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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.
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Not to rant or anything, but from what I understand, the current system is incredibly out of date.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.