Slashdot Mirror
Senate Votes To Replace Aviation Radar With GPS
plover writes "The US Senate on Monday passed by a 93-0 margin a bill that would implement the FAA's NextGen plan to replace aviation radar with GPS units. It will help pay for the upgrade by increasing aviation fuel taxes on private aircraft. It will require two inspections per year on foreign repair stations that work on US planes. And it will ban pilots from using personal electronics in the cockpit. This just needs to be reconciled with the House version and is expected to become law soon. This was discussed on Slashdot a few years ago."
While the nextgen plan is a good thing, the rest is crap. We can get legislation to ban laptops, but we can't get the HORRENDOUSLY dangerous rest regulations fixed. How about NOT giving in to the airline lobbyists for once and actually doing something to make air travel SAFER????
It's about time they got around to work that doesn't involve screwing the country over and ignoring the people they claim to represent.
This just adds to the consequences of the inevitable solar flare that will knock out all our satellites.
Otherwise I might just taxi off of a draw bridge.
what if some big foreign country who has anti satellite weapons decides to blow up our GPS satellites?
It must be a good thing since there were no nay votes, right?
Or should we believe that debate is a bad thing like we've been told time and again on this Universal Health Care issue.
So each plane sends its location back to air traffic control? How is this system secured? This will be breached repeatedly. Also, what happens when a solar storm takes out the satellites? I'm sure GPS is a better system under normal circumstances, but circumstances are not always normal.
So exactly how prone will this system be to;
Don't get me wrong, this has a lot of upside, it's just important we have a good idea what the down side is, how significant it is, and what the expected impact on American business and transportation will be.
And what were the other 7 senators doing that day? Biden (the VP) is technically part of the senate, but I'll give him a pass on this. I'll be checking to see if my senator(s) were busy sleeping in that day.
moox. for a new generation.
If the batteries in my Garmin go out, I can just use any 747 to go geocaching!
A solar flare, natural disaster, or something more nefarious takes out the GPS system? Would the individual independent radars still remain operational in those situations? To someone like me who doesn't really fly much or know much about things it seems like we're replacing multiple independent systems with a system that has a central point of failure if someone or some natural event knocked out the satellites.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Flight 235, we have your GPS signal. Please adjust your flight path 35 degrees northeast. Hold on one second, we're picking up an unidentified GPS signal. They're heading right for you! Emergency maneuver 15 degrees east! --- Ground control, it's a clear sunny day. I don't see any other planes in my flight path. --- Hold on Flight 235, we've received new information. We've identified the rogue GPS signal. Continue on course. It was only a migrating manatee with one of those older GPS tags.
If this appropriately meets FAA guidelines than this is fine.
In cockpit systems a standby attitude device must be installed in the cockpit as a fallback system unless the existing cockpit systems have dual redundancy.
Along the same token the GPS DAMN WELL better have a backup system of some sort. This backup may be a radar system or it may be an INS system combined with altitude sensors or use of VOR/TACAN systems. There just has to be something there.
./ had an article a few days ago abouta gps jammer for $50. It seems to me that it wouldn't be all that hard to make one with a pretty powerful jammer and a timer, put it in some checked baggage, and let the thing go off about 20 minutes before landing...
Let's replace 50 year old, time-tested technology with something that conks out regularly and is reliant on giant hunks of metal falling through the sky.
Adding GPS is a great idea. Replacing radar totally is beyond ridiculous.
ffs
Sexy female voice in the cockpit: "Now come to a heading of 329."
Pilot: "Wait... WTF ? Who put that mountain there ?...."
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
In the literal sense, light aircraft not equiped with GPS, (Drug or people smugglers), and of course aircraft that have been hijacked and their transponders disabled.
Or some kid in a baloon (hoax or not, its probably not going to do an engine any good if it sucks it in...
And if the pilots are too busy playing with their laptops to even look out of the window...
It doesnt sound safe to me, especially in a post 911 world.
Didn't they delay a shuttle launchto avoid a GPS clock rollover? Will they ground all the world's aircraft for the next one?
1. In the UK NOTAMs ( Notice to airmen) are issued on a regular basis for GPS jamming trials. They take place over several weeks, and are, I believe, carried out by the army. I am not sure if their intention is to remove the possibility of soldiers on exercise using GPS rather than other means to navigate, or for some other reason.
I fly gliders and have a GPS unit on board which is used as a navigation aid. I also carry a chart (as required by air law) which serves as primary aid for navigation.
