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FAA Greenlights Satellite-Based Air Traffic Control System
coondoggie writes "As one of the massive flying seasons gets underway the government today took a step further in radically changing the way aircraft are tracked and moved around the country. Specifically the FAA gave the green light to deploy satellite tracking systems nationwide, replacing the current radar-based approach.
The new, sometimes controversial system would let air traffic controllers track aircraft using a satellite network using a system known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), which is ten times more accurate than today's radar technology. ADS-B is part of the FAA's wide-reaching plan known as NextGen to revamp every component of the flight control system to meet future demands and avoid gridlock in the sky."
Not another Microsoft story!
CAN I HAS A LANDING?
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
It look's like you are trying to land do you want help?
What good does it do to reduce gridlock in the sky if you can't simultaneously reduce gridlock in airport security?
About as much good as it does to reduce airborne separation without pouring more runways. Everybody can get to their holding pattern 2 minutes sooner.
There's more to the aviation world than large airliners. ADS-B is a positive step in a lot of other ways.
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It seems reasonable that the government could rationalize subsidizing the costs of the "satellite-based avionics" required due to the fuel and time savings gained from decreased congestion. That would get rid of that controversy.
Perhaps a more fiscally responsible approach would be front the money for the avionics switch, but levy a tax (proportional only to the actual increased efficiency) on the airports/major-carriers/other-major-beneficiaries.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
ADS-B is basically having each plane send it's own GPS signal to the aircraft controllers.
Because of the security risks involved with having each plane report their own position, rather than aircraft control finding all the positions for planes, I highly doubt that old fashioned radar is going anywhere soon.
Also, while this will be more accurate in areas where radar doesn't reach, I don't remember hearing about many planes crashing in midair too often....
What I want to know is what happens when a technologically savvy government or organization decides to start spoofing aircraft in the air or modifying/jamming actual airplanes' signals. There will always be a radar backup, however, as long as we don't become dependent on the greater accuracy that these satellites provide us.
The FAA has been working on this for 30 years. I was involved in studying it back in the 1970's.
They have also been working on digital ground-air-ground communications since 1948 (I once had some reports on the subject that go back that far). AFAIK, they still don't have the digital ground-air-ground.
At one time the FAA radars were the last users of vacuum tubes, and the replacement parts were coming from factories that bought the original manufacturers equipment and were making it in who-knows-where. They didn't even replace the original manufacturer trademarks on the tubes. Quality control? Forget it.
Technology advances at the FAA very slooooowly.
Exactly. The main problem the civil aviation in the USA has isn't a lack of airspace, but clogged airport aprons.
Parick Smith, the salon.com airline captain columnist, has just written about it again.
Nice commentabout the usefulness of opening military corridors for civil aviation around thanksgiving:
"It will have roughly the same effect as, say, organizing a group prayer or rubbing a plastic airplane for good luck."
Okay, it might decrease the already low probability of midair accidents, but the air traffic control system has bigger problems. Firstly, that they are understaffed and overworked. It's the highest stress job in the civilian sector last I looked and these people are pulling 10 and 12 hour shifts every week. They're tired, and they make mistakes. They're also an aging group -- the certification requirements are high, and very, very few people who are under the age of 30 work these jobs. Many of them are set to retire in just a few more years which will stress an already fragile system.
Second, nobody's been investing in airport infrastructure. The planes are getting bigger but the runways aren't and we're not adding new runways either. Part of it is politics but a lot of it is economic.
Third, communications -- they're still using one-way VHF. Two people talk and the signal heterodynes and nobody knows what was said. They need a better comm system.
Lastly, much of the processing infrastructure is running on 1960s tech -- old mainframes. They haven't upgraded in all this time because there's no other options. What good will satellites do if the ground control stations are still running vaccum tubes? We need to network the ground stations together and provide a better interface with the birds in the sky. One of these big iron setups went down in New York and it paralyzed most of the eastern seaboard. That lack of redundancy in such a safety-critical environment is simply unacceptable.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Replace TRACON. It also won't replace Ground Traffic Radar. Few, if any, aircraft mishaps occur during the cross-country leg of an aircraft's flight plan. Most airplane crashes -which are not accidents- occur during approach-and-landing, on the runway or taxiway, or during takeoff.
