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FAA Pushes Air Traffic Control Systems Into Service
An anonymous reader points us to this AP story about the FAA forcing new air traffic control systems into service, over the objections of technicians and air traffic controllers. The Transportation Department's Inspector General notes that many critical bugs remain unfixed. We reviewed a book that discussed the lessons to be learned from software engineering projects; and we had a recent story about Great Britain having all sorts of problems with their new air traffic control software.
for the CLIT
The
Roll it out into production and patch it later. Only full production testing will find all the bugs.
I'm STILL glad I don't "fly the friendly skies"....
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither!"
Don't they remember the disaster when the ATC shut down a few years back? It's not like this thing is a web browser.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
...If we can't crash our airplanes into buildings accidentally before the terrorists do it deliberately then the terrorists have already won.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Those filthy Capitalists pushing that expensive software!
;-)
Mozilla 1.0 is out and it is free, therfore th government no longer needs to pay corporations any more.
Ummm, isn't that the way I am supposed to think now that I am a greenie
Yeah, the controllers are pissed off because they based the new system on one of those bad ATC games with flashy graphics. It now runs on a Windows 98 machine and crashes every 1024 planes
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Even a buggy air-traffic control system is better than the one they have now. Every 3 days or so, the radar screens drop horizontal so that air traffic controllers can keep track of their dots while the computer goes down and then comes back up.
This is not a pretty sight. Each ATC can have 30+ planes on their screen, and when the computer goes down, they screen drops horizontal, the ATC whips out little flags with numbers on them and keeps them on top of the now anonymous dots.
So I think ANY improvement is a good thing.
On the blacker side: The bugs themselves could be a good thing. Maybe one of these "bugs" will misreport the location of things like the Sears Tower, or the Capitol Building and a hijacked plane will slam into "Al's Meats and More" instead of the intended target.... (yes, I'm still REALLY angry about the Pentagon/WTC/Penn. terrorist attacks)
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
Guess who's NOT flying to Philly in November?
Go live with a system like this without any real world testing at a major airport? Nothankyoo
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
that the Slashdot editors didn't find some way to blame Microsoft for STARS.
Not much specifics. Basically says the union hates it and the FAA and Raytheon say it's OK. It lists a few problems, but doesn't say if it could be the result of user error. We all know how users always say the system crashed when it's really their mistake. I'm not saying it's good to go for production, but it could be another time when the union is afraid that it will automate too well and result in people's jobs being lost.
along with GPS systems implemented in 3D, otherwise we'll have to wait even longer for the flying car to arrive.
Amtrak
Greyhound
Hertz
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
Except when by web browser crashes, it doesn't slam me into the ground in a firey mass of twisted, molten metal.
Seriously, I thought design philosophies such as the CMM level 5 (used on the space shuttle design), should prevent things like this from happening. I'm sure it's safe to fly, but stories like this don't inspire me to full confidence.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
My internship with Raytheon was actually doing development work for this project. Although they were still behind schedule then, what they did have up and running at the time sure looked a hell of a lot better than the old system.
On a side note, I talked with someone from the FAA about the old system and the hackability of it. I was told that they deemed the US ATC system virtually hack-proof for the simple fact that the hardware was so antiquated that anyone wanting to do malicious damage either wouldn't know how, or it would be such an arduous and tedious task that they'd eventually give up!
Even Open Source will suck hard if you deploy immature software. This sounds more like a case of bad management and premature deployment than any fault of their platform.
Sorry, I'm not sure this can be turned into a pro-Linux thing. Of course, with my luck, you might just be trolling playfully.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Buggy air traffic control systems can fly just as many planes into buildings as even the most talented terrorist, be he Mossad, CIA or an amateur.
I say paint big signs on the sides of all buildings near airports that read: "If you can read this, pull up NOW!"
Oh, and duck a lot.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
It's the classic disaster scenario: the designers/programmers know it's hosed, the management forces them to ship anyway.
You Have Been Warned.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
between when a plane is taken down by birdstrike and bugstrike is no geeks get fired for the former.
Only problem is that the problems aren't OS related, but application related. And the article doesn't say what system they run it on. Could already be Linux. Or it could be another UNIX, or NT/2000 or a mainframe on the backend.
I hate to suggest getting the courts involved because things seem to get bogged down there. Can the technicians - or better yet the public sue to block the FAA from using the new system? According to the article the FAA invoked their "emergency powers" to force the new system in place in Syracuse against the inspectors and certifiers' recomendations. This sounds like a horrible mess waiting to happen. Besides, if we grant the FAA emergency power - they might get crazy and build a death star! Ok, all kidding aside - I wonder if the public can sue to block the use of the new system until it actually passes tests and inspections. Anyone? Is this possible?????
Have a Happy.
That's ridiculous. Open Source software, as good as it may be, will not be used for mission-critical applications such as air traffic control in the foreseeable future, because there is little or no accountability.
Think about it: the software fails, two planes crash into each other. Who's respsonsible? There is no direct line of accountability.
Why don't they just get afew Al'qaeda pilots to do the air traffic controlling. All they need is a couple of mobile phones, an AK and a camel. It costs much less than a billion dollars and is far more reliable
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I'm sick of career politicians playing russian roulette with our lives. Forcing bad software down anyone's throat is bad, but to do this with systems that we depend on to stay alive as we fly, outrageous!!!
;)
We need to be smarter about whom we elect to congress people. No more old people
People who are versed in such matters, including FAA technicians and ATC's, have expressed strong concerns that this system is ready.
They aren't serious enough to (a.) refuse to follow the order to install it, or (b.) refuse to report to work if it is installed. So, if there's ever a disaster directly caused by the known flaws in this system, they're part of the same conspiracy. Whoever made this decision should have done so with the understanding that if they're wrong, they might be held accountable for more than just negligence.
But, people want that paycheck more than they want to protect human lives. So pilots won't be refusing to fly, ATC's won't be halting takeoffs, and FAA managers won't be yelling fire.
If these people really cared, we'd be seeing empty skies like Sept 12th.
So either the systems aren't all that bad, or the people who have the power to stop the madness immediately are chickenshits.
Let's start in Syracuse. Why didn't these "FAA technicians" put their money where their mouth is, and throw their wooden shoes into the machinery? Because they didn't, they should be the first people to answer for any accident that comes from this flawed system. They capitualted, didn't they?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
...or if it has more or less than existing systems (and workflows).
It's: "Is there a net decrease in aircraft safety during movements?"
If not, then it's not necessarily an issue.
Yah you are crazy. If the software doesn't
work it's probably not the OS, it's the
application in which case linux won't make
a difference. BTW, mozilla still crashes.
So does linux. Not so good for air traffic
control.
The sites that use it will have to patch it, send back the patches, and -- tada! -- debugged software.
Think for a sec...
Sure, Open Source == stable
But Stable does not always equal a real solution.
The only way to have a real working solution is to spend a lot of time properly engineering, building, testing and documenting a properly researched and coneived product.
Open Source is not a magic bandaid that makes and computer related application work flawlessly. Please be warned that talk like this is called zealotry and it is what discredits open source and free software.
"I'm STILL glad I don't "fly the friendly skies"...."
Anyone else see the irony in the statment and the sig?
I read an article about a year ago (I wish I could find it now) that talked about radar systems at smaller airports.
Two systems had been developed, one by some guy who worked at such a smaller airport, and one was developed by someone like Raytheon Co.
The system was basically this: The smaller airport would be fed the radar system from a nearby large airport. So if you were flying into Bowman Field, in Louisville, KY, they would be getting fed the signal from Louisville International Airport (SDF). It allowed smaller airports to have the technology of larger airports without having to expend as much money to get it.
The gentlemen who had developed his sytem basically used existing wiring coming from the larger airport and simply sent the signal across that. He hooked up a screen, and had a perfectly good signal. The FAA went on to ask him (he was an FAA employee already) to develop the technology for wide-spread deployment, which he did.
Along comes Raytheon Co. (or whomever the company was) and decides that is a lucritive contract to get. The company comes up with a system costing about ten times as much and about 80% as effective.