2. I would be pretty confident that all airliners currently in service have GPS capability
3. Radar is useful for seeing where everyone else is, GPS is for finding yourself. While transmitting location/vector information from an airbourne GPS to a ground station would enable collision avoidance, this feature is currently available through transponders. These are a requirement for any aircraft wanting to transit class A airspace.
With a radar you can detect stuff that's solid. With GPS, I'm guessing you can only see other GPS enabled stuff. Anyone else see a problem here?
Asses are for crapping, not screwing.
Radars are very, very reliable nowadays but the backup for air traffic control is to then put all aircraft at different altitudes until they either exit the area with broken radar or land, if things really go awry. There's still plenty of space for aircraft to be at different altitudes if you go below cruise levels, albeit the increased fuel consumption at lower altitudes might then mean that some simply must land. But that's a relatively minor inconvenience in case of radar failure...
This is just a parliamentary tactic the Democrats are using to ram this unpopular legislation down the throats of ordinary, hard-working Americans. They're trying to pass this bill in the dead of night, under the old bridge down town, dressed as hobos and reeking of urine. Write your Congressman, radio your Precinct Boss, phone your local librarian. We need all hands on deck to kill this bill and show the Washington fatcats that we're not going to stand for this. I don't care if it's just to buy toilet paper, but getting a bill through our Congress should take a supermajority, the way God intended! Email Barack Hussein Obama and tell him you don't want socialist aviation!
--Obyron
WHy not have both. Redundancy is a good thing when it comes to this sort of stuff.
Point one: GPS, since the plane's antenna is semi-omnidirectional, is easily jammed. GPS signal strengths are weak. Point Two: Radar is not easily jammed. A jammer can only jam one radial -- and he gives away his angular position when he does. Point Three: Radar can skin track a plane even when the plane's transponder is turned off.
What? Where did that come from? The link in the summary points to the slashdot posting about the airliner that overflew its destination by a bit. THAT summary talks about the crew using their laptops during the flight. However, I am not sure that's the case. In fact, I am led to believe that they had both nodded off. So, while removing personal electronics from the flight deck might be attractive to people who want to remove distractions, in reality it's often useful to have a distraction to keep one alert, particularly during a long period that would otherwise be spent largely in inactivity. If the purpose is to reduce interference with GPS equipment, well, I am not aware of this being a problem. If it really is an issue, presumably the pax will have to forego their MP3 players. Also, my headset (my own) is a nice active noise reducing device. It enhances my performance by allowing me to hear stuff more clearly, and protects my hearing. Will that be banned? More rules, less safety. Rah! Charlie
A system that works is already in place. Maybe GPS based systems can work better, provide fuel cost savings frmo more direct routes, better traffic awareness, etc. Maybe it can, maybe it won't. The problem I ahve with this is the forced compliance and tax of privately used fuel, making the people who DO NOT USE commercial/government regulated flight pay for upgrades to private airlines which are heavily subsidized already. This is a slap in the face to all red blooded Americans and yet another scrap of our Constitution burned.
If this system really has merit, then the airlines would be interested in upgrading their fleet on their own, in coordination with the FAA. I recall GPS based navigation systems enabled a commercial lfight to save something like 4% fuel by flying a more direct and efficient route from Australia to California. So there may be merit in that such a system could offer real cost savings and pay for itself over time.
I mean from what I understand you use GPS to find out where you are and then have to radio that to air control. Besides it being hacked what happens in the simple case that a GPS unit on a certain plane is broken and reports the wrong location? (I'm guessing there's some sort of "checksum" to prevent this but then again I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't any either.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Sheer foolishness to me. I appreciate the benefits that it has, being a pilot myself, however... There'd be no way to see airplanes without electrical systems (yep, they exist), with failed electrical systems (yep, it happens), or airliners taken over by terrorists that turn the ADS-B transmitters to the "OFF" position. Great idea guys. Then, let's use JUST GPS for navigation when we've already been told that we might not be able to keep the satellite fleet numbers high enough to avoid outages. Oh, and yeah, satellites navigation is much easier to jam by our enemies and can be knocked out by the Sun a lot easier than ground-based. Anyone ever experience RAIM failure? It happens...
Great idea, horrible implementation... :-(
So what happens to private pilots and civil air patrol when the GOV turns on Selective Availability? .... and how the hell will the FAA know if I'm texting my friends in the left seat of a Cessna 172?