Sig this!
I can't believe the article doesn't mention that the FAA's Capstone project deployed ADS-B in Alaska years ago.
Actually, you should look up "dependent". You say we it's okay to use it, but we shouldn't be dependent on it. Well, then why use it at all? Dependent just means we require its use, and if we want more accuracy, we do require its use. I'm preeeeeeettty sure we will still know how to use and will still have radar in case there are problems. You know, that same government you mention could very well do the same thing with our existing radar network. So, what's the difference? Also, with satellites, we can still do visual recognition if we think something is amiss. So, technically, we're getting even MORE failsafes. Take off your tinfoil hat now.
This is mixed news for me.
Currently, a big plane will show up on radar as a blip. The pilot will call control, and state his/her identity and position. Controller will then make an educated guess as to which plane is which dot on the radar scope, and assign you a 4-digit "Squawk" code (Say, 1234). Pilot enters the squawk code in to his instruments, and the instruments then start broadcasting "Aircraft 1234 is at 32,000ft" on the radio. This then lets the radar display aircraft identification and altitude beside each blip. Simple, yes? Prone to human error?
So obviously, we need something less vulnerable to human error, and more vulnerable to programmer error. That's how the world works.
With ADS-B, the aircraft pulls down GPS coordinates and altitude, and then broadcasts them in cleartext on open frequencies to everyone. "Aircraft C-FBQN is at 10,000ft at N45.4870947 & W75.0967026 travelling at 121kts heading 180 True."
So, targeting your ground-to-air missiles just got a whole bunch easier.
The advantage, though, is that you can become much safer in the areas where there's no radar coverage. Hudson's Bay, North Atlantic, etc. Those are busy places with lots of planes and sleepy pilots.
Also, the aircraft I mentionned earlier in my example is C-FBQN. I love that baby, but she doesn't show up on radar. With ADS-B, my flying can get much safer.
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/007288.html
And I don't have to even worry about the missiles, as I have no heat signature and don't show up on radar, so they'll be able to get really close, and never actually hit me.
wow ... finally somebody decided something down at the FAA...
Between peak oil and global recession, what makes them think air traffic will increase at all? It's time for people to wake up: we've come to the limit of our conquer-and-consume growth economy. It's all downhill from here.
You mean like private pilots having to spend great amounts of money to upgrade their aircraft?
I like the tech, but I just don't see the need or the extra safety it is supposed to provide us. Flying is expensive enough as it is.
A lot. That's why there are different requirements for avionics than consumer electronics.
There's an easier way to solve the problem of lack of runways that nobody seems to want to discuss: raise the cost of flying. Pile on airport fees and jet fuel taxes. It's simple economics: if you raise the price, demand will drop. The runways will clear themselves.
There's a lot of reasons for society to not encourage flying: the pollution it causes (delivering particulates directly into the upper atmosphere may be a significant contributor to the greenhouse effect,) the increased ability of diseases to spread across the planet like wildfire, the noise, security, fossil fuel usage, etc. And it's not like business needs as much face-to-face communications with today's networking technologies.
Raising the price will clear the skies of today's casual travelers, and that's a good thing.
John
The nature of ADS-B is such that there is the potential for ADS-B equipment to be considerably cheaper than traditional transponders. It remains to be seen whether this will be borne out, and I'm pessimistic about it, but the potential is there.
In any case, I never denied downsides, but there are upsides as well. As a glider pilot, I'm excited because ADS-B will probably be considerably more practical to install in an aircraft with a battery-driven electrical system.
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"ADS-B is part of the FAA's wide-reaching plan known as NextGen to revamp every component of the flight control system to meet future demands and avoid gridlock in the sky.""
Space invaders showed us how to avoid gridlock.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Technology advances at the FAA very slooooowly.
