There are no questions of a sensitive nature.

12. Estimate of burden hours for information requested.

The ADS-B Rebate Program will offer up to 20,000 rebates per year. The Rebate Program will be available until all rebates have been issued or when the program concludes, whichever occurs first. There is one collection instrument used by respondents to apply for a rebate. Estimated burden for each individual aircraft owner is approximately 6 minutes or 0.1 hour. The FAA assumes that all rebates will be claimed in a given year and thus estimate the following burden via the following steps:

• Eligibility Checklist, Rebate Reservation, Rebate Checklist, & Claim – Estimate up to 360 seconds (0.10 hours)

  • 6 minutes per aircraft owner, i.e., 0.1 hr.

  • 20,000 users X (0.1 hrs.) = 2,000 hours

Total estimate of burden hours for 20,000 users (individual aircraft owners) is approximately 2,000 hours per year.

Annualized Burden for respondents:

Summary (Annual numbers)	Reporting	Recordkeeping	Disclosure
# of Respondents	20,000
# of Responses per respondent	1
Time per Response	0.10 hr.
Total # of responses	20,000
Total burden (hours)	2,000 hrs.

Assuming the labor category for GA pilots to be Management, Professional, and Related with a total compensation (100%) labor hour cost, i.e., fully burdened of $61.08 per hour from Table 1. in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, USDL-18-1941 (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/ecec_12142018.htm), the burden for each aircraft owner to apply for a rebate is:

0.1 hr x $61.08/hr = $6.11

The annual cost burden of 20,000 aircraft owners applying for rebates is:

$6.11/respondent x 20,000 respondents = $122,200.00.

13. Estimate of total annual costs to respondents.

There are no additional material costs to respondents other than those described in 12.

14. Estimate of cost to the Federal government.

The method used to estimate annualized cost is the quantification of hours for the professional staff. There are no other operational expenses, i.e., no equipment, overhead, printing, or related expenses. The total cost to the Federal government is based on annualized hours of effort for the labor category of; Management, Professional, and Related for FAA government employees based on the information provided in Table 1. of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, USDL-18-1941 (https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/ecec_12142018.htm):

Annualized Cost for the Federal government:

Labor Category: Management, Professional and Related		Cost
Implementation (Program Management and Setup, SBS Performance Monitor) Labor Hours ($61.08/hr)	$61.08/hr x 11,469.5 hrs	$700,560.00
Operations Labor Hours ($61.08/hr)	$61.08/hr x 8,006.9 hrs	$489,061.00
Disposal ($61.08/hr )	$61.08/hr x 4,028.1 hrs	$246,038.00
Total		$1,435,659.00

15. Explanation of program changes or adjustments.

This information collection renewal extends the program duration to allow more time for GA Pilots to apply for rebates. The information collection requirements are unchanged from the original ICR.

16. Publication of results of data collection.

There results of the information collection will not be published.

17. Approval for not displaying the expiration date of OMB approval.

This information collection is not seeking approval to not display the expiration date.

18. Exceptions to certification statement.

There are no exceptions to the certification statement.

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