An Aviation Advance, Cleared For Takeoff

New Cockpit Systems Will Give More Info To Pilots, Easing Air Traffic, But There's A Catch: Cost

(CBS)  An airline quality report due out tomorrow confirms what most flyers already know: Airline service last year was worse than the year before, as it has been each year since 2003. But travelers, take heart. There's a new technology on the horizon that in the not-too-distant future could get your flight cleared for take-off … AND landing … faster than any of us have dared hope. Our Sunday Morning Cover Story is reported now by David Pogue of The New York Times:

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You probably don't need some guy on TV telling you how bad air travel is these days. It's miserable.

At the Federal Aviation Administration's command center near Washington, the screens tell the story: More than 7,000 planes in the air at a time, crammed into an overloaded air-traffic system. And according to FAA acting administrator Robert Sturgell, it's only going to get worse as traffic doubles, even triples:

"We are, basically, using the same paradigm that we used 50 years ago, today," Sturgell said. "The current system is not gonna be able to handle that number of airplanes."

And what is the current system? Today air-traffic controllers get their information from radar dishes on the ground. Trouble is, radar takes a new snapshot of the sky as infrequently as once every 12 seconds, which isn't very precise. And it doesn't give the pilots any information, such as where your plane is relative to other aircraft.

"I can't see any planes," said Capt. Karen Lee, a veteran 747 pilot and director of operations for the world's 9th largest airline. (That would be UPS.) Commercial jets like hers do have a little screen that warns of imminent collisions, but it's crude, and not designed for navigation.

Today, only air-traffic controllers can see the details of all the planes in the sky, and because radar is so imprecise, they sometimes have to send planes around the block over and over again.

"They go, "Turn left heading one, eight zero through traffic," Lee said. "And I'll fly down here 'till I'm 60 miles away from the airport. And then we turn and then we fly back up, and on a good night, I will go straight to the airport at that point."

Today, when planes approach an airport, the tower makes them stay miles apart, and descend in altitude steps. Unfortunately, establishing each new altitude uses a lot of fuel, and makes a lot of pollution - and a lot of noise for the neighbors.

Wasting time circling the airport is not good for companies, either.

"It's my company's money that's getting blown out the tailpipes," Lee said.

So why doesn't the FAA do something? Actually, it is - a fundamental transformation of the air traffic control system.

It's nicknamed NextGen. It will take until 2020 to complete, it will cost $20 billion, and it's one of the biggest changes in aviation history. It relies on a positioning technology that's far more precise than radar. You might even have it in your car right now: it's GPS.

The airplane version has the geeky name ADS-B (Automated Dependent Surveillance- Broadcast).

An ADS-B screen in the cockpit shows the pilot - for the first time - where all the other planes are … above and behind you, and following you.

The ADS-B system has three components: global positioning satellites; a transceiver in each plane; and 800 receivers on the ground. The FAA has hired ITT to build and run those ground stations for $1.8 billion.

John Kefaliotis is the director of this ITT project. He showed Pogue a southern Florida facility where software development work is being done for the system.

"We have the surveillance data for all of southern Florida being drawn into the building," he said.

ITT plans to have the whole country covered by 2013.

Each commercial airliner will have installed a surveillance processor and transponder, "which is the unit that receives and transmits data to the ground," Kefaliotis said.

Vincent Capezzuto is the director of the FAA's ADS-B program. He oversees a small army of engineers, and demonstrated an experimental, specially-rigged plane. "This particular aircraft is also ADS-B equipped," he said, "so we're actually seeing the aircraft, aircraft-to-aircraft."

The cockpit screens can also show maps, aircraft manuals and weather information. The big idea is to give pilots more responsibility for their own spacing, taking some of the strain off the air-traffic controllers.

With ADS-B helping pilots maintain perfect separation, they can essentially coast in on idle, far more efficiently; and as a result, a lot more planes can land per hour.

More predictably, less circling equals more pilot control. According to UPS pilot Karen Lee, it all adds up to less misery for passengers. "Fewer delays, more airplanes landing in a given space of time," she said.

So who would not love ADS-B? Who could possibly object?

"The people who have to pay to put it on their airplanes," Lee said.

Ah, yes: where there's change, there's controversy. The FAA has ruled that airplane owners must foot the bill to equip their planes with ADS-B.

That cost is at least $6000 per small plane, and up to $300,000 to retrofit an older commercial liner.

That doesn't sit well with people like Andy Cebula of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

"Cost is a major problem," he said. "I'm not suggesting that there are not benefits. I'm just saying that the way that the FAA has proposed this, that the benefits come at a huge cost to the aircraft owners."

"Well, obviously, they would like this to be as little expense as possible to them," FAA chief Sturgell said. But he counters that they'll eventually recoup the expenditure:

"They will save money. And they are saving money today. UPS is a great example of a carrier that has this technology in its airplanes and is saving money."

And the UPS trial wasn't ADS-B's only success. The FAA also tried it in Alaska, where a lot of area has no radar services, presenting a very challenging environment for pilots.

And what were the results?

"We've reduced the fatal aviation accident rate in those particular areas on the order of, like, 38 to 40 percent," Capezzuto said.

The next test will be in the Gulf of Mexico, where there are thousands of flights but no radar coverage. In the meantime, once the industry figures out how to pay for it, ADS-B's biggest fans will likely include the people who have to live with it: Pilots.

But one pilot's opinion probably counts the most: FAA chief Robert Sturgell.

"When we look at technologies like ADS-B and some of the moving map displays and other things that are coming into the cockpit, you know, I just think it's great to have."