As they should be. Twitter breaks for 24 hours because of an update to their code, no big deal. Radar goes out for 15+ seconds? HUGE DEAL.
What are the opinions of Slashdotters who experience both types of failures in their respective corporate worlds?
"Yes, I have a Disaster Recovery Plan. It's called my Resume"
Any excuse for us to put even more satellites in the sky... And since having new satellites in the sky costs next to nothing, why not? Right?
-Matt
while i agree that the post 9/11 airport security measures and completely pointless and make flying an absolute nightmare, that does not negate the benefits of this new system.
firstly, it's not the lack of "airspace" that this system is addressing. ADS-B provides more accurate/precise information to pilots in addition to having far more extensive coverage than radar. not only are they getting weather & air traffic information for improved situational awareness in the air, but this technology is also being used to help pilots navigate on the tarmac:
in fact the worst plane accident in history (excluding the 9-11 attacks, which were deliberate terrorist acts) was the Tenerife airport disaster (1977) which involved the collision of two 747s on the runway. since pilots rely so heavily on air traffic controllers to help them navigate the runway, a simple miscommunication due to a language barrier between the pilot and the tower caused one of the 747s to be parked directly in the path of another 747 preparing for take-off. and because looking out the window was the only other way for pilots to see their surroundings (and avoid collisions), the heavy fog covering the airport that day obscured the two planes from each other until it was too late. this accident could easily have been prevented if ADS-B had been in place, since the pilots in both planes would have been able to clearly see their relative position to each other and to the layout of the runway system.
lastly, i want to point out the crash of Avianca Flight 52 in 1990. this incident occurred during foggy conditions as well, but this time the root cause of the accident was due to the 707 being put in a holding pattern for over an hour until they literally ran out of fuel and crashed. the 707 was actually given priority landing right before they ran out of fuel, however due to bad wind shear info given by the flight controllers the plane dropped below the glideslope, resulting a missed approach. however, they didn't have enough fuel for a second approach. the engines flamed out; the plane lost power; and then it crashed.
accurate weather info, more tightly spaced landings, less time in holding patterns, and less fuel expended for landings would all improve the safety and efficacy of commercial air travel. perhaps if the planes on the ground that night had been able to taxi themselves using the ADS-B display, the decreased workload on the tower controllers would have allowed them to land more planes in a shorter amount of time--maybe ev
ADS-B provides more accurate/precise information to pilots in addition to having far more extensive coverage than radar.
None of the benefits you mention really requires satellites as part of the system.
Currently, "radar" isn't really used by most civilian airports. Although they do have the capability to do "skin paints", they generally rely on the airplane transponders which report the GPS and inertial navigation information when queried by the air traffic control systems.
There is no reason you can't take this same information the tower receives now and send it out to all planes in the area so they can have in-cockpit displays like you refer to. Basically, it'd be the same system without the satellites. It would be a lot cheaper to do, and would have exactly the same results, but it wouldn't be as cool, so it probably wouldn't get funded.
Depends on what you mean by "tubes". For high power pulsed microwave systems (like radar) specialized vacuum tubes are often the most cost effective and most efficient source. At SLAC we use 250, 75 megawatt pulsed klystrons (tubes). There is no practical solid state replacement. Many TV stations use a type of radio-frequency called an IOTs. Microwave ovens use "tubes" (magetron). Low power / low noise is different: I don't know of modern applications for signal-level tubes, but there may still be some.
Actually, you should look up "require"
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like they say, there's more than one way to skin a cat. however, this system is here now. the technology has been tested for over several years and proven itself to be effective. and there are things that can be done about the cost. GPS was really expensive when it first came out as well, but now it's relatively cheap to get a GPS navigation system. by standardizing the design for the cockpit device, it can be produced more cheaply by many manufacturers. and if it's a standard feature on all planes, that will also reduce unit costs, in addition to distributing the cost of operating the satellites across millions of planes.
the data speaks for itself. i don't think it has anything to do with satellites being "cool." if you can design a safe radar alternative to this system, you could present it to the FAA for their consideration. but if there are no other alternatives available, then what is wrong with the FAA adopting this technology?
besides, how would you transmit weather data from the national weather service without using satellites? how would you provide coverage outside of radar range? and if you're using GPS satellites for tracking planes, you're still using satellites, but i think only military planes using GPS with their transponders.
