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FAA's Aging Flight-Plan System Having Problems
Eddytor takes us to eWeek for a look at the FAA's air-traffic control system, which, after 20 years of continuous operation, is in desperate need of an overhaul. Recent crashes have caused major delays, but the system's scope and importance make it difficult to test upgrades and improvements.
"Many technologies are used in air traffic control systems. Primary and secondary radar are used to enhance a controller's 'situational awareness' within his assigned airspace; all types of aircraft send back primary echoes of varying sizes to controllers' screens as radar energy is bounced off their skins. Transponder-equipped aircraft reply to secondary radar interrogations by giving an ID (Mode A), an altitude (Mode C) and/or a unique callsign (Mode S). Certain types of weather also may register on a radar screen."
I do wish TFS would make the distinction between software crashes and aircraft crashes.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
It doesn't need to make sense to me. If I handed a page of C++ to my grandmother, she couldn't make sense of that either. The weather report is concise and practical, giving a lot of information with the fewest amount of words. Once you can read it, you find it valuable to not have to sift through mounds of useless or redundant information (like adjectives, verbs, etc.)
Just because you can't read and understand it doesn't mean it doesn't have value to someone.
And what's that shit you posted at the end of your comment? Black People suck? Grow up, asshole.
, but the article doesn't give any real suggestions.
People probably won't like my suggestion, which would be to regulate air travel again. Cut the routes, limit take off and landing slots, increase the seat and isle widths and let airlines raise prices to the market level of support. Add a gas tax to keep the cost of gasoline above $3.50/gallon and take the money pay for building a high speed train system across the US. To me that would be worth going into debt for, short term anyway. It would create jobs here and give people an alternative to our broken air transportation system.
The trains could handle the commodity traffic and airlines could compete for luxury traffic, just like the old days. We have to do something. We have 3% of the world population and use 25% of the gasoline. Without alternatives we're never going to get people out of their cars. If I could go anywhere in the continental US in 24 hours, I'd never fly again.
With the added bonus of keeping air traffic at a predictable level for the FAA.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Once you can read it, you find it valuable to not have to sift through mounds of useless or redundant information (like adjectives, verbs, etc.)
You're suggesting that the your local TV station's Doppler 2008 15-minute weather segment is too long?
Dunno about you, but here in Southern California, getting the highs, lows, barometric readings, precipitation levels, wind speeds, wind directions, relevant surf, snow, rain or wind advisories, sun rise, sun set and current phase of the moon for where I live (and the same for a dozen or so nearby communities) from a friendly weatherman or weatherwoman that takes the time to describe and explain the relevance of all that information (hopefully with live footage, pictures, charts or graphs), is the only way to know with quantifiable certainty that tommorow's weather will be just like just like yesterday's and the day before that.
Unless, of course, you choose to look out the window or step outside long enough to realise you've probably got better things to do.