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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."
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.
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.
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It does make sense and it is what happens currently... the SSR(secondary surveillance radar) data overlays the primary radar return data, so if the aircraft stops squawking it's still visible as a dot or slash on the display. I'd expect the same would happen with ADS-B.
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