We're talking the aviation market. There's a snowballs chance in hell of anyone charging a reasonable price for these.
ADS-B issues every aircraft a unique, trackable ID number that can be used to issue bills to every aircraft that passes through an area. This means the sky will now become a big toll road.
There's a small chance, if you are willing to accept a reasonable aviation price instead of a price that any outside observer would think to be reasonable. MITRE has developed a reference design for an ADS-B unit which runs off a few AA batteries and could conceivably be produced for just a few hundred dollars if the FAA can be convinced to allow less rigorous certification standards for this sort of application. Whether they can be made to see the light remains to be seen, but it's at least possible even if not likely.
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thats why private planes are doing so well these days
exactly. I'd be interested in finding out what kind of redundancy they have in the system; Satellites become disabled in one way or another too frequently.
Jesus loves me, he loves me a bunch, because he always puts Jiffy in my lunch.
Not all aircraft are in the "tower" airspace. "Center" radar updates are once in ~12 sec (tower/TRACON at about 5 sec). ADS-B updates once a sec (ok, two squitters per sec on 1090 MHz for you geeks, UAT is 1/sec).
The information is not just for ATC. It can be/is also received by other AIRCRAFT that are properly equipped.
And there is no ATC direct communication over the ocean (OK, you speak to an private company operator over HF, who relays it to the controller etc. -- I am ignoring a bit of non-mainstream communications here.)
I work on ships and with AIS (automatic identification system) which transmits our location speed and course as well our identity,coupled with electronic charts and gps we know exactly where everyone is and what they are doing.The system allows us to safely navigate large ships in narrow channels and avoid collision and groundings.This technology with a few modifications could be adapted to air travel and ground control.
None of the benefits you mention really requires satellites as part of the system.
...they generally rely on the airplane transponders which report the GPS...
ur not doin it right
He means "more satellites", as everyone (except you) understood.
Yet another thing to break when an unexpected solar flare or two shorts out some satellites at high altitude.
"Assertion failed: sorry, your plane will now crash."
Yeah. Makes some sense...
The wise follow a damned path, for to know is to be forsaken.
The great thing about ADS-B is that the infrastructure costs is much less then radar and it's reliability and accuracy far surpass it as well. Radar coverage is also LOS only, an issue that plagues pilots that fly near mountainous terrain. This technology will be fantastic for developing countries as well, because of those reasons.
As a pilot having used ADS-B (in small aircraft, where hitting other airplanes, especially at uncontrolled fields, is an enormous concern), I can say that this is a fantastic advantage in the cockpit.
Not to mention that having a location to the nearest foot when an aircraft crashes of its last location while greatly improve SAR efforts.
Any naysayers of the technology citing security concerns fail to realize that most of the issues they spout off can still easily be accomplished with modern transponders in today's aircraft.
Probably the same that happens when/if today's lower-tech transponders are spoofed.
Another benefit is the update rate of ADS-B. The sweep for en route radar is 11s. So the closure rate for two aircraft heading in opposite directions could be as much as 20 miles per sweep. In contrast, ADS-B could provide position updates to the controller every second. In the terminal area, the sweep rate is ~5 seconds, and aircraft are of course going more slowly. Still, there are potentially significant benefits for the final approach, especially for parallel runways where a big potential concern is aircraft blundering off of their approach and into an aircraft on the parallel approach.
What this is really about is that the airplane's transponder (simply a radio that transmits about 200 miles around) will broadcast not only the plane's ID tag, but also it's GPS position. Satellites only come into this system in the sense that the airplane has a GPS receiver on board, and GPS is of course satellites. So each airplane broadcasts not only who it is, but where it is. The other new part is that all the airplanes will recieve and process that information to give the pilots a picture of who else is flying around near them. Furthermore, ground radar stations will broadcast on the transponder channel as a proxy for those aircraft that are not equipped to transmit their GPS.
