Ones and Zeros

The FAA and various aviation-related companies (ITT and others) are pushing a system called “NextGen” that will use GPS-reported locations from aircraft instead of RADAR in enroute areas. The argument goes that this will enable Air Traffic Control (ATC) to reduce spacing between aircraft and improve on-time flights.

There are a few problems with that though, namely it won’t work to hit that goal of reducing delays. Vannevar at “What Would Vannevar Do?” writes up the issues and problems very well, I’m going to point you to him after my summary.

Here’s the thing: the limitation is not the airspace between airports, the limitation is the runways at the airports. Due to the wake that larget aircraft leave in the air, a runway can only support up to 60 takeoffs or landings per hour in excellent weather in optimum conditions. That’s with small jets that are all the same size. Larger jets make larger wakes and reduce that number.

Changing the airspace doesn’t change the runways. While NextGen is pretty cool and can be useful in several ways, RADAR can’t go away. There can be interference problems with GPS when a position can’t be determined.

In short, NextGen is good and useful, but not for what it is being sold for. So, we do have to wonder why we’re being sold it so hard.

Vannevar’s posts are:

An Operational Critique of NextGen: While this is actually his second post on the subject, it’s the meat of the matter where he discusses what NextGen is and why it won’t work in the way it is being sold to us.

Robert Poole, Kathryn Wylde, NextGen ATC and the Overton Window: Vannevar’s first post on NextGen and the people who are pushing it. And how they are pushing it. More political, less technical.

Runways and the Theory of Constraints (TOC): More of an explanation as to why runways are the issue and airspace is not. Gets into how to analyze and think about this sort of a system.

A New York NextGen Metaphor: another approach to covering the operation critique for those less familiar with the aviation world. A metaphor using bridges and New York City.

Solving the ATC Delay Problem: Ok, so if NextGen won’t do the trick, how do we solve the delay problem for flights? This is one sensible approach. Frankly this is more rational and reasonable that anything I’ve heard so far as it fits with the political economics of the situation.

NextGen ATC / Next Gen Air Traffic Control: Summary and wrap up. Why Flow Control is not the answer. And what NextGen is really good at doing.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 07:10 and is filed under aviation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.