No personal electronic devices? what about the electronic E6B flight computers?
or the many iPhone apps that perform flight planing and navigation calculations?
or my hand held Garmin III+ GPS? etc etc etc
tomorow never dies
where they attempt to start a war by spoofing satelite timing signals
Some aircraft - some of the Embraer models for instance - now have laptops in the cockpit which the pilots are expected to use for flight plans etc and the copy holders have been removed. Guessing it's still the case that the plane is not allowed off the ground without both laptops being fully operational. These are standard, IBM laptops so justifying frisking pilots for their personal electronics when there are a couple of laptops fitted in the cockpit is not "going to fly" if you'll pardon the pun.
It's a little hard to tell, but one of the advantages listed is that aircraft outside areas with radar coverage will be able to transmit position information. So reading between the lines they expect to continue using radar, but replacing its role in the system with more up to date data broadcast by the aircraft.
I'm guessing that they will not throw out radar entirely for primary surveillance. They'll need it to track things that don't transmit their position, like aircraft with failed electronics.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I love how everyone here just damn well knows what's better for the FAA. All the OMG they better have a backup, as if it's Windows Me or something. Look; pilots are very smart people. They aren't going to get in a plane that doesn't have some sort of backup nav. That said, you guys worry about things way too much. I know one-engine props crash more than passenger airliners, but how many of you have been on a dual turbo-prop? They say the other engine will get you all the way to the crash site... And how many of you guys have backup systems for your car's brakes? No? No one? OMG!!! Really? You could skid through an intersection at any time! Look at what Microsoft has done to everyone. As they say, I'm really glad the rest of the world is more reliable than Windows.
GPS will tell you where you are... if you have a GPS.
Radar will tell you what's out there... as long as it reflects RADAR waves.
I'd say RADAR is a whole lot more useful than GPS in avoiding collisions. Do you think that flock of birds has a GPS? How about that meteor?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Based on the responses here it seems this Slashdot article isn't getting the point across at all and is borderline misinformation.
The new system DOES NOT REPLACE RADAR. It supplements the radar with state information from the aircraft (this state information includes GPS).
At the core this isn't that drastically different from what already happens. All aircraft require a transponder, and these transponders at a minimum respond with an altitude. The aviation radar used in the ATC system does not measure altitude, it requires a transponder reply from the aircraft to get the altitude. Furthermore this altitude reply is only accurate if the pilot has set the altimeter correctly, otherwise the data is bogus and in many cases bogus enough to bust separation. The ATC system is already extremely dependent on cooperative aircraft and pilots, it always has been and always will be. It is an ATC system, not an air defense system.
The new system will allow for a significant reduction in radar infrastructure because the superior state information coming from aircraft will require less overlapping radar coverage. So that is less radar on the ground, but the system still has radar as part of its central core.
Google ADS-B to learn more.
It is an astoundingly bad idea to replace the radar network. GPS is not a remote-sensing technology that can be used for aircraft detection. Presumably a transponder will be used in conjunction with GPS locating. Disconnecting the transponder would allow a plane to fly unseen through US airspace. With radar this would only be possible for a stealth or very low-flying aircraft. There is a huge difference between active (radar) and passive (gps transponder) detection systems.
I hope they're not going to rely on the GPS for altitude. I've notice a number of times on my bike that my wrist GPS says I'm going downhill when it's obvious to me that I'm going uphill.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
They keep making it more expensive for us private pilots to operate our own aircraft. The airline lobby wants to destroy private aviation, and the gov seems to fall right in with it. Howabout instead of taxing the people who will NEVER use it or see it, tax the airline industry? You don't tax the people of Texas for the new roads in Washington.
In dense traffic areas, there is some reason to keep track of aircraft. But other than that, it's none of the government's business where I am. No personal electronics in the cockpit? Sounds innocent, but this has avionics lobby people written all over it. They want all the equipment to be installed (read: more expensive), not carried on board. My hand held gps - aircraft variey - does fine for visual flight operations. I don't need any of this fancy stuff. The "gps radar" installation is going to cost more than a lot of airplanes.
Senators have a six year term, not four.
I mean from what I understand you use GPS to find out where you are and then have to radio that to air control.
Not a worry. Position information will be sent as part of the transponder signal, or otherwise automatically reported. Good grief, do you think ATC would stand for something other than a real-time visual display of relative aircraft positions?