Historically, planes have always transmitted an ID code (mainly, a manually assigned code from the air traffic center who is most recently responsible for them). The next big thing was for the transponder to also include the aircraft's altitude. Now, these are called "transponders" because they only transmit when polled by a ground station's radar sweep. And until recently, only the ground controllers received the transponder hits from the aircraft. About 10 years ago, planes (expensive airliners, mainly) started receiving and processing the nearby transponder responses as well, so that they could see what other planes were at their altitude. This is a collision-avoidance system. So now that planes are equipped with GPS comes the revolution: they can transmit their precise location to each other, and also to the controllers, and everyone can see a complete picture of where all the nearby planes are. This will ultimately enable pilots to fly more efficient routes, allowing more freedom for the controllers and pilots to work things out dynamically.
cheaper equipment: it would surprise me as you always need a mode S transponder for ADS-B. FAA relaxing on standards: if ADS-B is the sole means of surveillance, they will require even more stringent testing and performance. In the past, if your transponder was not perfect, they had primary radar to see you. In the future, with only ADS-B, transmitting e.g. a wrong position is much more dangerous.
Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
Skynet fights back.
Squirrel!
While in theory it could be cheaper, I see one practical problem - demand.
When this goes live there will probably be some mandate to install it by a certain date. That means thousands to millions of these things will be flying off the shelves. If the leading avionics manufacturers want to charge for 300% profits are you going to stop flying to avoid buying one?
think about it this way. Ground based radar is limited by line of sight, and horizon issues. it is technically possible to fly below it.
With a space based solution you always fly below it.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I've not seen anyone bring this up yet.... The real promise of ADSB is to completely decentralize the ATC and open up the thousands of small airports to be used by VLJs in an entirely new kind of commercial air transport. No more hub and spoke.. any airport with a 5k' runway becomes a potential point of travel and with only a few people on board a plane.. there is no need for all the security theater. The existing ATC could never keep up with this much traffic.. but with ADSB it doesn't have to.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -HLM
It's true.
Exactly! The FAA's approach to technology and air safety has been irresponsible at best. If theyv'e been at this for 30 years, then i gaurantee that what they have in mind is to actually use equipment from that era!! Their approach to safety was the reason why i left the aircraft industry (am a mech. engineer). Under the Bush administration changes have increased risks, not the reverse: crowding of airspace, letting carriers do their own inspections of aircraft, attacking the Flight Controllers union, understaffing in retaliation, keeping secret the news of the extremely serious problems at Quantus hidden from the US's public view ... On and on ...
Its entirely conceivable that their "ultimate plan" is to get out of the "business" of safety management, quality control, and flight management. I betcha they see computers and satellites as the pathway to that goal!
Its nothing short of criminal.
j. anderson, m.e., m.d.
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
FAA see the light?
They are as blind to common sense as their radar systems are.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
First, a satellite system is easier to jam. The signals are weak and the antenna on the aircraft is semi-omnidirectional so a jammer signal can get in. By contrast, its harder to jam a radar since it has a pencil or fan beam. Second, since the system is 'dependent' on aircraft cooperation, a terrorist can turn the on-board equipment off and become untrackable. By contrast, radars have a 'skin mode' where they depend only on reflections from the skin of the plane to track. This is not the normal transponder mode, but will defeat the attempts of a terrorist to avoid being tracked.
The guitar amp industry is still a consumer of signal-level tubes. It is impossible to make a solid-state guitar amp that sounds exactly as good as a tube-type amp, especially for the overdrive sounds. Engineers have been trying for nearly half a century to duplicate the sounds of a tube guitar amp in a solid-state amp, and while some have come close and made some pretty darned good ones, none have ever truly succeeded.
Depends on what you mean by "tubes". For high power pulsed microwave systems (like radar) specialized vacuum tubes are often the most cost effective and most efficient source. At SLAC we use 250, 75 megawatt pulsed klystrons (tubes). There is no practical solid state replacement. Many TV stations use a type of radio-frequency called an IOTs. Microwave ovens use "tubes" (magetron). Low power / low noise is different: I don't know of modern applications for signal-level tubes, but there may still be some.
