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.

Comments

$40 billion?

[alflauren]

I can velcro a Garmin to the dash of every plane in the country, hook it up to a cellphone, and get the same data. And I'll only charge $39 billion.

Re:Costs..

[diqmay]

Delta owns the following:


71 Boeing 737s @ $50 million per
68 Boeing 757s @ $65 million per
75 Boeing 767s @ $140 million per
8 Boeing 777s @ $200 million per
63 MD 88s @ $40 million per
16 MD 90s @ $45 million per
68 CRJ 100/200/700s @ $24 million per


that brings this one airline's fleet cost to just about $25 billion. And I was giving the low estimate for the cost of the planes.

http://www.delta.com/about_delta/corporate_informa tion/delta_stats_facts/aircraft_fleet/

And for the FAAs next trick...

[MosesJones]

The FAA in technology terms are the dunce of the class in global Air Traffic Control terms, sure people can point to the "ooh its a big country" but Europe has a single upper airways control centre in Maastrict (Netherlands) and has continued to churn out new approaches and solutions from its single policy, R&D and Simulation organisation Eurocontrol. Europe is also embarking on a single pan-european system which will be deployed in around 15 years time (this is the HARD end of technology).

Part of the issue is the FAAs view that it knows best (despite the evidence to the contary) so when new approaches to ATC are created elsewhere (mainly Japan and Europe) they push back against them and try and create their own solution. They are continually trying to take the short cut (expensive short cut) with some new technology gizmo rather than doing the hard way of actually planning a pan-USA federated ATC system with a single upper airway controller and decent federation around the major hubs and then delivering that incrementally focusing on the key cruch points in the existing systems. They just look for the silver bullet.

The FAA is a case study on how not to do large scale IT, and a case study on how not to learn from others.