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US Switches Air Traffic Control To New Computer System
coondoggie writes: The Federal Aviation Administration this week said it had completed the momentous replacement of the 40-year-old main computer systems that control air traffic in the US. Known as En Route Automation Modernization (ERAM), the system is expected to increase air traffic flow, improve automated navigation and strengthen aircraft conflict detection services, with the end result being increased safety and less flight congestion. The FAA said the Lockheed Martin-developed ERAM systems “uses nearly two million lines of computer code to process critical data for controllers, including aircraft identity, altitude, speed, and flight path. The system almost doubles the number of flights that can be tracked and displayed to controllers.”
So how does a 40 year old computer system get replaced and only doubles the number of flights capable of being tracked?
Very very slowly and at great expense.
what could possibly go wrong?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
So how does a 40 year old computer system get replaced and only doubles the number of flights capable of being tracked?
They switched from 7-bit ASCII to 8-bit ASCII...
lucm, indeed.