I feel sorry for the private pilots who are going to need another expensive transponder in their aircraft. If you have a $5,000. aircraft (they do exist) how'd it be to have to put a $5,000. new piece of equipment in it? (Former small aircraft owner here.)
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
I can tell from reading the other comments here that my opinions will be in the minority, but I can personally testify how GOOD this system is.
I do flight testing of military aircraft, and we did a demo with several planes and helicopters a couple years ago on the "ADS-B" system, which is a component of NextGen. I've played with it inflight myself, and surveyed many pilots who used it. So you know I'm not blowing smoke, I won an award for a paper about this system at the 2006 Society of Flight Test Engineers annual symposium.
To give you some context about what NextGen and ADS-B do, here's the idea. (I think this description will be useful, since it appears most of the comments here demonstrate a profound lack of knowledge of the system... but this *IS* /. so I'm not surprised.)
Each plane is equipped with a transponder. It receives GPS position, and broadcasts a packet of data once per second (much more frequently than the usual radar sweep of 10-15 seconds) containing identity, position, aircraft type, speed, heading, altitude, and more.
With just a few thousand dollars worth of optional equipment, each plane can also recieve these broadcast packets of information DIRECTLY from other aircraft. In other words, an airplane will see what the other nearby airplanes are reporting too. Right now, a pilot has very little idea what is around his own plane - if the controller doesn't warn him, he doesn't know about it. The existing collision avoidance systems only show a rough approximation of what's in front of you at roughly the same altitude, but it's very error-prone (based on WWII-era-technology directional radio beacons), and hard to find the targets in many cases. But this sytem lets you see everything that the airspace controller is seeing, and almost instantly - once per second. We found the pilots experienced a four-fold increase in their ability to identify conflicting traffic in front of them, and for the first time were aware of overtaking traffic too (faster stuff coming up behind them).
The ground-based system rebroadcasts ALL of its data (including skin-paint targets) on a separate radio frequency, so any airplane (or even ground observers) can learn about everything in the airspace. Along with this data, it also uploads precipitation radar and other weather data, plus airport information. So the pilot has access to a vast amount of new information. And most of the systems have onboard maps with terrain mapping, helping to keep the pilot away from mountains and other dangerous "cumulo-granite" features.
For the pilot himself, the increase in situational awareness was simply amazing. The immediate and crystal clear presentation of the location of all nearby planes meant that he knew everything going on around him. For the ground controller, the much higher frequency updates combined with the much more detailed information about each plane means improved ability to track and direct those airplanes.
There ARE a few downsides, but they're vastly outweighed by the improvements. As some comments indicate, it does depend on GPS. Well, duh. But so do the navigation systems already onboard the airplanes... and cars... and commercial trucks... and ships... and trains. If GPS goes down, there will be much worse problems than this system going away. Despite what it sounds like, the radars are not going away - some will, but there will still be enough for "skin paint" and radar transponder tracking if needed (Congress and the FAA are not totally stupid). As to GPS jammers, note that the airplane is receiving the GPS data, and broadcasting its information on a totally separate frequency to the ground and to other aircraft. So any GPS jamming (since it's localized) will only affect a few airplanes, not the whole system. And by the way, all serious aircraft have multiple navigation systems; jamming GPS won't kill any airplanes, despite the alarmists.
Finally, let's talk about real-world - this system was installed in portions of Alaska around 2000-2001, as a
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
I can tell from comments that not many of you are private pilots. They are paying for this with yet another tax on fuel for private planes. The FAA keeps raising fees on everything associated with having a private plane while giving big breaks to commercial companies. I'm sick of it.
I'm glad they passed the bill, we really need an updated system. The new stuff gives more accurate info, and (supposedly) will include very accurate weather information (for free) similar to what XM sells for something like $500/yr. Old-fashioned radar coverage works poorly in hilly / mountainous terrain, and gps navigation allows direct flight which will save time, fuel and bucks. The old-time systems are disappearing (NDBs are becoming a rare novelty - and good riddance, I say). I'm also pleased that this doesn't seem to have included 'user fees' for general aviation, which would serve as a deterrent to private flight, and make it more expensive to stay in practice, and more dangerous as a result.
Having said all that, I AM disappointed at the general direction of being tracked and my whereabouts logged with even more consistency and precision by some government entity. Big brother is smacking his lips over this, but at least THIS time we actually get some convenience for our trade off of privacy.