I was talking about the kinds of tubes that were used in radar receivers and related equipment. They may have been militarized versions, because the radars were originally World War II models converted for FAA use. They were the same kinds once used in radio receivers, TV sets, and other electronic equipment. They were replaced by discrete component transistorized circuits and later by integrated circuits. I would expect there to have been lots of 6SN7 dual triodes in ancillary equipment but not in the receivers (that would have used pentodes). That's the only number I can remember off the top of my head.
I imagine that it will start out like transponders are now, optional unless you're flying into class A/B/C airspace, in which case I'll simply wait until the initial surge goes down and buy at leisure, since I never fly in those areas. However you raise a good point and many or most pilots won't be able to follow that strategy.
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An aircraft navigation system that runs on AA batteries? Can't see any problems there then.
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
I can only imagine you're being sarcastic, but I cannot conceive of why. Could you elaborate, please?
Completely unrelated (yeah, right), why is it that 90% of people on Slashdot act as thought their position was the obvious and right and every other position is complete crap, and therefore they have no need to put forth any effort or even sense when posting?
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just to reply to: "Currently, a big plane will show up on radar as a blip. The pilot will call control, and state his/her identity and position. Controller will then make an educated guess as to which plane is which dot on the radar scope, and assign you a 4-digit "Squawk" code (Say, 1234). Pilot enters the squawk code in to his instruments, and the instruments then start broadcasting "Aircraft 1234 is at 32,000ft" on the radio. This then lets the radar display aircraft identification and altitude beside each blip. Simple, yes? Prone to human error?" only prone to pilot error right here. when an aircraft initially calls control, whether on the ground or in the air, the information is entered into STARS/ARTS and the computer generates a squawk code for that aircraft. assuming the pilot enters the code correctly and idents, the controller can then radar contact the plane verifying if the position stated is correct or not. good thing about gps is it's more accurate than radar at longer distances and will fill the gaps of cverage. the bad thing is we do not need to solely rely on a system that's airborne and can be taken out very easily, by hostility or by sheer glitches. it's a lot easier to service a radar antenna or navaid on the ground instead of something in space. we need both systems.
i just want to clarify about "in fact the worst plane accident in history (excluding the 9-11 attacks, which were deliberate terrorist acts) was the Tenerife airport disaster (1977) which involved the collision of two 747s on the runway. since pilots rely so heavily on air traffic controllers to help them navigate the runway, a simple miscommunication due to a language barrier between the pilot and the tower caused one of the 747s to be parked directly in the path of another 747 preparing for take-off. and because looking out the window was the only other way for pilots to see their surroundings (and avoid collisions), the heavy fog covering the airport that day obscured the two planes from each other until it was too late. this accident could easily have been prevented if ADS-B had been in place, since the pilots in both planes would have been able to clearly see their relative position to each other and to the layout of the runway system."
i'm not sure what the wiki article says, the main cause of that accident was that the controller got walked on during a transmission so pan am thought they were cleared for takeoff(or klm whichever was tiph)
"Now, these are called "transponders" because they only transmit when polled by a ground station's radar sweep. And until recently, only the ground controllers received the transponder hits from the aircraft. "
Transponders are transmitting constantly whenever they are squawking and not in standby. most radar systems are comprised of two types of radar, the primary and secondary radar. the primary is what gets you the blips on the scope, and the secondary radar is what picks up transponders in the sky and associates a datatag with the blip(mode c transponders relay alt/speed info).
I think you got a bit confused here because it does not matter what position you are in in the tower, everyone can see the same thing on the scope. Until recently, only Local controllers had a use for transponders. I think you got a little mixed up here and mean to say it the other way around. You were probably thinking of ASDE/ASDE-X which is what ground controllers use to track airplanes on the ground(it uses transponders).
Spot on. Mods, give the controller a lift.
