FAA's Aging Flight-Plan System Having Problems 176
Eddytor takes us to eWeek for a look at the FAA's air-traffic control system, which, after 20 years of continuous operation, is in desperate need of an overhaul. Recent crashes have caused major delays, but the system's scope and importance make it difficult to test upgrades and improvements.
"Many technologies are used in air traffic control systems. Primary and secondary radar are used to enhance a controller's 'situational awareness' within his assigned airspace; all types of aircraft send back primary echoes of varying sizes to controllers' screens as radar energy is bounced off their skins. Transponder-equipped aircraft reply to secondary radar interrogations by giving an ID (Mode A), an altitude (Mode C) and/or a unique callsign (Mode S). Certain types of weather also may register on a radar screen."
Re:Four page article? (Score:3, Informative)
If you mean weather radar, they have it. If you mean radar to see other aircraft, they already have (available) TCAS [wikipedia.org] - Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System
Re:Four page article? (Score:4, Informative)
ADS-B [wikipedia.org] is the real in flight radar.
Re:Overhaul or upgrade? (Score:4, Informative)
Just how old is the current system? DOS era computing? CTOS? ENIAC?
The FAA's flight plan system uses two Philips DS714 computers. Network World ran an article in 2005 [networkworld.com] when the FAA announced that they'd be replacing them with two Stratus ftServer boxes. It's not difficult to imagine that they haven't come close to that goal yet.
If you want to see how creaky the DS714s are, take a look here [spencerweb.net].
Re:Aviation is stuck in World War II (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Aviation is stuck in World War II (Score:3, Informative)
But if that weatherman came on one day and said i'm going to read a list of numbers, in this order: high temp, low temp, wind speed, direction, and visibility, he could come on every day and say 74,56,23,west,10000, and be done with it. A pilot doesnt need all the hunky dory graphics that the news weatherman puts up.
This problem seems simple.... (Score:4, Informative)
It it was only true!
There are so many points of failure in a system this complex, that it simply boggles the minds of the best architects we have out there.
Discloser... I am a pilot, I deal with Air Traffic Control and all the problems that they have
Let's begin with a single aircraft that will fly a from point A to point B. The flight is scheduled to leave at 0600Z from point A and arrive at point B at 1200Z for a total of 6 hours of flight time. The aircraft will have an SOA ( speed of advance ) of 600 kts ( nautical miles per hour ) and fly at 30,000 feet. Given this data the aircraft will cover 3600 nautical miles.
Given those parameters, it is simple to create and appropriate data structure that will represent the aircraft in question, allow us to create a series of data points to describe it's theoretical route, and predict where that aircraft is at any given moment with mathematical precision. In short it boils down to a rather simple database problem. Most any database cooker can come up with a set of queries to predict where crossing routes and position problems will be when you add more then one flight to the problem.
All of this will work just fine, right up until reality rears it's ugly head.
The cruise or en route portion of a flight is pretty much as simple as I have described, with the exception of having to readjust things based on headwinds, aircraft performance and other factors that may or may not change during the duration of the flight. We have gotten pretty good at predicting what the wind will be like at the planned altitude of the flight, but there are occasions when we are flat out wrong and have to make adjustments. If the winds at say 30,000 ft are not as predicted then to maintain the SOA the pilot needs to change altitude. So we can either propose a change, take that bit of data and run it through a "what if" calculation and then tell the pilot yes or no based on the result which will tell us if that action will cause a potential crossing problem with another flight, or have the software check all the flights currently in the system and have it give us an altitude that will not cause a crossing situation that is as close as possible to the desired altitude while maintaining a safety margin.
The real problem exists at the airports. Things get delayed, weather problems, mechanical problems, passenger problems, luggage problems, you name it, it is going to happen at one point or another. It backs the system up and then the simple database problem turns into the "Traveling Salesman Problem" from hell.
Let us consider a very probable occurrence..... Plane A is sitting at the gate getting serviced for the next flight. The fuel truck rolls up to full up the plane and the fueler gets out, gets his hoses out, plugs them into the fueling connection on the ground and connection on the plane. He looks at his manifest that reads 30,000 lbs of JET-A for this plane, he sets the controls on the fuel truck appropriately and starts pumping. For some reason when the meter reads 29,670 fuel starts spilling from the wing! His "Oh Fuck Light" goes of in his head and he runs for the truck to shut off fuel flow but by the time he makes it the 30 feet from where he is watching to make sure his connection is not leaking the meter now reads 29,980. So you have just spilled around 300 lbs ( about 50 gallons ) of fuel all through the wing and onto the ground. So this plane is not going ANYWHERE for at least the next couple of hours AT LEAST.
With this little problem, and it has happened to me things start to avalanche very quickly. I need another plane, another gate and I have to get the passengers and their luggage off of this plane, to the other plane at another gate, hint hint, this does not happen quickly. We are now occupying two gates and we are going to depart late, more then likely over an hour late if not a more.
So now the arriving flight that was supposed to park at the gate where the airpla
Re:Transponder codes are fun. (Score:3, Informative)
Transponder codes tell ATC what the manufacturer of a particular aircraft is.
No, transponder codes tell ATC what your transponder code is (yes, I know that's a tautology). Any other information--such as a type designator or a tail number--is entered into the system by a controller and associated with your squawk code. The transponder only reports a number (four octal digits, for a total of 4096 possible codes), and altitude if in Mode C (Mode S is rare enough yet to be overlooked).
Our museum's B-17 has had a couple instances where a curious ATC will ask why his radar is showing a Boeing aircraft cruising along at 4000ft and moving at 150kts.
Because (nearly) all Boeing aircraft have type designators that start with "B." The controller may not recognize the entire aircraft designator, but probably recognizes that it is a Boeing.
Re:Aviation is stuck in World War II (Score:4, Informative)
You're suggesting that the your local TV station's Doppler 2008 15-minute weather segment is too long?
IMHO, the short answer is "Yes."
I can get info for the next 48 hours on ONE page, with all the data I'll need. Don't believe me? Great! Let's try something [for those in the US.]
First, got to the NOAA's [noaa.gov] page. Enter your ZIP code in the upper left-hand side of the page.
Next, scroll to the bottom of the next page and click "Hourly Weather Graph" in the "Additional Forecasts and Information" section. Read the next page carefully. Try mousing over the graph for information on a particular data point.
That page has all the data I'll need to plan my days/weekend in one place. I can read it in less than 10 seconds. If I want radar/doppler, it's a link at the bottom of that page, and I can even get the doppler in motion, with a limited zoom function.
So yeah, even counting the time to pull up the page, enter a zip code, and click a link, it's my opinion that 15 minutes is too long to get the same info I can get in around a minute.
Re:Aviation is stuck in World War II (Score:3, Informative)
during takeoff
This kills a surprising number of qualified pilots. AOPA had an article on this some number of months back. The article was called something like, "Push, push, push." Seems most pilots fail to push forward enough in a timely enough manner to prevent a stall and the following onset of an unrecoverable spin into the ground.
If you're not a member of AOPA, please join. If you are a member, go see if you can locate the article. It's a surprising read.
Happy flying.