I live in a radar 'dead' zone, and don't have to worry about the FAA watching when occasionally buzzing a neighbor; guess I'd better enjoy it while I can.
Not really, it only needs to be accurate enough, and the errors must be common. So if a sattelite is off course and positions a plane 100 meters aside, the other planes in the vicinity must have the same error and it will not pose any problems.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
I'll be interested to see if they actually reconcile the bill with the House version. And I'll be even more interested to see how many Republicans vote yes. I mean, they just spent over a month telling us how corrupt and totalitarian using reconciliation is. . . .
"I disagree with you" does not equal "flamebait."
For the sake of safety and security, why don't we use both? It isn't like they are mutually exclusive... Then if there is a failure, you have a, you know, a backup plan? Not to mention we have these new fangled things called computers, that are like, really good at doing calculations really fast... so you could like correlate both systems to each other and increase the accuracy of both likely. I am already assuming that they are going to use base stations to auto correct the positions from known values also. Anyway the more redundancy the better I say.
Personal electronics ban is trying to regulate stupidity. Won't help, it will only hurt those of us who don't fly large aircraft which have working toys. I think Congress needs to do a bit of flying during the summer in singles or light twins while dodging thunderstorms with no onboard wx RADAR and see if that smartphone (or netbook) is worth it's weight in gold for near live RADAR updates.
In replacing the existing radar systems with GPS, this seems a very stupid thing to do. Clearly, the safety and security of the travelling public should be first and foremost. While GPS seems to have proven itself for a myriad of applications, does it mean we place all of our trust in that system of satellites? A more logical approach would be to merge radar and GPS to have a system that can tolerate the failure of either method and provide fault tolerance in the process.
Imagine a scenario where a plane is being directed to fly along a particular path that is being tracked by GPS and the radar system does not identify the object appropraitely? I more intensive triangulation can be done to determine the true location of the flight and take appropriate action. Ideally, this could be logged as a exception automatically while adjusting the Air Traffic Controlling system information to the most accurate data. There is true inherent value in having two separate and distinct processes that can maintain survivability independently, and the odds of a random occurrence taking out both at the same time (short of an engineered attack) would be highly improbable.
In addition, radar is more of an absolute method of measurement, meaning that detecting an object can be done without requiring any action (or equipment) being used by the object being tracked. I think that if GPS rules, then that will be the first thing that terrorists will assume absolute control over in a plane.
Sunspots are an indicator of activity, but don't actually affect the earth. The only reason sunspots are even used for comparisons is that there's more than a century of historical record.
The solar-related problems with GPS are CMES that take out the satellites or radio bursts that overwhelm the signal.
And we have no idea at this point when we'll start seeing the same levels of activity as the past solar maximums ... but we current consensus is that the past few years have been abnormally low, and thus GPS may not remain so reliable.*
*in general, that is ... my GPS has some issue with the antenna getting a static charge, and just sucks, so it's always unreliable.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
This is a typical example of those without a voice paying for services enjoyed by those who can afford lobbyists. This new system will be paid for with a tax on fuel sold to private pilots. Folks like your next door neighbor who takes his little Cessna out on weekends. However, this system is needed due to heavier and heavier commercial air traffic in Class A and B airspace and commercial traffic over the ocean (both of which are areas which seldom see private pilots).
So, if you can afford a small army of lobbyists and brib... I mean campaign contributions, you can get a law passed that taxes private citizens to raise money to pay for infrastructure necessitated by business activity. This would be like placing a high road-use tax on private automobiles while allowing commercial trucking to use the roads without road-use taxes. Completely backwards.
Of course there is a huge problem with any massive upgrade.
That is simply cost.
There are thousands of small Mom and Pop airports and FBOs that are just barley staying in business as it is. They can not afford spending thousands of dollars to get new radios.
Then you have all the private pilots that also really can not afford the cost of upgrading. It is a myth that all private pilots are rich. A lot of them just have a passion for flying.
Maybe the problem is that Americans just fly too damn much. Americans already drive amazingly fuel-inefficient cars, use commercial airlines for small distances, and have the largest ecological footprint of any country in the world (apart from some small oil states like the U.A.E. and Qatar). The U.S. has much lower taxes on all kinds of fuel than any European country I've ever visited, which probably makes flying a cheaper hobby than watching out the window. This may be an indirect way to put some people off flying, and although there might be better ways to accomplish that, I think it might be a step in the right direction.