I am interested in ADS-B, but I don't mind managing the transponder either. Given all the things I have to do over the course of a flight, the transponder is typically a set once and forget operation (especially when IFR).
I think the best feature of ADS-B will be that marginal english speakers will talk less. If you haven't heard a Chinese or Japanese student stumble over a IFR vector/handoff... well... it is no treat. Especially when other aircraft need something at the same time (and when IMC, we all need something).
yes, that was one of the causes, but generally these kinds of major disasters happen due to the confluence of multiple chance mishaps/mistakes. and i'm basing my information off of an episode of "Air Crash Investigation" that was aired on NatGeo, so take it for what you will. but to the best of my recollection, the NTSB investigation attributed the crash to these causes:
but regardless of which circumstance you want to attribute as the ultimate cause of the accident, better situational awareness of everyone's location on the ground would have prevented this runway collision.
We're nerds. Being insufferable smart-asses is par for the course.
Did this originate from the NASA SATS Program?
http://sats.erau.edu/nationalsats/
Libertas in infinitum
Sure there's a reason. Cost. That sounds prohibitively expensive. Instead of sending up a few multi-billion-dollar satellites, you want to set up thousands of relays - at least one, often more, per airport, to send the data back out. Am I saying each one will cost millions of dollars? No. Hundreds of thousands of dollars would be sufficient to overwhelm the cost of satellites: the satellites can be done without the CEO of each airport signing off. And will benefit smaller airports that couldn't otherwise afford it.
Either way, the data has to be shown to the pilot to be useful. At least with the satellites, there's only one data stream coming in that every HUD vendor can work with, instead of worrying about the twelve companies producing relays, each spitting out their information slightly differently: 6 in XML with slight variations in DTDs, one in a non-standard XML format, another in a compressed XML format, another in a binary XML format, two in entirely different purely-binary formats, and one in Excel. And you just know that three of these will have documentation of their formats that don't actually match the data their devices pump out, two will only share their formats under expensive NDAs, and four will seek ISO approval for their formats as "Open" formats, and a fifth will get in by bribing the ISO panel, even though their open format can't be understood by your average Mensa-card-carrying programmer, and isn't quite what they implemented, either, anyway. Interoperability would be painful.
This way, whether for good or bad, at least gives us a de facto standard that can be designed against (and around) with a relatively non-moving target, allowing vendors to concentrate on real functionality: comprehensive, intuitive displays of that data.
ADS-B alleviates several bottlenecks in the ATC system. It reduces the stress on the controllers and the number of messages on the shared VHF channels, because the pilots can take more responsibility for vectoring their own planes. When able to see all of the other nearby planes, pilots can maintain spacing and separation requirements without a controller sending additional instructions to vector the plane into a line. ADS-B assists the aging radar infrastructure. Radar-based systems can only update once per revolution, typically several to many seconds. ADS-B allows much better resolution in both time and space.
Another component of the FAA NextGen overhaul is 'Data Comm', a digital text-messaging style protocol for air-ground-air communications that will be used for air-traffic-control in addition to the existing VHF voice channels. It is currently in the initial planning and specification stages of the design, so it will take a while to be implemented. This is, I believe, the third digital communication system to be developed or worked on since the 1948 system referenced in the parent.
Data Comm is based on the ACARS text-based communication protocol that is provided by ARINC for commercial airlines. Commercial airlines use the system to send messages back to central payroll, maintenance, and administrative computers about push-back time, take-off, fuel reserves, engine status and malfunctions, and passenger requests. These messages are broadcast in cleartext - if you have an aviation radio and a sound card, there are software programs that will easily decode the compressed data bursts.
A comment on why technology advances so slowly at the FAA - There can be no bugs. There can be no downtime, not even the ubiquitous 'scheduled' downtime. If a new computer system crashes, then planes will go down. There are many, many, many verfication, testing procedures, and quality assurance routines that are completed before any new systems or small upgrades are implemented. Any new system must use a hot switchover - they can't take an hour off to unplug the old radar controller and attach the new one.
