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Inside FAA's GPS-Based Air Traffic Control
longacre writes "With the growing number of planes in the air setting its archaic radar-based air traffic control on a course toward 'total system collapse,' the FAA has quietly begun testing a new GPS-based system on Alaska Airlines 737s. While radar can take over half a minute to determine a plane's location, GPS technology known as ADS-B broadcasts an aircraft's position to controllers and nearby pilots essentially in real time. If all goes as planned, travelers will see fewer delays as planes will be able to fly closer together and in reduced visibility conditions, and airlines will achieve significant fuel savings by flying more direct routes. The feds plan a gradual rollout over the next two decades that may cost up to $40 billion." There's still some contention about where the funding will come from.
to take 4 days off!
40 billion? Can anyone offer some financial perspective.. it sounds like that much money should completely replace all those airplanes!
The largest TRACON in the world (Southern California Consolidated TRACON - SCT, Callsign SoCal Approach) services 62 airports and is located in San Diego, California. This huge facility utilizes 10 radar sites and is soon to expand to 11.
Man I sure want a garmin and a cell phone handling 11 airports worth of airtraffic. Replacing the infrastructure for all the TRACONs/Towers/etc across the States is why it's going to be expensive.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Considering how much the American taxpayers have spent bailing out these losers (while the execs rake in hundreds of millions), they ought to be nationalized already.
There's still some contention about where the funding will come from.
I hope there's also some contention about what will happen when those closer-together planes are left without GPS due to a war in the Gulf or some technical glitch, and the radar backup cannot keep up with the added traffic (if it could, what'd be the point?)
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
failures ?
A single plane that will have a broken device, and wont transmit its position properly will have the option of taking down a lot of stuff.
Whatever the shortcomings of the current radar system, radars tend to work regardless of the planes condition, and regardless of its position.
Heck, IIRC planes only need special equipment to identify themselves, not to tell if they are actually there, and where they are.
Sorry - but i prefer false positives (radar ghosts, or whatever their names) from false negatives (nah, its not a plane, it doesnt have GPS, it must me a bird. [15 minutes later] OH F*CK, EVERONE - RUN!!!....).
If its not going to replace radar systems for good - i see no point in spending 40b, and i dont see how it can replace them - given the requirements for such systems.
Which means that if there is a solar flare or something of the sort, the potential for disaster is enormous. Loads of planes flying around close together using a system that depends on vulnerable satellite links.
This is also assuming that air travel continues to expand. I know that /. is full of posts from global warming deniers, but now that even the politicians are starting to do things rather than talk, this could be a system that takes 20 years to implement and then is redundant.
Pining for the fjords
Doing away with paper based voting, radar positioning systems, and switching to bio-fuels is one heck of a tech addiction, but that's Americans for you. If you guys want high capacity aircraft to fly closer together and straighten flight paths to save fuel there is a way of doing it without the expense or danger. It's a called a frikkin train!
No way I'm going to board a plane that only relies on GPS. GPS does only work if the satellites work, you know. And satellites are far less reliable than radars. I don't want to trust my life on the optimistic hope that solar flars won't be at peak when I'm traveling, or that thw GPS will update itself for 20 seconds just when we're approaching an airport in fog at night you know. Additionally, which is harder: disrupting radar systems, or shooting down a few satellites ? Oh, one more: which is harder: sending a few people to fix a broken radar in a few hours, or sending people up to fix a satellite in six months ? Oh, wait, wait, there's more: how many satellites would we need to cover reliably the whole planet before they can switch totally to GPS, while the radar-based system just works ? Ok, I'll leave the rest to you fellas.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Responding to some of the (typically) under-informed criticisms...
(Why bother to understand a topic when you can quickly post an opinion?)
This isnt intended to replace all traffic management, for instance at airports, just to lessen the overhead of overseeing the more predictable long stretches in-between.
Aircraft spacing would be lessened under the proposed system but still be considerable. Therefore even if GPS accuracy were degraded by the US Military it wouldnt have much practical effect. Besides accuracy to a few hundred feet is already problematic when youre traveling that far every second.
The new systems arent any more susceptible to interference from solar flares or other natural phenomena then current systems; indeed theyre predicted to be more robust.
Finally, 40 billion dollars US does seem like a lot of money. But considering the FAAs historic phenomenal mind-bogglingly beyond-grossly-incompetent record at managing system deployments its probably a low-ball on a cost-plus contract...
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
People think that this is SOOO easy to do...
/. member to keep the lights on)
For a time every single plane in the sky will have to have the ability to use both systems at once... and each air traffic control tower will have to be able to control both systems at once... and then you need to train the pilots and air traffic controllers to use the damn thing (you may think it is easy, but I don't feel like "on the job training" is too great of an idea at 50k feet)
Then you need to have a system that can interface with the hundreds of different models of planes...
And it needs to have 99.999% uptime (with a few more 9s in for good measure)
And don't forget, you are going to need to have some agency with some big staff to organize this entire thing... and that office is going to need a secretary, and a few lawyers, etc, etc, etc... (even if you think it is a waste, there needs to be some people SOMEWHERE handling all of this, and they are going to need a copier, some toner, and perhaps a
-nick
There's still some contention about where the funding will come from.
Actually, there's absolutely no doubt where the money will come from - we the people. The contention is whose hands it will go thru first before the system is complete. The "who pays for it" question is a distraction in many, many public projects, such as "who pays for a cleaner environment?" "Who pays for (existing | preventing) illegal immigration?", etc.
In a way, it can be said that governments and companies have no money at all, except that which they receive from individuals. For example, car makers objected massively to adding airbags, and one excuse they pulled up was cost. But who pays for every part of the car when it's bought? Car makers? uh, no. Every added cost to everything is always passed on to the people who buy products and use services. It must be, or the companies providing products and services would eventually go out of business.
The "who pays for it" debate is always part of the push and shove of hogs eating out of the gov't trough. Sadly, most people don't get this at all.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
So.. instead of using radar to measure where aircraft are, you trust the aircraft to tell you where it is? Real reassuring.
Why can't we extend this system to cars? Scrap all the cops' speed measuring equipment and just wait for phone calls from speeding gps equipment wanting to fess up?
No, i didn't rtfa
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
before U.S. air traffic gets completely grounded? Nope, sorry, but I think I prefer the current system "warts and all."
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Has anyone considered the security repercussions of this idea?
If you trust the planes to tell you where they are, there is a potential that the planes could lie to you. I really hope they take that into account when designing the system.
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