INTERESTING read...the future of ATC in real life including new technology for planes

[sanh]

I was watching a program on the Discovery channel about Air Traffic Control. Basically they were talking about what the future holds in terms of new technology to make things easier.

One of the things they talked about was that a plane has sophisticated equipment and ATC centres has millions of pounds worth of equipment, yet the communication between pilot and ATC is still through voice circuit boards.

The program highlighted the problems in talking to ATC, i.e. language, busy lines etc.

Well a solution has been found. I cant remember what it is called (STARS i think?) but it has had a successful trial in the New Zealand area.
Basically if a pilot is cruising at say, 35000ft, and would like clearance to 37000ft, he would enter this request into his Flight Management Computer. He then clicks Send and it is transmitted to ATC. On the ATC controllers screen the request appears. The controller can then send a reply which is picked up by the FMS on board the aircraft. The pilot can then click a button on the FMS and see what he requested (i.e. transition to 37000ft) and the reply.

I thought this was very interesting as it would reduce the amount of talking on radio. Also there would be less chance of mistakes as you have it in writing! They said this trial was successful and they even showed it in action. I guess its only a matter of time before its implemented on a wider scale.


Another new piece of technology will be the removal of ILS transmitters at airports. There will be a single antennae at the airport which can handle ILS for ALL runways. It does not need to be at the end of the runway. It is also more precise and will allow planes to land safely in 0 visibility.

Another new piece of technology (this may already be in operation at some airports/airlines) is a screen onboard the aircraft where you can see the taxi ways and the position of all other airplanes. What this will mean is that a plane can taxi in 0 visibility as they can see where they are and where the planes around them are.

The program was called Air Traffic Control and it was shown on the Discovery Channel about a week ago here in the UK. If you live in the UK check it out. Discovery usually repeat programs. If you live elsewhere i dont know if it will be shown in your region.

Sorry i cant remember what these new technologies are called. The program came on about a week ago. What i found most amazing was that they had WORKING versions of the above technologies which they demonstrated. These are not ideas on paper or speculation. They are being tested now and will one day appear at an airport near you!


San H

[jammy]

Hi San

I saw that programme aswell ( i'm in th uk )
The bit about sending and recieving requests via the FMC was intersting, but then I thought of somthing.
I mean, with all the computer hacking that goes on in the world, I would have thought that it was a bit of an insecure way to conduct ATC.
There could be a risk of pilots recieving false instructions from someone other than atc.
Just a thought

Steve

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[davidbricker]

I'm a center controller in the US (Albuquerque Center). We have a tremendous amount of chop and turbulence in our airspace because of all the mountains. While a backup system like a linked FMS system would be OK, I really think you are transfering one problem to another. If the controller has to monitor a screen, radar scope, and radios, he/she would tend to ignore the screen to see if any altitude messages are coming through (even if there were an audible alarm). If an aircraft is getting bad rides, they won't want to spend the time to type a message, wait for a response from ATC (since everyone else is trying to get messages through because their ride is bad), and hope they don't kill someone in CAT. Its much faster to just ask and get a response. If I've got 20+ planes on frequency (which happens quite frequently in our high sectors - I work airspace in Southern Arizona), I'm just trying to separate aircraft, I don't want to take my eyes off the scope to look at 20+ messages for aircraft wanting to change altitude. It might have worked in New Zealand, but I know that they have less traffic than our center alone (I've talked to them via e-mail about operations when I was researching Free Flight), not to mention the rest of the US. From numbers I've seen, the US has 55% of the world's daily air traffic. I'm all for technology that will make our life easier as controllers, believe me, not technology that will make it more difficult because of human factors. Give me technology that will identify conflictions, let me know if a route has an airspace confliction (i.e. restricted areas, active ATCAAs, etc.), and things like that. Better TCAS, high update radar, particularly in the en-route environment (our radar updates 6 times a minute), 3 miles separation in en-route environments, 1000 feet separation above FL290 for all aircraft. And most importantly, more runway space and gates at airports. Thats where the bottlenecks happen. Airspace optimization is all good a well if there is no place for the planes to land.

[lnuss]

David,

It's nice to know that someone else shares my concerns about going to technology for the sake of technology. While I can't speak for all pilots, especially those who have other crew members to help, I can foresee a lot of problems if typing replaces voice (though a limited amount may have its place). Would it mean you'd have to have more controllers to handle the typing/watching?