Who does the FAA end up going with? Let me answer the question this way: The FAA emplyee did not contribute to any campaigns.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Air traffic controller McCroskey: "Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue."
... "You ever been in a cockpit before?" ... "No sir, I've never been in a plane before." ... "You ever seen a grown man naked?"
Capt. Oveur
Rossie Harris as Joey
Capt Oveur
Find more at:
http://new.wavlist.com/movies/001/
Such a troll....
Imagine: the buggy (and needless to say proprietary) flight control software is installed. Two months later, plane crashes are at an all time high. The FAA is in an uproar, the media is clamoring for a solution, America is in turmoil.
I'm just not seeing this happen. First of all, the old systems sucked just as bad, and they're keeping them around for backups. Secondly, the biggest danger here is mid-air collisions, and modern aircraft have at least good enough proximity alarms to avoid a problem. I would be more worried about smaller private craft than commercial airliners.
What's that? It's the phone. Who is it? Someone named Linux Torvalds...says he has a solution to our problems.
Wrong. This is serious life or death stuff. Even with real time extensions and a VM that doesn't change every 30 days, Linux is neither designed nor intended to handle high load real time situations. Open source software just simply isn't hardened enough to do anything approaching the complexity of a major air traffic control system.
Don't get me wrong - Linux is a good operating system, and its fun as hell to use and hack on, but a good engineer knows that there is a right tool for every job, and Linux just isn't a legimate choice for a high priority real time system like the ATC.
Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
Avweb has also had some interesting articles about England's experiement with new ATC systems.
sPh
These are just minor bugs, teething problems. The good folks at ATC should be able to provide work-arounds without any worries.
Don't let it stop you flying! We've gotta support our aviation industry. God bless it.
This gives a whole new meaning to Blue Screen of Death..
Most probably it runs on an HP V-Class machine running HP-UX, or on a VAX.
...does not work.
Raytheon Canada has developed Canadian Automated Air Traffic System (CAATS) and Military Automated Air Traffic System (MAATS) for a Nav canada contract and are currently selling it to other countries as well. The software works really well (I have seen it firsthand). It was developed in Richmond, BC.
This sounds like something right out of a novel called "Tracon" I read a couple of weeks ago. I thought that the book was very good, but the afterword on the PATCO strike needed some help. See
http://www.japphire.com/tracon.htm for more information.
The problem with STARS is they have to introduce a whole new way of doing everything. I saw a neat discovery channel thing on it and they showed the simulated testing. (It failed certain parts of the testing by the way.)
Here's my gripe. The air traffic control system has been sucking the big one since the 80s (or even before that.) Old technology layered with even older technology. Every other year dateline or 60 minutes does a story on how much it all sucks. Alright, so what's the solution?
Well, according to the contracting some new whiz bang solution that is the end all of be all. So where are we, a couple billion down the hole for the a POS.
What needed to happen is not a total whiz bang solution. It needed to start with a system that emulated everything that the current system did using current technology. Something modular (so you could add new features later on) and something that could scale to meet larger needs. Oh, and something that could have been rolled a good ten years ago.
But noooo, that's too simple, and doesn't put a couple billion into the contractors pocket. Of course the ass clowns in congress are just as much to blame as they approved this.
Hey, it is not a missing Delaware. They are just giving the twin state of Carolina only one stripe. More and more it is considered one state: look at the NHL and NFL teams for it.
bull.
who is accountable if Windows crashes? no one, thats who.
at least woth OS, you can have developer look at the code, address issues. If your talking about getting an existing operating system and using it, you can begin your testing process sooner, and cheaper.
OTOH you can write the code from scratch, and open it up.
With OS you can have a team, assign resposibilities, and have someone in charge of the OS who will be hel accountable. You can not do that with a 3rd party closed spource product, especially from a company the size of MS.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
To live up to their slogan "As Real As It Gets," Microsoft may have to modify Flight Simulator 2004 so that 1 out of 3 times you contact ATC, you hear HAL 9000 sing "Daisy, Daisy..."
The union not liking it says something in favor of it. Remember the PATCO strike in the 1980s? The overpaid slobs actually held air safety hostage and made things more dangerous in their illegal exortion attempt. Some of these wreckless guys were let back on the job recently. If it is safe and efficient, they oppose it.
There's something amusing about that line of reasoning: open source can't be used, not because it's necessarily inferior to closed source but because if something goes wrong we won't be able to blame anyone...
...anyway, you're confusing open source with anonymous development. Open source simply means that the source is available for modification if necessary. If you keep track of who makes what mods, then you could track a mistake either to the original author or to someone who screwed up some code in their revision of the software.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
There are no Mossad and CIA terrorists, nor have their ever been. Are you a member of the Talaban or something?
The FAA program office is now distinguishing between trouble reports it classifies as critical, which will not necessarily be fixed, and those that it considers "truly critical" that will be fixed. The criteria for making the distinction between "critical" and "truly critical" hardware and software problems is not self-defining and is vague, especially for an air traffic control system.
When the bugs mean the possible deaths of hundreds of people and millions of dollars in damages for the airlines, you'd think that the FAA would try to get this program "truly correct". If I were living in Philadelphia, I would expect longer delays at the airport and the occasional flight traffic controller going Postal at an airport.
At least we won't have to blame our plane crashes on terrorists anymore. We can just blame the buggy software. The FAA is making the world a much better place indeed.
Can't this system be replaced by Palm Pilots running a BASIC version of David Ahl's "Lunar Lander" ?
Once the planes are out of control and plummeting, you can drop the Palm Pilot and pick up the controller and play "Missile Command"
Raytheon's spokeswoman is Blanche Necessary...
Infuriate left and right
I'll try not to stray offtopic here.
In the past, I've flown alot for business. I enjoy flying, actually, even in some of the cramped up economy spaces.
Before 9/11, I wasn't overly concerned about our planes running into things. The skyes are awfully big up there, and cities, aside from the obvious ones like NY and LA, are pretty easy to miss or avoid with all the land between them.
And as I think about it, the one thing that takes away my fears about a plane running into something, is that guy in the very front seat of the bus. Y'see, I know several pilots, and none of them are foolish enough to believe the ATC, when they're looking out the front of the plane and see a building comming at them quickly.
These are men and women who have, (proportedly), been highly trained and qualified to get us from point A to point B, safely. And I know most, if hopefully not all of them are smart enough to make good decisions when what they see doesn't match what the ATC is telling them.
In the same vein, there are men and women, who hopefully have good training and good instincts about being ATC's, that when a bug comes up, they're smarter than it is, and will make decisions that avoid the loss of life and property.
Sometimes, alas, you must trust the User to do the right thing. And in this case, we get Trained Users to do the job. Let them do their job.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Of course, the air traffic controller's union is upset about this. Most air traffic controllers have a very short career (burn-out) and don't want to have to learn a new way of doing things.
then you are not supposed to use Mozilla intil the government takes it over and then requires tax payments to keep it going. No independent sector under the Green Party system; it is all about government control.
This is the US government, as led by born and bred politicians, what else was anyone expecting? After Prozac, Nutrasweet, and the ongoing tobacco fiascos, it stuns me that people can be so stupid as to expect anything approaching logic and reason from our government.
Show me an effect without cause and then I'll believe in chaos.
-- quote
According to the article the FAA invoked their "emergency powers" to force the new system in place in Syracuse against the inspectors and certifiers' recomendations. This sounds like a horrible mess waiting to happen.
--
Well, I work in a building right in line with the SYR main runway. I can tell how lined up a plane is by what section of the parking lot they fly over (we are talking a 20 car lot.) The planes are so close I can see which ones need to be repainted or washed.
So far...I'm still alive, that's a good sign. Also, recently I have seen some planes lining up with the runway much closer than before, I wonder if that means the controllers can handle the traffic better? That would be a good sign for if the system as a whole if it is rolled out in other places.
Anyway, when the system in SYR has problems, I'll be either the first...or last...to notify slashdot.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Please read:
The ATC / Control Tower is never responsible for controlling the aircraft, nor actually guiding aircraft between hills/etc. Even in a busy place like the San Francisco Bay, the ATC advises of traffic and coordinates inbound and outbound traffic lanes to keep traffic well spaced. ATC typical instructions, even with hills very nearby (1nm) usually consist of a destination landmark or vector, and an altitude.
