FAA Greenlights Satellite-Based Air Traffic Control System 138
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."
re: gridlock in the sky (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: gridlock in the sky (Score:5, Insightful)
There's more to the aviation world than large airliners. ADS-B is a positive step in a lot of other ways.
Re:what's tracking going to do? (Score:3, Insightful)
That should be firstly. For all the administration's talk of opening up new airways, we do not have an air shortage. We have a concrete shortage. More routes for the enroute phase of flight just give you a shorter trip from one traffic jam to the next traffic jam, and it's going to stay that way until we get more runways open.
rj
Re:Not changing anything soon... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not just that, but wouldn't it make more sense to run both systems concurrently for added redundancy and such?
Re:They have only been working on this for 30 year (Score:2, Insightful)
Technology advances at the FAA very slooooowly.
As they should be. Twitter breaks for 24 hours because of an update to their code, no big deal. Radar goes out for 15+ seconds? HUGE DEAL.
Without having RTFA (who does these days..)... (Score:2, Insightful)
What are the opinions of Slashdotters who experience both types of failures in their respective corporate worlds?
Re: gridlock in the sky (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They have only been working on this for 30 year (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: gridlock in the sky (Score:2, Insightful)
None of the benefits you mention really requires satellites as part of the system.
...they generally rely on the airplane transponders which report the GPS...
ur not doin it right
Re: gridlock in the sky (Score:2, Insightful)
Yet another thing to break when an unexpected solar flare or two shorts out some satellites at high altitude.
Re: gridlock in the sky (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:what's tracking going to do? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wouldn't surprise me if people just didnt know that the Acela Express was a viable alternative to air travel. Plus, even with all the savings in time (no need to go out to the airport, go through security etc) there may still be other reasons to fly.
Re:what's tracking going to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
You understand wrong.
The problem of air traffic in the United States is a combination of a number of things: insufficient airport runway capacity, overused "super hubs", predictive overselling of tickets, and antiquated air traffic control systems. All these factors contribute, some (much) more than others.
I'm a private pilot, so let's be honest - there's plenty of room the air. I fly through very busy (Sacramento and San Fransisco, CA) airspace frequently, I've never had a "near miss". Nag about 40-year-old technology all you want; it works rather well. And in the small-ish airplanes I fly, there are lots of small airports for me to fly to where there is no congestion, no hope of congestion, and rarely any other aircraft "in the pattern". (Airports have an expected approach and landing sequence, usually based around an imaginary box shape around the runways, this is called 'the pattern' by pilots)
But when you are talking about congestion, you are really talking about runway capacity, because although there's plenty of room in the sky, there are a relatively small number of airports. Combine that with the tendency of airlines to create "mega hub" airports for connecting flights (EG: Atlanta, GA) and the problem of runway shortages become paramount.
A decent runway is about 1 or 2 miles long. It's basically a 2-4 lane freeway for just a mile or so. Adding more runways dramatically increases air capacity. A 1.5 mile runway is vastly cheaper than 100 miles of railroad, but services a similar amount of traffic over the same distance. Aviation infrastructure is ridiculously cheap compared to highways, trains, and other forms of travel. (except maybe by boat, which is cheaper still but much slower)
Why is this hard to understand?
Many large, busy airports have 2 or more runways, and often they split traffic based on type. My small, single-engine 4-seat Cessna 172 with its landing speed of about 60 Knots gets the short runway, while SouthWest airlines flight NNN with its landing speed of 125 Knots gets the big one.
Notice that my small plane takes 2x as long to approach the runway as the big jet? Adding a small, short, "General Aviation" runway to this large, busy airport adds as much as 3x the capacity anytime a small plane (like mine) lands there. (my plane, plus the two commercial planes that would have landed there, anyway)
Technology advances in combination with commercial flight restrictions (show me your SHOES!) mean that there are more small-medium sized planes in the sky, flying shorter trips, and generating more traffic where it counts - at the runways.
Add runways. They are cheap, especially when compared to the cost of other forms of infrastructure....