In the computer world typing and mousing are normal operations, and folks are trying to come up with viable voice solutions. Yet they are trying to put a more workload intensive mechanism into a cockpit (and center/TRACON) that is already more than busy enough.

If I'm in a Bonanza/Cessna 182/Baron, IFR in Class B airspace, I probably won't have time to even read, let alone type into one of these systems.

I can see a having a readable response to a voice request for weather from FSS, or to clearance requests while on the ground, but for single pilot operations when in flight, I think it would unreasonably add to the workload.

Then there's the expense for an aircraft owner, some of whom are not that well off...

Larry N.

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[Leesw]

You don't have to go to New Zealand to see that. Digital controller/pilot communication has been in operation for the North Atlantic tracks for a while now.

http://webreprints.djreprints.com/00...025445001.html

As to the 'ILS transmitters', I believe you are referring to LAAS, which is a transmitter that broadcasts GPS correction data at an airport. It is not an ILS in itself (ILS will be essentially dead in a decade or so). LAAS basically allows GPS to be used for precision approaches at any airport.

[flyinggriffin]

Can you imagine what a hassle trying to type altitudes into a computer would be for a controller? How many times have you swapped numbers when punching numbers into a calculator. While your checkbook may bounce, sending "2500 instead of 5200 could be a disaster.

With all the junk for you to look at in the cockpit, the next generation of aircraft might as well do without the windows

[KenG01]

Ugghh! I have enough problems typing coherently on a full-sized keyboard sitting on a rock-stable desk, much less on a FMS-sized keypad while getting the crap beat out of me by turbulence and trying not to plant the plane into terra firma. The darn thing better have a good spellchecker on it.

Granted, this is most likely not intended for GA, but I doubt the bus drivers would be all that enthusiastic about it either. And it's all the system needs is to lump one more screen of info for the controllers to have to keep track of.

These "solutions" don't sound like progress in the right direction to me.

-----
Ken G:-wave

[bobschm]

I doubt you'll ever see ZERO visibility landings. At *some* point a human with sight has to make a final determination if it is safe to land. Is that a truck/deer/UFO on the runway? Did the computer bring us in line with the runway or only think it did? I've seen too many "computer glitches" to trust human lives completely to a machine. We can't even keep runway incursions at zero when we can SEE!

ZERO visibility taxiing? Maybe. Aircraft are moving slower then, so a malfunction is less of an issue. After all, I've run a boat through a crowded harbor in zero visibility with just GPS and radar to guide me.

Bob

[davidbricker]

The article states its used for oceanic travel, which makes sense. Radios don't go out that far and controllers and pilots can send position reports back and forth rather than relays through ARINC, which I believe is how it works now, but I don't work oceanic and don't know for sure. It wouldn't work in areas where there are a lot of en-route traffic. Oceanic is all nonradar separation and it can function that way.

[KCPIT]

Steve,

You make a very good point about security however, unscrupulous people could use a radio transmitter now to interfere with ATC communications. I had this happen to me in KPHL tower during an airline strike. Someone was telling aircraft from the company involved in the strike to go around on short final. We resolved this by activating an aural alarm in the tower cab which could be heard in the background. We advised pilots to disregard transmissions without the alarm.

Now let's talk about GPS and the possibility of a major disruption to it's capabilities. The GPS signal can be scrambled by one transmitter which could effect an area over 100 miles in radius. This is one of the reasons that full IFR GPS navigation has been slow to develop.

GPS was sold to the US Congress by then FAA Adminstrator David Hinson as a way to eliminate all ground based NAVAIDS. It could also be used for surveillance instead of radar. He also told Congress that GPS could be used for communications, such as the kind you described, called Controller Pilot Data Link Communications (CPDLC.) The whole system was called CNS for Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance. The best thing was that the satellite constellation was already in place. Congress bought it and now the FAA is finally realizing that GPS cannot be used as a sole means for CNS. Aviation safety relies upon back-up systems, and there will be a skeletal VOR system and most of the major airports will retain their ILS systems as back-up to LAAS. There is still discussion about keeping certain radar sites operating. CPDLC will not be used in the busy terminal environment, where split seconds matter. I can see limited use for CPDLC. It could be used for frequency changes and acknowledgement. Perhaps advising ATC you have the proper ATIS code. Not much more than that, though.

kcpit