Not to rant or anything, but from what I understand, the current system is incredibly out of date. It is important, not only to update the ATC gear, but that the FAA institude a complete overhaul of avionics. It is now possible with less than $1000 of gear to have in-flight collision detectors based on GPS, but this is uncommon on private aircraft costing $100k+.
Just my 2 cents.
The other joke here is you still have a few orders of magnitude better chance of death by car crash on the way to the airport than death by airplane crash. Do you not drive as well?
I wonder if they're pushing it through because the new software has some nice government supplied code to send the Air Force a fax in the case of a dangerously misdirected plane. If the system does that, then the use of the emergency powers act would be justified because the new system provides "critical homeland security" - not that they'll tell us about it or anything.
One bug later, and your plane is reported as speeding towards the Sears tower and you're shot down by a fighter craft.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
Five Miles Out (Mike Oldfield)
What do you do when your falling,
You've got 30 degrees and you're stalling out?
And it's 24 miles to your beacon;
There's a crack in the sky and the warning's out.
Don't take that dive again!
Push through that band of rain!
Five miles out, Just hold your heading true.
Got to get your finest out.
You're Number 1, anticipating you.
Climbing out. Just hold your heading true.
Got to get your finest out.
You're Number 1, anticipating you.
Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Calling all stations!
This is Golf-Mike-Oscar-Victor-Juliet
IMC CU.NIMB...icing, In great difficulty, over.
The traffic controller is calling,
"Victor-Juliet, your identity.
I have you lost in the violent storm!
Communicate or squawk 'Emergency'!"
Don't take that dive again!
Push through that band of rain!
Lost in static, 18,
And the storm is closing in now. Automatic, 18!
(Got to push through!) Trapped in living hell!
Your a prisoner of the dark sky,
The propeller blades are still!
And the evil eye of the hurricane's
Coming in now for the kill.
Our hope's with you, Rider in the blue.
Welcome's waiting, we're anticipating
You'll be celebrating, when you're down and braking.
Climbing out. (Climbing, climbing)
Five miles out. (Climbing, climbing)
Five miles out, Just hold your heading true.
Got to get your finest out....(Climbing, climbing)
Five miles out, Just hold your heading true.
Got to get your finest out....(Climbing, climbing)
Climbing out. Just hold your heading true.
Got to get your finest out.... (Climbing, climbing)
Five miles out, Just hold your heading true.
Got to get your finest out.... (Climbing, climbing)
Climbing out. Just hold your heading true.
Got to get your finest out....
(Climbing, climbing)
Climbing out. Just hold your heading true.
Got to get your finest out....
My professor worked on this project before going to teach. He often uses this project as an example of how not to do things.
Capitalism: unequal distribution of wealth
Socialism: equal distribution of poverty
If the technicians and air traffic controllers are protesting the change it probably isn't a good idea. IMHO power users, the air traffic controllers in this case, are the best judge of software. If they think changing is a bad idea they should reconsider.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
No more Christians or lawyers. And NO ACTORS!!
Former pro wrestlers might be OK though; Jesse Ventura's doing a kick-ass job in Minnesota.
See subject ;-)
I work for a government agency and this is par for the course. Contractors routinely give us software that is not ready for prime time. Government workers then become guinea pigs and bug-chasers for the contractors. If someone creative within the government makes a useful product, it is almost always handed to a contractor who then sells it back to us. Contracts routinely go over budget and the same pet contractors seem to win all the bids. Several higher-ups often "retire" and go to work for contractors which they did special favors for. Although this is technically illegal, there's a loophole for justifying it if it's "for the good of the country." What I'm trying to say is that the government is in the business of corporate welfare, and government contractors generally suck.
That's an unfair statement to make.
Let's say I buy a closed-source HP-UX system to run Dave's ATC system on, and in my contract with HP I say "I'm expecting 5-9's uptime of this system per year, and if not, you are held accountable".
Just because the default Windows license doesn't include any accountability doesn't mean that you can't get an OS or application that *does* have accountability - it's all in the contracts.
Going by your logic, Arthur Andersen is in no way responsible for the Enron mess - all they did was work the books - how they worked them is irrelevant.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
It's much more likely that something will be misreported to a regular (not hijacked) flight. You might dislike Sears Towers, but misreporting its location is not a solution.
"We need to be smarter about whom we elect to congress people. No more old people ;) "
Agreed! Better to hire college students -- get 'em while they're young and still know everything.
Although I wouldn't want to minimize the impact of problems at our radar control facilities, it should be noted that there are procedures for dealing with this sort of thing.
Traffic flow procedures, and FAR's allow for all kinds of flexibility here. Controllers can stack airplanes up in holding patterns while they sort out priorities. Traffic that the primary airports couldn't handle could be sent to reliever airports. Enroute traffic could be sent to alternate airports, etc. In an emergency, the FARs even allow a pilot to deviate from the regs to the extent necessary to safely complete the flight. In other words, if it was an emergency, the Captain could break his flight plan and head for the nearest suitable runway.
The dangerous time is the time between the failure, and the full blown utilization of alternate methods. Even this, however, is helped by separation standards, standard arrival and departure routes, TCAS, etc.
In other words, they won't just fall out of the sky. If I were an airline Captain, and I found myself in a situation where the destination airport's radar was out, and I felt nervous about the safety of that airport's traffic environment, I'd start by asking for an ammended clearance to some alternate destination. If that didn't work, I might just declare an emergency and divert myself.
Contrary to what you see in Die Hard movies, the system is pretty flexible, and the people who use it are intelligent and capable.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
Actually, that article shows that Raytheon provides weapons used in anti-terrorist operations.
The new system runs on Sun Solaris with off-the-shelf hardware. If it runs on Solaris...it can run on Linux...
ATC advising you in your two seater turbo prop plane is way less important to me than ATC advising an airliner full of people. The commercial airports are congested, planes fly close to one another, and fuckups are dangerous with big planes.
We need a new way of conducting business. If you used off the shelf components and standard programming environments I cannot possibly imagine how you could spend 1.7 billion and under deliver. I imagine that Raytheon decided that in order to enrich the corporate coffers they needs some proprietary hardware and weird development environments noone but Raytheon employees are familiar with.
It's a shame really. Yes, this a complex problem, but it's just not a billion dollar problem. The issue is that the government's been asking the wrong people to solve it.
What they should have done is approached some small to midsized software design shops and asked them for initial estimates and designs. Give the top 10 of those $1 million each to flesh out the design and prototype it.
Then take the pick of the litter and run with it. I betcha the end result would work better and cost less than the POS raytheon delivered.
-josh
NAME
:-)
.) `w' (0 degrees) is no turn. `e' is 45 degrees; `q' gives -45 degrees counterclockwise, that is, 45 degrees clockwise.
... ; ... ; ... ; ... ;
/usr/share/games/bsdgames/atc.
/var/games/bsdgames/atc_score.
atc - air traffic controller game
SYNOPSIS atc [-u?lstp ] [-gf game name ] [-r random seed ]
DESCRIPTION Atc lets you try your hand at the nerve wracking duties of the air traffic controller without endangering the lives of millions of travelers each year. Your responsibilities require you to direct the flight of jets and prop planes into and out of the flight arena and airports. The speed (update time) and frequency of the planes depend on the difficulty of the chosen arena.
OPTIONS
-u Print the usage line and exit.
- Same as -u.
-l Print a list of available games and exit. The first game name printed is the default game.
-s Print the score list (formerly the Top Ten list).
-t Same as -s.
-p Print the path to the special directory where atc expects to find its private files. This is used during the installation of the program.
-g game Play the named game. If the game listed is not one of the ones printed from the -l option, the default game is played.
-f game Same as -g.
-r seed Set the random seed. The purpose of this flag is questionable.
GOALS
Your goal in atc is to keep the game going as long as possible. There is no winning state, except to beat the times of other players. You will need to: launch planes at airports (by instructing them to increase their altitude); land planes at airports (by instructing them to go to altitude zero when exactly over the airport); and maneuver planes out of exit points.
