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FAA Greenlights Satellite-Based Air Traffic Control System

Posted by samzenpus on from the no-clouds-in-the-sky dept.

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."

1 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. They have only been working on this for 30 years by grandpa-geek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.