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."

Comments

Great...

[T-Bucket]

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????

Re:Great...

[dgatwood]

We can get legislation to ban laptops, but we can't get the HORRENDOUSLY dangerous rest regulations fixed.

One plane harmlessly overshot its target because somebody was paying attention to a laptop, and now all personal electronics are a threat to our safety and national security. The stewards/stewardesses noticed that they were later than expected, asked the pilots what was up, and they realized their mistake and corrected it. No one was ever in any real danger because we already have safety rules to ensure that there are enough people on the plane to limit the danger posed by these sorts of mistakes. The system worked. But Congress just isn't capable of understanding that. They need someone to blame because the incident got media attention.

Unfortunately, Congress really is that simple-minded. Whenever something bad happens, their primary goal is to find someone or something to blame, then try to come up with a change to the law that will at least appear to thwart whatever scapegoat they chose, all while failing to address any of the real problems, simply because they aren't sufficiently aware of what those problems are to be making these sorts of policy decisions.

The FAA should be making these rules, not Congress. That's why we have federal regulatory agencies. If they aren't making the right rules, Congress should ask the President to replace the head of the agency with someone else. As soon as Congress gets into the regulatory business, we all get screwed. The only role Congress should be playing in this is approving the budget for the new equipment if it was requested by the FAA. If it wasn't requested by the FAA, then the whole bill is crap. Either way, the rest of it is crap.

Re:Great...

[dgatwood]

The worst part about this law? Personal electronics in the cockpits of small planes make then safer when used for flight-related purposes, and using personal electronics for purposes unrelated to flying is already against the rules, so this law can't possibly do anything but cause harm. I can't tell you how many stories I've heard about:

• pilots using cell phones/PDAs to check weather.com or wunderground.com or whatever so they can actually see the weather system
• pilots using cell phones to talk to the tower after a radio failure
• pilots using laptops for various flight operations calculations or to more rapidly search the operator manuals for an esoteric problem or...

Might as well provide a link to professional pilot discussion on the subject. To sum up the thread, they mostly think our Congress are a bunch of morons. Usually if the people you are regulating think you are utterly incompetent, that's a clear sign that you should take a step back, pull your head out of your backside, and rethink your position.

Sadly, Congress in their infinite ineptitude, will almost certainly blaze ahead and pass this law, thus dooming some flight a few years from now that could have been saved with personal electronics in the cockpit. And, of course, they'll never know that the flight could have been saved because they aren't smart enough to recognize the hundreds of times this has already happened.

I think we need a constitutional "cooling off period" amendment that says that with the exception of laws to provide financial relief, no law may be passed in response to any accident, catastrophe, or other incident, whether of natural or human cause, for a minimum of one year (or even two) after the incident in question. Such a law would have prevented so many of Congress's worst screw-ups. Hmm. I think I've said this before.

Satellite vulnerability

[PhilHibbs]

This just adds to the consequences of the inevitable solar flare that will knock out all our satellites.

Re:Satellite vulnerability

[LWATCDR]

Well lets look at the benefits.
1. More accurate. GPS can produce a more accurate position fixes than radar can.
2. More reliable. The ATC radar system is big expensive and is a point of failure. With GPS transponders you can replace the radar with a few simple and redundant data links.
3. Can provide more coverage. Every aircraft in the system can transit it's location even when out of radar range. Radar is limited by line of site. "ATC radar we will not get into back scatter systems as they are not used for ATC"
Downsides.
1. If the GPS system goes down we are in a world of hurt. To be honest if the GPS system goes down we are already in a world of hurt.
2. If you turn of your GPS beacon you are invisible. Not that big of a change really. If you turn your transponder off you may also be invisible to some ATCs
3, Dangers from jamming, How hard will it be to jam the GPS signal or worse spoof it near an airport?