Several things will cause the end of the game. Each plane has a destination (see information area), and sending a plane to the wrong destination is an error. Planes can run out of fuel, or can collide. Collision is defined as adjacency in all three dimensions. A plane leaving the arena in any other way than through its destination exit is an error as well.
Scores are sorted in order of the number of planes safe. The other statistics are provided merely for fun. There is no penalty for taking longer than another player (except in the case of ties).
Suspending a game is not permitted. If you get a talk message, tough. When was the last time an Air Traffic Controller got called away to the phone?
THE DISPLAY
Depending on the terminal you run atc on, the screen will be divided into 4 areas. It should be stressed that the terminal driver portion of the game was designed to be reconfigurable, so the display format can vary depending the version you are playing. The descriptions here are based on the ascii version of the game. The game rules and input format, however, should remain consistent. Control-L redraws the screen, should it become muddled.
RADAR
The first screen area is the radar display, showing the relative locations of the planes, airports, standard entry/exit points, radar beacons, and ``lines'' which simply serve to aid you in guiding the planes.
Planes are shown as a single letter with an altitude. If the numerical altitude is a single digit, then it represents thousands of feet. Some distinction is made between the prop planes and the jets. On ascii terminals, prop planes are represented by a upper case letter, jets by a lower case letter.
Airports are shown as a number and some indication of the direction planes must be going to land at the airport. On ascii terminals, this is one of `^', `>', `<', and `v', to indicate north (0 degrees), east (90), west (270) and south (180), respectively. The planes will also take off in this direction.
Beacons are represented as circles or asterisks and a number. Their purpose is to offer a place of easy reference to the plane pilots. See ``the delay command'' under the input section of this manual.
Entry/exit points are displayed as numbers along the border of the radar screen. Planes will enter the arena from these points without warning. These points have a direction associated with them, and planes will always enter the arena from this direction. On the ascii version of atc, this direction is not displayed. It will become apparent what this direction is as the game progresses.
Incoming planes will always enter at the same altitude: 7000 feet. For a plane to successfully depart through an entry/exit point, it must be flying at 9000 feet. It is not necessary for the planes to be flying in any particular direction when they leave the arena (yet).
INFORMATION AREA
The second area of the display is the information area, which lists the time (number of updates since start), and the number of planes you have directed safely out of the arena. Below this is a list of planes currently in the air, followed by a blank line, and then a list of planes on the ground (at airports). Each line lists the plane name and its current altitude, an optional asterisk indicating low fuel, the plane's destination, and the plane's current command. Changing altitude is not considered to be a command and is therefore not displayed. The following are some possible information lines:
B4*A0: Circle @ b1
g7 E4: 225
The first example shows a prop plane named `B' that is flying at 4000 feet. It is low on fuel (note the `*'). Its destination is Airport #0. The next command it expects to do is circle when it reaches Beacon #1. The second example shows a jet named `g' at 7000 feet, destined for Exit #4. It is just now executing a turn to 225 degrees (South-West).
INPUT AREA
The third area of the display is the input area. It is here that your input is reflected. See the INPUT heading of this manual for more details.
AUTHOR AREA
This area is used simply to give credit where credit is due.
INPUT
A command completion interface is built into the game. At any time, typing `?' will list possible input characters. Typing a backspace (your erase character) backs up, erasing the last part of the command. When a command is complete, a return enters it, and any semantic checking is done at that time. If no errors are detected, the command is sent to the appropriate plane. If an error is discovered during the check, the offending statement will be underscored and a (hopefully) descriptive message will be printed under it.
The command syntax is broken into two parts: Immediate Only and Delayable commands. Immediate Only commands happen on the next update. Delayable commands also happen on the next update unless they are followed by an optional predicate called the Delay command.
In the following tables, the syntax [0-9] means any single digit, and <dir> refers to a direction, given by the keys around the `s' key: ``wedcxzaq''. In absolute references, `q' refers to North-West or 315 degrees, and `w' refers to North, or 0 degrees. In relative references, `q' refers to -45 degrees or 45 degrees left, and `w' refers to 0 degrees, or no change in direction.
All commands start with a plane letter. This indicates the recipient of the command. Case is ignored.
IMMEDIATE ONLY COMMANDS
"a [ cd+- ]" number
Altitude: Change a plane's altitude, possibly requesting takeoff. `+' and `-' are the same as `c' and `d'.
a number
Climb or descend to the given altitude (in thousands of feet).
ac number
Climb: relative altitude change.
ad number
Descend: relative altitude change.
m
Mark: Display in highlighted mode. Plane and command information is displayed normally.
i
Ignore: Do not display highlighted. Command is displayed as a line of dashes if there is no command.
u
Unmark: Same as ignore, but if a delayed command is processed, the plane will become marked. This is useful if you want to forget about a plane during part, but not all, of its journey.
DELAYABLE COMMANDS
"c [ lr ]"
Circle: Have the plane circle.
cl
Left: Circle counterclockwise.
cr
Right: Circle clockwise (default).
"t [ l-r+LR ] [ dir ] or tt [ abe* ]" number
Turn: Change direction.
"t"
Turn to direction: Turn to the absolute compass heading given. The shortest turn will be taken.
"tl [ dir ]"
Left: Turn counterclockwise: 45 degrees by default, or the amount specified in (not to
"t- [ dir ]"
Same as left.
"tr [ dir ]"
Right: Turn clockwise, 45 degrees by default, or the amount specified in .
"t+ [ dir ]"
Same as right.
tL
Hard left: Turn counterclockwise 90 degrees.
tR
Hard right: Turn clockwise 90 degrees.
"tt [abe*]"
Towards: Turn towards a beacon, airport or exit. The turn is just an estimate.
"tta" number
Turn towards the given airport.
"ttb" number
Turn towards the specified beacon.
"tte" number
Turn towards an exit.
"tt*" number
Same as ttb.
THE DELAY COMMAND
The Delay (a/@) command may be appended to any Delayable command. It allows the controller to instruct a plane to do an action when the plane reaches a particular beacon (or other objects in future versions).
ab number
Do the delayable command when the plane reaches the specified beacon. The `b' for ``beacon'' is redundant to allow for expansion. `@' can be used instead of `a'.
MARKING, UNMARKING AND IGNORING
Planes are marked by default when they enter the arena. This means they are displayed in highlighted mode on the radar display. A plane may also be either unmarked or ignored. An unmarked plane is drawn in unhighlighted mode, and a line of dashes is displayed in the command field of the information area. The plane will remain this way until a mark command has been issued. Any other command will be issued, but the command line will return to a line of dashes when the command is completed.
An ignored plane is treated the same as an unmarked plane, except that it will automatically switch to marked status when a delayed command has been processed. This is useful if you want to forget about a plane for a while, but its flight path has not yet been completely set.
As with all of the commands, marking, unmarking and ignoring will take effect at the beginning of the next update. Do not be surprised if the plane does not immediately switch to unhighlighted mode.
EXAMPLES
atlab1
Plane A: turn left at beacon #1
cc
Plane C: circle
gtte4ab2
Plane G: turn towards exit #4 at beacon #2
ma+2
Plane M: altitude: climb 2000 feet
stq
Plane S: turn to 315
xi
Plane X: ignore
OTHER INFORMATION
Jets move every update; prop planes move every other update.
All planes turn a most 90 degrees per movement.
Planes enter at 7000 feet and leave at 9000 feet.
Planes flying at an altitude of 0 crash if they are not over an airport.
Planes waiting at airports can only be told to take off (climb in altitude).
NEW GAMES
The Game_List file lists the currently available play fields. New field description file names must be placed in this file to be playable. If a player specifies a game not in this file, his score will not be logged.
The game field description files are broken into two parts. The first part is the definition section. Here, the four tunable game parameters must be set. These variables are set with the syntax:
"variable = number;"
Variable may be one of: update, indicating the number of seconds between forced updates; newplane, indicating (about) the number of updates between new plane entries; width, indicating the width of the play field; or height, indicating the height of the play field.