Poised for take off?

"I think it's ready to go," Sturgell said.

[jcrand1950]

This story paints a unrealistic future for the unsuspecting public; a story painted by the FAA and the Airlines. The truth has been published by the Dept. of Transportation. Airline delays are primarily a result of the hub and spoke system and weather. Hub and spoke helps with filling planes and efficiency, but everyone has to be at one "hub" airport at the same time to change planes. The problem is not in the air, it is on the runway: even if you know where the plane in front of you is, you can''t land on top of him or too close, (wake turbulence and taxi room). Blaming the small airplane pilot for not wanting to install a device that will not help is just the same old lie from the airlines..."Don''t blame us, its not our fault we were late.".

[atcs1983]

I didn''t see any controllers'' input in the story. Not mentioned was the reality of major airports having finite acceptance rates, say 60 landings per hour, for instance. The preceding arrival has to be off the runway before the next one lands. For all that is claimed of ADS-B, it can''t squeeze more landings into given amount of peak arrival time in spite of this comment: ''According to UPS pilot Karen Lee, it all adds up to less misery for passengers. "Fewer delays, more airplanes landing in a given space of time," she said.''

[cgret]

Correction.. that 12.3 microseconds is time for travel of one nautical mile. For 100 nautical miles, it takes 1230 microseconds for the round trip.

[cgret]

Terminal radar systems, such as is at most every airport with commercial traffic, update every 5 seconds. That''s the time it takes for the antenna to complete one 360 degree rotation. And they cover a range of about 65 miles.
Enroute radars, such as used to guide aircraft along long distance routes throughout the US, update every 10 to 12 seconds. Again, that''s how long it takes for the antenna to rotate one 360 degree revolution. Because of the range involved, 200 to 250 miles, they have to rotate slower because of the time it takes for a complete radar return.
Now there are primary radar systems, those that receive the same energy they transmit as an ''echo'' of the ''skin'' of the aircraft, and there are secondary radars, that send out an ''interrogation'' or question in a beam, the aircraft in that beam hear the question and reply with their ID or transponder code. Both take about 12.3 microseconds for this information to travel both ways (out and back).

Ok. There are hundreds of RADAR systems around the US. There are overlapping systems in many areas, especially in the crowded northeast and the southwest. So, update time is not 12 seconds as suggested in the report, but the systems are constantly updating information based on what is received by BOTH primary AND secondary RADARs within the entire National Airspace System.

[garyair]

It uses GPS instead of antiquated radar. It is a great concept, but in fact, it too was invented years ago. The cost is going to be huge and probably well worth it. However, a more open architecture with commercial wireless standards such as 802.16m WiMax (from vendors like Qualcomm and Intel rather than stovepipe Government lab projects and their contractors) might lower its cost. Question is, will it be reliable? Hopefully ITT will open up to and investigate new standards-based technology before the mandates occur. If done correctly, maybe average cell phone users might benefit at the same time from aeronautical reliability requirements merged into cellular standards. ADS-B can just be a marketing name, like "4G" or "3GPP" or "3GPP2", and let the best engineers in the world figure out the details. It is all going to converge eventually anyway. A little Government money might go a long way to give the cellular industry a little needed quality control, and an incentive to cooperate rather than beat each other up. Nothing wrong with a little friendly competetion though. Trouble with ADS-B is there might not have been enough of it.

[mfrydlew]

I know of an alternative system to help pilots stay a safe distance from each other. My dad received six patents just a few years ago for his anti-collision device for all aircraft. You can see him talk about it on the IEEE.tv section of the IEEE website. Go to ieee.org, then to ieee.tv, then scroll down to Oral Histories - Jerry Minter. My Dad is 94 but used to be an active private pilot. He is a MIT grad with his own electronics business in New Jersey. He still goes to work every day.. He created this device to be affordable so private pilots could afford it but he is having a hard time finding a manufacturer to produce it. Check it out. His business website is componentscorp.com

[darkfyreaol]

I''m very much AGAINST the automated clearance system.

For one: It''s a computer.

Fact: Computers can be hacked.
Fact: Data can be corrupted or altered.
Fact: Computers are prone to getting viruses.

... Fact: A network of planes retrofitted with ADS-B that somehow managed to receive corrupt or false information could end up colliding as they attempt to taxi to the same runway.

[stratum2]

In response to brianbwb, the ADS-B program has nothing to do with the aircraft equipment nor its design. The program is only installing and operating the ground equipment and network. Most of the $300,000 is for the time it takes to install the equipment, re-certify the aircraft to flight-worthiness, and *especially* to cover for the downtime and lost revenue of a plane that isn''t flying and making the owners money (or so I''m told).

[brianbwb-2009]

$300,000 per plane? For a modified GPS?

This is another prime example of why America''s important infrastructure components should not be in the hands of private corporations, there is no way that R&D costs to modify already existing technology should result in such a ridiculous per unit price. I could have done the modifications myself and created such a device for the cost of one unit, and I would have had change left over to buy a small house.

[wmarsano]

Launching and landing flights more efficiently will save a lot of fuel, but landing more planes per hour will increase the workload of already overstretched baggage, customs and immigration personnel working in crowded, uncomfortable spaces. It will be a nightmare for all, passengers included,unless this is taken into account. Luggage-handling alone will be a horror. As proved a decade or more ago at the new airport in Denver and most recently at Heathrow''s new Terminal 5 outside London, the best minds in commercial aviation have failed utterly in dealing with baggage.