The ATC system and air navigation system in the US has been in need of an overhaul for a long time.
VOR/DME systems where very useful in the day but GPS is much more accurate.
Most communications are still using analog voice systems that have changed very little since the 40s and 50s.
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. They tend to be no more rich than must boat owners. That and people tend to forget that General Aviation also provides lots of jobs as well. Not as much as it used to but still a good number.
I fear that unless these beacons are really cheap we will see a lot of aircraft grounded or restricted to none controlled airports.

sounds risky

[seeker_1us]

what if some big foreign country who has anti satellite weapons decides to blow up our GPS satellites?

Security

[The Aethereal]

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.

Re:Security

[vlm]

So each plane sends its location back to air traffic control?

ADS-B

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance-broadcast

How is this system secured? This will be breached repeatedly.

No technical means what so ever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_dependent_surveillance-broadcast#Public_Access_to_ADS-B

No public reports of anyone intentionally messing with the 50 year old transponder system, which basically did "about the same thing" but without GPS. Probably because the military spent enormous amounts of money on gear and training to stop the Russians from doing it effectively, by being able to pinpoint the source, launch HARM missiles at the source, etc. If you can do a better job than a world superpower, then the USAF might be concerned... maybe.

There is an economic limitation in that the cost of the gear to "mess with the system" would be staggeringly far in excess of the cost of a simple cheap surface to air missile or an explosive in a suitcase (or shoe). And when all is said and done, you've knocked out air surveillance, something that happens on occasion right now due to equipment failure and its "no big deal".

Also, what happens when a solar storm takes out the satellites?

GPS sats are pretty tough, vaguely EMP proof. They were built and launched by the military for the military, you know.

Note that plenty of small planes fly with no transponders or IFR gear, today... You won't get 3 landings per minute at ohare and IFR would seem to be borderline impossible, but by no means do you have to "shut down ALL traffic" or all airplanes will magically fall out of the sky.

The cheapest/simplest solution might be to scramble the AWACS planes temporarily, until you can hotwire some patriot missile radars into the civilian facilities.

It would be an expensive and annoying PITA, but far less severe than the first couple days post-9/11

Inquiring minds...

[Genda]

So exactly how prone will this system be to;

1. Solar storms and sunspots?
2. Terrorism foreign or domestic?
3. Hacking or cracking?
4. The problems surrounding an aging satellite service?

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.

Soo the FAA said this was good?

[Drethon]

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.

Re:Finally Congress gets down to business

[TheKidWho]

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of
government. It can only exist until the voters discover
that they can vote themselves largess from the public
treasury. From that time on the majority always votes
for the candidates promising the most benefits from the
public treasury, with the results that a democracy
always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed
by a dictatorship.

-- Alexander Fraser Tytler (1742-1813)

Re:93-0 margin

[Saint Fnordius]

Well, there are a couple of senators who are sick and cannot attend, and if it wasn't for the amendment to the health care reform bill, many of them would have been off on junkets or in committee meetings. 93 is actually a high number for such an uncontroversial bill.

Re:The way I read it, radar won't be retired.

[Rich0]

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.

Or drug smugglers, or hijackers, or an incoming air raid, or anybody else who doesn't want to intentionally broadcast their location... Granted, civilian primary radar is not going to help much with an incoming military air raid.

Overall, however, I think that it is a good way to cut down quite a bit of the cost (potentially) and provide better service.

Re:GPS and altitude

[somersault]

I've noticed that when the lives of hundreds of thousands of people depend on a single piece of equipment, that it tends to be designed and tested to higher standards than cheap consumer equipment..

This is BAD

[Phairdon]

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.

Re:What about UFO's

[Angst Badger]

It doesnt sound safe to me, especially in a post 911 world.

Well, of course not. If you're one of those people who uses the phrase "post-9/11 world" without (conscious) irony, you're never going to feel safe. Just be thankful you have the specter of terrorism to focus your fear on, instead of the countless vague fears that preyed on your mind in the long and dreadful period between the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of al Qaeda.