The second part of the field description files describes the locations of the exits, the beacons, the airports and the lines. The syntax is as follows:
beacon:
(x y)
airport:
(x y direction)
exit:
(x y direction)
line:
[ (x1 y1) (x2 y2) ]
For beacons, a simple x, y coordinate pair is used (enclosed in parenthesis). Airports and exits require a third value, which is one of the directions wedcxzaq. For airports, this is the direction that planes must be going to take off and land, and for exits, this is the direction that planes will going when they enter the arena. This may not seem intuitive, but as there is no restriction on direction of exit, this is appropriate. Lines are slightly different, since they need two coordinate pairs to specify the line endpoints. These endpoints must be enclosed in square brackets.
All statements are semi-colon (;) terminated. Multiple item statements accumulate. Each definition must occur exactly once, before any item statements. Comments begin with a hash (#) symbol and terminate with a newline. The coordinates are between zero and width-1 and height-1 inclusive. All of the exit coordinates must lie on the borders, and all of the beacons and airports must lie inside of the borders. Line endpoints may be anywhere within the field, so long as the lines are horizontal, vertical or exactly diagonal.
FILES
Files are kept in a special directory. See the OPTIONS for a way to print this path out. It is normally
This directory contains the file Game_List, which holds the list of playable games, as well as the games themselves.
The scores are kept in
AUTHOR
Ed James, UC Berkeley: edjames@ucbvax.berkeley.edu, ucbvax!edjames
This game is based on someone's description of the overall flavor of a game written for some unknown PC many years ago, maybe.
BUGS
The screen sometimes refreshes after you have quit.
Yet Another Curses Bug was discovered during the development of this game. If your curses library clrtobot.o is version 5.1 or earlier, you will have erase problems with the backspace operator in the input window.
IT'S MICROSOFT AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER!!
Wonder what incidents the security holes in this wonderful flying elephant are...
Linux is dead.
LU
I am a private pilot. Even if ATC completely shut down aircraft would not start falling out of the sky. Airplanes are flown by pilots who are trained to operate the aircraft completely independently from air traffic control.
Think of air-traffic control as stop-lights for automobiles; when the stop lights go down, do traffic accidents start happening? No, you just get a little less efficient traffic flow (in some cases it gets more efficent...). Drivers know how to take turns just like they do at stop signs.
Analagously, pilots know how to take turns and fly safe just like they do at 90% of the airports in the world that don't have 24x7 air traffic control.
If the street lights start malfunctioning and giving wacky signals, the hazard of accidents might go up, but would not neccessariy lead to catastrophe.
The ananology for aicraft is even stronger: if an ATC controller went mad and decided to purposefully cause an accident, he probably would not succeed since he would have to fool two pilots who are trained to be wary of ATCs command and to overrride them when they are in error.
Bottom line: airplanes are flown by pilots, not traffic controllers, so breathe easy.
Nonsense. The FAA can always hire a government contractor, such as IBM or Lockheed, to maintain the system, whether it is open source or not, GPL or not, etc. In the case where two planes crash into each other, the contractor bears responsibility. In the open source case, it doesn't even matter if the contractor doesn't own the code. You can always hire a third party to maintain the project and to be the fall guy.
Finding God in a Dog
First and foremost, from the articles that I have read on ATCs, I've come to see that they are of the small bunch that does their best to avoid using computers. One article which comes to mind was in one of the April 2002 issues of the New Yorker (it's by Malcolm Gladwell titled "The Social Life of Paper").
Anyway, ATC's have been used as a key example within some recent works such as a book called The Myth of the Paperless Office, by Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper. In the book, ATCs make use of shuffled and digested scraps -- or "strips," as so-called and expertly used by air traffic controllers -- and what is scribbled on them are mere extensions of the thought process. It is with these strips that are placed strategically on certain positions on tables that controllers are able to instantly relay information from one to another. I also recall that is one reason why these software packages don't do so well with ATCs.
Usually, the connection is not hardwired, but transmitted from one site to another. I'm an IT Manager at a regional airport, and that's the system we use. We have a large Air Force base only 10 minutes away, and they got expensive upgrades before we did, so they basically just transmit their ATC data on over to us via microwave. This is not unusual. This kind of resource sharing is pretty common between military and civilian installations. We have have an Air National Guard squadron here as well, and we also share resources with them (firefighting in particular). It just makes more sense that way.
As for the new ATC system, I think any kind of mission critical system should be Unix based. As much as I like Linux, I'd still feel better with a QNX type system that goes down perhaps once a year or so. You have to wonder what the procurement people are thinking sometimes.....
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Hear hear. Christians definitely need to be excluded from public office. The need to believe in things against evidence is a mental disorder, and leads to dangerous amounts of idealism. Couple that with the fact that the nature of the belief is that of a vengeful, all-knowing voyeur spirit who punishes others for mistakes He makes, imposes rules against perfectly normal activities, and waits until after death to reward or punish people, and it's a formula for calamity.
This system simply provides location and identification information to airplanes operating under ATC. The system tells the controller where the aircraft is, the aircraft transponder tells the controller who the aircraft is, and the controller then issues instructions to the pilot, who is then responsible for executing those instructions. The hijackers of september 11 flew those planes into the towers and Pentagon by visual navigation (at least for the last few miles...they may have used the GPS system to navigate to NYC or DC).
In short, the ATC system had nothing to do with those airplanes flying into buildings. The only way your blacker side situation would work would be to have a malicious person operating as the controller, and IFR conditions so a non-hijacker pilot couldn't see where he's going.
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
...on a small aircraft costs about $250. It's the freakin' windshield. Look out thru the darned thing to see where you're going and avoid other aircraft. Even when I ask for flight following in my part of the country, unless I'm at or above about 3500' MSL, the nearest ARTCC cannot even see me on radar.
Yeah, I realized that after the post... see my reply to my reply... Thanks though. Stupid of me, really, considering I have my VFR ticket, but not my IFR ticket...
;)
Exit, stage left..
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
Anybody ever play that old bsd game ATC? That game kicks ass.
Search first, ask questions later.
Believe nothing -- Buddha
Perhaps you need to look up "terror" on a dictionary, search for the *official* US definition of "terrorism" and compare it with the use of cluster bombs. If you are unable to imagine where terror is higher, then you probably never felt terror. Either that or you are in the business of public relations, in these matters somewhat less honourable than, let's say, prostitution.
And I've heard that STARS has bugs that Raytheon says they cannot fix, and yet they want more money to "fix bugs"?
Fat chance they'll win ERAM.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Baseline magazine, a periodical dedicated to IT management, covered the new FAA STARS system from an IT project management point of view in a recent issue.
You can view the case study on-line, or download the PDF file.
I found it to be a very good in-depth article delving into many of the issues surrounding such a massive IT project.
...is that a bureaucratically-promised due date generally overrides technical concerns about the project not being ready for operational use. At least there has to be some way of saying the date has been met and that the bureaucrat's promise has been satisfied. The FAA is far from being alone in this.
Check out this link for a more accurate reflection of the situation.
1 &a =25221,00.asp
http://www.baselinemag.com/article/0,3658,s=210
Let me summarize from the article.
The contract was awarded in 1996 and was based on a COTS system originally developed for Norway. In 1998, the ATC union convinced the FAA to reconfigure the interface to more closely resemble to old ARTS system, requiring 100,000 new lines of code, a 50% cost increase and a 4 year delay in deployment. This was part of the ATC union's contract negotiation and the FCC capitulated to attempt to improve relations with the union.
From the article, "CrossTalk magazine, which is the official Department of Defense software engineering journal, found that the project was running within 3% of plan, overall. CrossTalk named STARS to its list of the top 5 government software projects, as judged by software quality."
Also it should be noted that the DoD adopted the original design, which follows a standard workstation layout, to simplify training. And the original STARS system has been and continues to be very successful in many European countries.
Overall, it sounds like ATC union sour grapes and politics are the problem.
Or how about open sourcing it to hunt and fix those bugs...