Bring on the flamebait mods for treading on the American way of life, call me a tree-loving hippie communist global warming conspirator, I don't care.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
One advantage to GPS navigation is it will allow more aircraft to fly to their destination "as the crow flies" as opposed to being forced to fly established ATC corridors. This saves on both fuel and flight time.
The existing surveillance radar system isn't necessary for safe IFR operations. There are nonradar procedures. Every controller and every IFR pilot knows them. Once widely used, they became less relevant in the 1970s as radar coverage improved to the point where most of major terminals and the route structure in the U.S. were covered by radar. Outages still take place however and the nonradar procedures are still used.
In essence the nonradar system involves separating aircraft by time, altitude, or route, and relies on periodic position reports from pilots, at standardized locations. The position reports follow a standard sequence and would read something like "United 123 Gopher at 1851Z, 17,000 feet Halfway at 58Z, Rochester next" where "United 123" is the flight identifier, "Gopher" is the location name, 1851Z is the time over the location (possibly a minute or two in the past due to delays in reporting if the radio channel is busy), 17,000 feet is the altitude of the aircraft, "Halfway" is the next reporting point, 58Z is the pilot's estimate of the aircraft's arrival time over that point (in minutes after the hour), and "Rochester" is the subsequent reporting point.
Radar is a great tool. It improves capacity, reduces pilot and controller workload, and allows for random routes. However, it would be a mistake to think that aviation depends on it or on any automated replacement for it.
The technologies that made IFR flight possible were the gyro systems that allowed the aircraft to be controlled without a horizon reference, and radionavigation. Radio systems that permitted pilot-controller communication came next. Radar was first deployed at congested airports to improve capacity, and it was not until much later that route surveillance radar and ubiquitous transponder use became the norm.
Notoriously unreliable, imprecise, jammable. I hope there is a backup plan! Like, keep the existing radars operational.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
Here we go again; subsidize the large commercial interests at the expense of the individual.
I would think this actually makes it easier to figure out who's not on the up and up.. There's no way the military and DHS will give up primary radar as a security device, and all they'd need to do is compare the two data sets to find people flying with transponders off. What I do see this impacting is personal aviation.. I may be paranoid, but it seems like one more way to take away a freedom by forcing somebody to buy something they can't afford...
Citing the Congressional schedule for "days off" is like citing only the meetings on your calendar at work. If you're not in a meeting, you're not working, right?
Not exactly. Members of Congress are working pretty much any time they are not sleeping. When Congress is not in session they are in their DC offices working, or in their districts or states, meeting with constituents, raising money, and basically campaigning 24/7/365. This is a good thing--it is the system of accountability.
Almost every time a vote is taken, everyone knows if the bill is going to pass ahead of time. The vote counts on each side are monitored by the whips (a leadership position) on each side. So yeah, if a bill is going to pass unanimously, you might not see 100-0 on the vote record. It doesn't mean your member of Congress was taking his or her free military jet to Tahiti.
BTW, government aviation only covers official government travel, for instance when Senators go to visit troops oversees or foreign leaders. When members of Congress fly back and forth from their district or state, they fly commercial like the rest of us.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
When your plane is going down do you want your pilot unable to download a patch through his or her cell phone to repair the plane. Nope your cell phone isn't allowed into the cockpit. Probably what happened on Lost. No reception!
that the senate is actually doing something without a single senator holding things up...and addressing a technological issue is a double plus for me. Just sayin'.
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
I wonder if the timing of this will hurt the deployment of Galileo GPS systems?
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers
Each plane is equipped with a transponder. It receives GPS position, and broadcasts a packet of data once per second (much more frequently than the usual radar sweep of 10-15 seconds) containing identity, position, aircraft type, speed, heading, altitude, and more. With just a few thousand dollars worth of optional equipment, each plane can also recieve these broadcast packets of information DIRECTLY from other aircraft.
When the ability to receive this data becomes universal, couldn't we do away with ground controllers altogether? Because all it would take are some simple "right of way" rules and a small amount of computing power for each plane to autonomously compute and execute the slight course adjustments needed to avoid other aircraft, and even to avoid intersecting another aircraft's wake vortices.
The ground-based system rebroadcasts ALL of its data (including skin-paint targets) on a separate radio frequency, so any airplane (or even ground observers) can learn about everything in the airspace.
This gave me some pause. Couldn't the information be used by an upgraded MANPAD to ensure it connects with its target? Flares and chaff would no longer be a distraction for this kind of MANPAD.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.