Essentially, the FAA has a very strong "If it ain't broken, don't fix it" philosophy. The US Air Traffic Control system is the best in the world, even though it uses "obsolete" hardware and software to the perspective of the average /. reader.
it's not just a standard interface,
it's the law:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II#OBD-II
just because a small airport does not have a tower does not mean it cannot be used by commercial airfare. planes takeoff from uncontrolled airports all day long. There's no reason for a huge airlines to go into a tiny airport to waste fuel and get no return passengers, it's just no economical. the reason more small airports arent used is not because atc can't keep up with the traffic, it's because there's no point in using those airports.
Was this not proposed a long time ago by Hakan Lans
http://www.epo.org/topics/innovation-and-economy/european-inventor/nominees/2007/lans.html
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You need to read about how the ground based and satellite based radars work.
These are not active systems. They do not send out a powerful pulse and measure the reflection. These systems depend on a 'transponder'. The 'radar' (they need to stop calling it that) sends out a moderately powered interrogation signal. The airplane carries a transponder, that replies with a number.
When I fly VFR (visual flight rules), I set my transponder to respond with 1200. If my radio is broken, I set it to 7600. If I'm hijacked, I set it to 7400. If I want to disappear from the FAA completely, I turn it off.
The satellite system works the same, except there isn't an interrogation signal (I believe). The airplane just constantly transmits it's position.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Exactly right for paying for testing. As a glider pilot, the only reason I have a transponder is so that controllers can give other traffic advisories about me, and so that I ping airliners' TCAS units. Other than that I could take it to leave it, as I never fly into class A/B/C airspace. There has been talk of requiring them above 10,000ft in gliders just as is done in other aircraft, at which point the transponder would be very handy. But in all of these cases, if I'm flying VFR and not under positive ATC control, there's a lot more leeway for the equipment, and I'd hope a cheaper ADS-B unit could be made available with that realization.
I don't know a whole lot about the MITRE work besides having seen a test unit once and heard a little bit about it. It was extremely small, perhaps the size of a large-print deck of cards, and the pilot who was testing it had simply velcroed it to the top of his instrument panel. I think the electronics plus a reasonable profit margin were expected to come to a couple hundred dollars. The big question is how little testing/certification the FAA will let us get away with, as that could drastically inflate the cost. MITRE is developing the design with the idea of licensing it to other manufacturers, but I have no idea if any have expressed interest yet. If you google for "MITRE ADS-B" you'll find more information, there seems to be a fair amount of information out there about what they're doing with it.
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What if there is a major problem with the satellites? Will they go to the old ways, which is what we are using now, I would hope... but then again, why the need to fly so often, unless your one of them business men stuck in a busy airport - with your business suit nicely pressed, doing business over your business phone with a business partner in Brisbane? Flying so often, polluting our skies with jet fuel, day in and day out, for what? We have 'the' internet! I am for limiting our mobility for a decade, which we will call "Earth First" to learn our own surroundings, where we are. When we do travel, hopefully in ever evolving organic machines, we can be ambassadors to wherever we go, or not, choice will be yours. Before we go completely to 'digital', we should examine the complications, if say, a major sun storm were to erupt.
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Frederick sounds scary. I've talked to some of the guys who fly gliders there and some of their stories will turn your hair white! Corporate jets blasting through gaggles of gliders at 5,000ft....
If you should happen to find out anything about the MITRE unit before Slashdot closes comments on this story, I'd very much appreciate hearing what you were able to discover.
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Do You Speak EEL?: Translating FAA Bobby Sturgell - PART III http://ejectsturgell.blogspot.com/2008/11/do-you-speak-eel-translating-faa-bobby_30.html Exiting FAA Acting Administrator Bobby Sturgell: "You will notice that I threw a lot of new runways, programs, and equipment at people and communities right before I got chucked out of office. That was on purpose. Those are called 'bribes'. They are intended to buy the silence and cooperation of those that receive them. The others, I'll tell "Safety Officer" Nick Sabatini to try to intimidate. Throwing money-items out to folks like so many Milkbones, provides me a lot of job security in the private sector for years to come".