Eric B
ebresie@gmail.com
Well, a VFR ticket is more than I have at the moment. I can understand saying or doing things in the heat of the moment...as long as you don't do it in the cockpit, we'll all be fine ;-)
Ultimately, I think this system is going to make pilots more vigilant. I've heard so many anecdotes about controllers causing near-misses (my uncle almost got creamed by a commuter plane while flying his warrior) that I think this may be a good thing.
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
If airplanes are going to fly into buildings, let it be because of good old American software.
FWIW, I'm a licensed private pilot.
Sure, nobody uses ATC for avoiding the ground. And the pilot is in command, not ATC, yes. And the pilot had better think about ATC orders before executing as I can attest. When night flying recently over Palm Springs, ATC diverted me from my original course and forgot about me. The course would have flown me into a mountain (which was basically invisible). I knew the mountain was there and was able to remind ATC get my original course back.
However, aircraft flying under reduced visiblity rely on ATC for traffic separation and may be effectively unable to see and take action should ATC fail to notify or give incorrect information. I can't count the number of times I've been in a commercial airliner and not been able to see 50 feet for substantial lengths of time.
And I wouldn't put too much faith in GPS-based anti-collision devices just yet. For those to work, every single aircraft that files has to have one. Are you suggesting the FAA mandate avionics upgrades for all aircraft? Because that is what it would take for such devices to be truly useful.
That said, an upgrade is clearly needed to ATC.
I'll go at this in multiple points ...
...
.
;-)
1. Size
Yes I know you can get some off the self products but this has to run on reasonable hardware and most off the shelf stuff is not designed to push large data through them (to much stuff that you don't need and not exactly what you do need). So you end up having to write your own stuff. Lots of code Million +
2. Domain knowledge
your small to middle size company probably doesn't have alot of people that really understand ATC. It can take years to really get a handle on some of the toughest stuff (I know because I've been doing it for 2 years). so you have to hire a good team (big bucks).
3. Time
Its going to take alot of time to understand the requirements and trust me what the customer says they want can be very different to what they need.
Not to mention the amount of time it will take to develope all this.
4. Testing
Testing for the prototype wont be anywhere near as thorough as the real system but don't fool yourself a system this big (70+ machines) can become very hard to manage (remember you have to figure out good ways to manage download and install). that brings us to the next topic
5. Hardware
The hardware is expensize (2K by 2K monitor are couple grand each. 20 for the nice ones). 30 boxes to set yourself up for development, testing , CM
So hopefully after you read this you realize that we do our jobs and we do it well sometimes things get blown out of whack and people don't paint the full picture
Cheers
Someone who does this for a living.
I think that the FAA would perhaps be better served if they made some or most of it Open Source. With the help of the hardened Open Source community of developers, most of the bugs would be taken care of.
It is only when large and important systems import the Open Source concept that our work will be recognized.
I'm sure our Middle-Eastern friends would be most helpful.
Hey man, quit copying my AC posting style.
Only when we make Open Source the true focus of power for the Universe can we banish the evil trolls.
You might as well buy the contract from Red Hat or IBM. Just because software is free does not mean that nobody will take the blame if it breaks.
All current Iraqi military installations are devoted to terror and imperialism. The military installations in my country are used for defense, not aggression.
Pretty fantastic conspiracy theory on your web site. A pity none of it is true. It is even less plausible than that Spider-Man movie.
To put things in perspective, Westheimer is the third busiest public-use airport in Oklahoma, losing only to OKC-Will Rogers and Tulsa World. There is high-density student training at Westheimer, and operations often exceed 1000/day. Traffic ranges from Cessna 150's to Beech Barons to Citation X's to T-38's, with a smattering of helicopters thrown in the keep things interesting. The airport is served by several instrument approaches, including a localizer, and is scheduled to get an ILS in a couple of years; an ILS allows traffic to descend to 200' above ground before breaking out of the clouds. In spite of this, Westheimer does not warrant radar.
Short answer here is that yes, Joe Blow's system may be cheaper, and may work well enough for a VFR tower like Bowman or Westheimer, but you need a lot more for any environment that actually needs radar.
--Dave Buckles, CP-ASMEL, Instrument Airplane, CFI (double-I checkride on Monday! Woo-hoo!)
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
OK, Mr. COTAR, I had to respond to this. The contractors do not make the rules. You (the customer) make the rules. You establish the scope, you review the bids/bidders and you award the grant. Along the way, at various milestone events, you grant approval (and more than likely introduce a lot of program changes). In fact, Mr. COTAR you are with us every step of the way. Some of us might say "underfoot" every step of the way, but I'll be nice.
.gov project I lead, our COTAR was fond of dropping by for a free lunch and a review of what the clerical help was wearing for the day.
I'm not gonna tell you that government contractors don't suck. In fact, I don't do government work any more, because it's to aggravating and doesn't pay well enough (many projects have the labor schedules set by the government and this in turn dictates what you will get paid).
But I am gonna tell you that the contractors are not even remotely the whole part of the problem.
A large part of the problem in government, as elsewhere, is that the managers are not up to the job of managing.
On the last
Guess the lunch wasn't free back at his office. Or perhaps the eye candy wasn't as good. Bitch as he might at project reviews, he never did complain about lunch.
I believe this is the same FAA that was the very cause for delays in adoption of better methods, systems and standards by many agencies, private AND government. I have known quite a few ATC's and they generally have little good to say about the FAA. Rather they tell over and over how the FAA is the dangerous factor that both stalls progress but at the same time increases danger.
Should I trust them now simply because they are waiving the 'do whatever we want because it is for the war on terrorism'?
Oh and don't think I am against the real war, but I understand how watering it down hurts the real war effort directly and indirectly especially later on. Sort of the 'boy who cried terrorist'.
The AvWeb article cited above (which is written by Don Brown, Facility Safety Representative at ZTL) also talks about FAA wanting to do away with primary radar altogether. Fucking morons. There are still plenty of airplanes flying around with no electrical systems, which means no transponders.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
So, whaddya think'll be more probable in the next little while? Planes coming down and runnin' into shit because of this buggered software or some terrorist hijackin'?
I say terrorists, 'course.
Now, where'd I put my gun?
If you don't believe me, ask that guy over there.
Maybe the US should follow someone else's lead. Five years ago, Airservices Australia started a three year rollout of a system called TAAATS into Australian airspace. It runs primarily on off-the-shelf components (DEC alphas, Sony screens...) running X-windows (yay!). And it certainly didn't cost anywhere near $1.7 billion.
This system looks after 11% of the earth's surface, from Sydney's busy terminal area to some of the remotest regions on the planet. As an IFR pilot it makes me feel a lot safer knowing that ATC/Flight Service has every bit of information they need at their fingertips. Quite handy when you need to ask a busy controller a stupid question!
I was flying for five years before TAAATS, and even though as a pilot you're pretty much shielded from what goes on in ATC, you notice when you get better frequency transfers, more weather and traffic information and less holding! It is also *much* easier to submit flight plans and change them at the last minute.
As a Linux (and Windoze) programmer (my real job!), it's really easy for me to criticize crap software. TAAATS is one of the few systems I've seen up close that impressed me. You think the FAA might have bought it? Hardly...
You can't image how glad I am to see the .gov memo actually name names.
The US air traffic control system is really several systems. There is tower, where they control the airplanes until they leave the ground, departure/arrival (TRACON) where they control the planes in and around larger airports (about 60 miles or more). Then there is EnRoute, where they control the airplanes between TRACON's and smaller airports.
EnRoute usually uses long range sensors, Radars that can see out 250 or so miles. TRACONs usually use short range sensors. (towers use eyeballs and tracon feeds).
STARS is going in to TRACON's. It uses a newer Radar, the ASR-11, a fully digital radar, except it has no filtering. The ASR-9 (with built in filters) Radars can be used with STARS, but the needs to be a convertor box, (rumored to cost $1mil).
The "older" system that STARS is going to replace is ARTS. That system was built in the 70's really, and updated a little since. Monochrome round screens, and big old computers, with LOTS of fans!
CommonARTS was an interm solution, and it basically is what STARS is chasing. CommonARTS has full color displays, and modern computers (PowerPCs, running LynxOS, 20in square screens running X). The FAA adds new requirements, we update CommonARTS, nothing too it.
Some people assume all systems are the same. Right now they all aren't. Even Raytheon says it'll take 8 years to update all TRACON's. You think Sun will still sell the same hardware in 8 years? (I don't).
It is a huge project, with lots of requirements, and lots of people driving those requirements. Jane Garvey the current FAA administrator (someone who qualifications include riding in a commercial aircraft) is out of office in August, so she is trying to leave a legacy. STARS would be nice (You think it a coincidence, Jane, Ted Kennedy and Raytheon are all from Boston?)
Yes, CommonARTS will run on Linux, I do it everyday at my desk. I can watch air traffic, in near real-time (there is a special gateway that gets the data from the airport and it has a built in delay). There is nothing too magic about it.
The Linux port was originally done for developers, since the cost of FAA qualified hardware is quite expensive, and many features can be tested on desktop PCs (not everything unfortunatly). A couple of our most recent projects were done quicker because of the linux port.
I worked around the FAA terminal systems office for several years as a contractor. A key point that has always been ignored in the pro STARS press material is that the ARTS system that it is supposed to replace has already evolved into a more technically capable system and has been deployed at all but about 55 sites in the US (over 150 terminal air control centers). It was deployed at all major and minor installations between 1998 and 2000. The legacy system that is trashed in all of the stars literature only remains at the country's mid sized terminal air space control areas. The CommonARTS system is a distributed processing system running on Motorola VME SBC's and has an option for excellent color displays as well. Additionally, the controllers like it. It evolved from a system that controllers have worked with for years, so the human factors issues that are critical in the air controller world are already addressed even though the software and hardware have been dramatically improved.
Why you might ask, are we buying a complete nationwide replacement? The answer is politics and has been since the inception of the STARS program, both FAA and Congressional. Careers have been made and squandered on the program. Thanks for the opportunity to vent....I've been waiting years for the chance.
invention now being world standard they would have a better solution by now?
It's a shame the US stalls adoption of better solutions just because of domestic commercial interrests and it "wan't invented here".
Interesting that you know the expression "conspiracy theory".
I read the guy's web page and it contained fantastic fiction.
given your obvious ignorance of history and your apparent reading difficulties.
What ignorance of history? Perhaps yours. I know enough about history to know that these sort of fictions are nothing but fiction.
Such a simple-minded view is the domain of children story books.
That is to be said of yours.
Perhaps you should widen your horizons beyond Spider-Man comics and movies.
And you should widen yours beyond the ravings of the lunatic left.
A pity you don't explain why nothing in John Pilger's view on the Afghanistan campaign is true. Maybe you have a conspiracy theory of your own to explain why somebody writes that.
Because it is full of holes. I dont have any conspiracy theories, and rely on no fictions. It is "par for the course"... The Washingto Post is a left-wing rag given to fantastic fictions at times. Makes up for the lack of comic strips.
Maybe one of those involved in the death of several hundred thousand Iraqi children?
Saddam Hussein is responsible for every one of these deaths. Check into it. The UN sanctions regime allowed importation of food. Did you know that in northern Iraq, relatively free of Saddam Hussein, infant mortality and the death of children has gone down a sharply since the diminishing of his influence? And nothern Iraq is under the SAME sactions as the rest of the country where Saddam is able to kill the kids.
Wake up. Grow up. You're not in Kansas any more. On the other hand, maybe you are. In any case, go to the local library and read some history books. Much more interesting than discussing the plausibility of Spiderman.
I've read more than you ever have. Real history books, not fantastical fictions. Much more interesting than discussing the plausibility of "Illuminati" like government secrets that even a genius President could never manage to pull off.... let alone a sub-genius like George W Bush.
(Before I get started with my critique of the article and my take on the STARS issue, for those of you more interested in the fact that Sun/Solaris is at the heart of STARS, skip to the bottom of the page)
I've been an Air Traffic Control Radar Tech for the better part of 20 years and, after watching/reading years worth of inaccurate FAA Technology reporting (such as this CNN piece) I'm convinced that aviation journalists are, for the most part, clueless about the technology that they report on. Combine ignorance of that calibre with the natural alarmist tendencies of journalists and editors seeking incresed circulation/viewership and you end up with pieces like this one. Alternatively, and even more unpalatable, it might just be that all journalists are mere dilettantes, and actually have the barest grasp of the issues about which they write. Perhaps, as radar/air traffic control is my field of expertise, I'm only accutely aware of their shortcomings in that field, whereas they may be just as ignorant in many, or all, others. I hope that's not the case, but reporting that's as slipshod as this makes one wonder.... The fourth estate is just as prone to error and exaggeration as the other three.
Obviously, there are problems with STARS, just as the DOT IG report describes. There are problems with ALL new major FAA systems. I've been involved with the ASR-11 program, off and on, for several years now. The ASR-11 is a short range (airport) radar that, like STARS, is a Raytheon product and is currently undergoing a variety of tests to assess it's suitability for inclusion into the Air Traffic Control system. The STARS and ASR-11 sagas have similarites: both have been undergoing testing and some forms of development for years. A portion of the agony involved in equipment acceptance is rooted in the diverging interests of the vendor and the FAA. The vendor claims that the system will perform in such and such a manner, and it's up to the FAA to verify that their claim is accurate. If the claim cannot be verified, then a fix must be proposed, then agreed upon, then implemented, and then verified. Of course, the vendor and the FAA will interpret various aspects of the contract differently, and therefore problem resolution can, and apparently often does, involve disputes about funding: who pays for the resolution? does the FAA cough up more cash or does the vendor eat the cost? I don't use the word 'agony' as hyperbole: it most certaily is agonising for both the vendor and the FAA. However, don't be too quick to blame beuracrats. The FAA is attempting to walk a very fine line: save costs where possible, and therefore give the taxpayer better bang for the buck, while ensuring that the system in question is as safe, and reliable, as possible. Of course, altruism isn't the only motivating factor: I imagine that Congressional oversight certainly helps, particularly when it comes to bang-for-the-buck considerations. However, I genuinely believe that engineering/testing personel, system maintainers, and air traffic controllers are supremely interested in the safety of the flying public, and act accordingly.
Now on to a critique of the CNN piece:
"The only STARS system now in use, in El Paso, Texas, has been plagued with problems, according to.....the Professional Airways Systems Specialists, the union that represents the FAA employees who certify and maintain air traffic control equipment."
My experience with the ASR-11 project has convinced me that the Technician's Union, Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS), doesn't give much of a shit about truly relevant equipment funtionality issues. I don't doubt that their assessment of STARS suffers from the same self-interested myopia. As I've heard it told, a Union's involvement in an early round of STARS testing turned into a fiasco, and a potentially significant opportunity was squandered. I've also heard that the union has learned a bit from the experience and that, perhaps, future Union involvement in STARS testing will be more productive. I have direct knowledge of some ridiculous Union demands vis-a-vis the ASR-11.
Unions are a more than a mild source of irritation to me, for a variety of reasons the reader could likely care less about. However, there is one aspect of unions that is crucial to this and other stories involving unions: a union, even one which whose membership comprises a fraction of the 'baragining unit' employees (those who could be in the union if they chose to be) is the sole representative of that group of employees and management looks to the union for all things to do with the employees, and seeks union write-off of all employee-related matters. Journalists follow the same pattern: they spout whatever line the union gives them as if the union actually, rather than technically, spoke for all the employees. If you follow aviation reporting you will see this proven true time and time again.
An aside: my opinion of the Union has nothing to do with my opinion of the average FAA technician. Anyone that's been exposed to unions understands that the official union position often bears no resemblance to the employee's position. FAA technicians are highly trained and, generally, highly motivated, and appreciate the serious nature of their profession.
"The old system remained in place as a backup, because "tower managers stated controllers were not comfortable relying solely on STARS,"....
Now this really turns my stomach....the fact that the 'old system' remains in place is somehow condemnation of the new system (STARS). Of course the old system remains in place as a backup: it would be grossly negligent to uneccesarily remove it while testing on the new system continues. What's so stomach-churning is that this hypocritical journalist, who obviously has a minimal grasp of the complexity of FAA equipment and the air traffic control system, would very likely be the among the first to accuse the FAA of negligence if the 'old system' was uneccesarily discarded and a failure of the new system resulted in crashed planes and mangled bodies. Look, the FAA KNOWS that, while the 'old system' is technically, well, OLD, it's tried and true and, therefore, safe. Obviously they're going to want to retain it as a backup, especially considering the birth pangs that STARS is experiencing. Keep in mind that STARS is not merely a new hardware backbone: it's a completely new interface as well, so it's new to both Air Traffic Controllers and Maintenance personel. Air Traffic Controllers take their responsibility to the flying public VERY seriously, and they're almost always, if not always, going to err on the side of caution. Any one that flies should appreciate this fact.
"Union vice president Tom Brantley said the radar doesn't always work, and it may require several minutes before controllers realize the problem. In addition, he said, the system has failed several diagnostic tests."
I don't know what the hell this means: STARS isn't a radar, of course, so I assume that he must be referring to the radar/s that feed the STARS. I have heard that there is an issue with lag under certain unique and rare circumstances. Those issues will most certainy be resolved prior to acceptance, or at least examined for validity. More to the point, this sentance is a perfect example of a cursory treatment of a very complex matter by someone that obviously has no idea what he's talking about (I mean the journalist, not the Union VP). It's confusing and meaningless, rather than informative and clarifying. Sloppy reporting, at best.
Now, back to a subject perhaps more interesting to the average geek: STARS systems are based on Sun/Solaris boxes, and LOTS of them. STARS, and other imminent and existing FAA systems, such as the ASR-11 (an airport/short-range radar), the WSP (Weather System Processor), all use Sun boxes. I believe that, between the Department of Defense (DOD) and the FAA there are going to be hundreds of STARS, and a couple of hundred ASR-11s, and over the next 5 to 15 years many hundreds, if not thousands, of technicians will receive various forms of Unix training. For several years the FAA has offered a three-week instructor-led Unix course and, I believe, requires this course as a prerequisite for those technicians who will be taking the STARS and ASR-11 Maintenance courses, among others. The course is based on Redhat and PCs, rather then Ultra or Sunblade and Solaris, which is a bit of a sore spot with me, as it would obviously be advantageous for the tech to know about OBP abd other Sparc/Solaris-unique issues. However, the FAA has systems that use other flavors of Unix (AIX and/or HP-UX) so it might not be ideal to use Sparc/Solaris alone, but I can't help but think that it would be better than using Redhat/PC. Anyway, perhaps I'll write a bit more about this and try to post it one day, to see what others here think...
Getting back on track, the perceptive reader will have already realized that the training of hundreds/thousands of military and FAA technicians in the ways of Unix will be good for the Unix community. I can use myself as an example: I've been working with the ASR-11 program for three years: my first contact with Unix was three years ago at the Raytheon ASR-11 school. Now I use a laptop running Redhat (previoulsy Solaris x86, but couldn't get the darn NIC to work), an Ultra 5 and a Sparc 5 on my desk/s at work, and at home I've two PCs with two drive-racks per PC, and swap between RedHat, Solaris x86, and XP. The FAA has also been generous enough to spring for a Sunkey memebership for me and I'm going to be doing as much training as possible this year. I'll have a go at the Sun SysAdmin tests later this year and then top it all of with the Sun Network Admin test. I'd then like to move into a part-time job with some local business that uses Sun boxes. I've discussed the possiblity with various classmates in the Sun courses I've taken, and apparently, and understandably, there's little demand for part-time network administrators. however, I'll settle for less: I'd really like the opportunity to hone my skills in the private sector, just to see how far my interest and talents might take me (perhaps out of civil sevice altogether and into the private sector full time? a fantasy perhaps, but one I occasionally indulge in).
To sum-up: the fallout from the implementation of these new systems will result in an even more widespread interest in Unix, and an enlarged geek contingent.
That is a wonderful post. I *KNEW* there was a reason I still looked at slashdot despite all the flames, trolls and noise.
FWIW, I am a pilot and aircraft owner. I commute to silicon valley two or three times a week. We
don't have commercial air service where I live,
so I ended up buying a plane just for my commute.
I, too am always amazed at the coverage aviation
receives in the lay press. Sometimes, I dunno
that the flying press does a very good job
either. Thanks for taking the time to distribute
some facts.
Someone at slashdot oughta get an interview or
Q/A session w/hfk. I have other questions...
It runs on Solaris / UltraSparcs dual redundent with custom drivers/networking SW. Commercial equipment and OS- custom SW and drivers.
Before you run someone else's opinion into the earth perhaps you should examine the validity of your own ideas (windows of glass and all that). There's noting even remotely real-time about this system after the initial digitization of the raw RADAR signal.
Any issues related to the use of the Linux would have to be the standard ones of verification and standardization- not it's real-time performance. Perhaps you should take some time away from your "IT" classes and examine the meaning of your catch-phrases.
For more information, here's the memo as a pdf or text from the the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation.
For some background into why this may be happening, consider the following: FAA Administrator Jane Garvey was a champion of the STARS program. She is about to leave the post, and may want to be able to claim some success before she goes. Also, th philadelphia TRACON is nearing its capacity and needs to be upgraded in the immediate future. There are two ways to go for the upgrade: One is to put in STARS, and the other is to install Common ARTS, a competing system. If they can't put STARS on in the immediate future, practical necessity will force them to install Common ARTS instead. If they put the money into installing Common ARTS now, they'll have a hell of a time justifying switching over to STARS later, because there'll be no need. Thus, Raytheon and Garvey and other STARS proponents are in a now-or-never situation to get STARS in, by hook or by crook, unless they want the work to go to a competitor and make them look bad.
NOTE: This is my own opinion, written on my own time, and I DO NOT speak for my employer (one of the companies involved).
As an airline employee, I strongly encourage you to buy a Business Class ticket if you can't appreciate the comfort of sleeping in the shoulders of complete strangers.
If you get a discounted ticket for the Cattle car, er...Economy Class, you cant really complain about it, because you get what you pay for.
Disclaimer: I do work for an airline, however this post is supposed to be ironically funny, and not taken seriously... besides, if I learned to put up with the average gringo Coach passenger, so can you!
No sig for the moment.
When you say the "old system" your're probably talking about ARTS IIIA, which is about 30 years old, using period displays like FDADs and the like. Of course Raytheon's $1.7Bn 2002 system is better than Sperry/Univac's 1970 system.
The proper question isn't how STARS compares with what their competitors did 30 years ago, it's how STARS compares with what their competitors are doing now. Specifically, STARS most direct competitor is Common ARTS, which is a the current system from Lockheed Martin. In my biased opinion (I work on it) Common ARTS has comparable functionality to STARS, and it actually passes safety tests! Oh yeah, and Common ARTS has been installed at 139 sites, on time, within budget. STARS is more than 4 years behind schedule, 800 million dollars over budget, and still has 258 critical system trouble reports outstanding.
Standard disclaimer: I am speaking for myself, on my own time, and not my employer.
Thanks for a very informative post. I haven't seen such clarity brought to the forefront on slashdot in a long while.
Too often it seems people are only just as ignorant and eager to jump onto the bandwagon of sensationalism. I can't imagine that the CNN journalist really had a clue about the subject he was reporting on.
Thanks again hfk
...for something to be idiotproof! Really, a system that has millions of lives in its very, err, algorithms should be made so impossible to mess up that it's tedious to do simple things. Sure, there'd be a lot more disgruntled air traffic controllers, but hey, that's what insane asylums are for, right? And, with the idiotproofness of the system, they couldn't tell a plane to go ram itself into the ground. Well, not without going even more insane and just mashing the console 'till it breaks. Now THAT'S what they need: consoles made out of inch-thick lead and bulletproof glass. It might be heavy, but at least the disgruntled controllers couldn't break it...now, err, what was I saying?...
[insert witty comment here]
On the other hand, maybe you have some proof that Jane's Information Group is too "left-wing" to provide reliable information on such matters. Maybe, just maybe, there's a widespread leftist conspiracy going on and I've been fooled by it.