by
Darryl Phillips
Is the FAA going to get rid of radar? In the September issue of AOPA PILOT, Phil Boyer revealed FAA plans to abandon "primary" radar. Since that article hit the streets, the phone lines have been buzzing, the online aviation forums have been active, it seems to be a very popular and controversial topic.
FAA Assistant Administrator Tony Broderick says the plan is to scrap the LRR (Long Range Radar) which is used by centers to manage high altitude traffic. He says this will save some 1,300 millions of dollars. And the controllers are screaming bloody murder.
Just so we understand what we're talking about, primary radar is radar, period. Primary is what's referred to as "skin paint", the system that picks up energy reflected by the aircraft. Secondary radar, on the other hand, is not radar at all. It's the beacon system which we call the transponder. It pops up on the same green scope and for that reason the controllers call it radar, but it's not. FAA isn't talking about getting rid of the transponder, just the skin painting radar.
What effect will the elimination of radar have on safety? Perhaps not much. The LRR is mostly used at high altitudes where everyone is required to have a transponder, most high performance aircraft have two. It's unlikely that such a plane will lose everything, and if that were to happen there are a number of backups such as TRACONs scattered all over the country that will still have radar.
But the more interesting question is what it does to the PERCEPTION of safety. It's like the perception of the Emperor's new clothes. FAA is not concerned with the clothes, just the perception.
When Chicago radar went down (primary AND secondary) for the zillionth time this summer, FAA said there was no decrease in safety because the backup would continue to work. And when the backup failed and Chicago was left with nothing, FAA said there was still no effect on safety! (But if Bob Hoover flew an AIRPLANE, now THAT would be unsafe!)
Perception.
I don't know anymore. Maybe we can make some posters of the inside of a hangar and stick them to the airplane windows. Then when we fly we will have the perception of being firmly on the ground. That perception ought to be safe.
The much-ballyhooed Advanced Automation System, AAS, cost FAA several thousands of millions of dollars. We needed it for safety, they said. But costs skyrocketed and years of delay ensued, and finally FAA pulled the plug and told us that they didn't need it for safety after all. It's all in the perception.
When Oakland Center lost their triple redundant power a couple of months ago and had no radar or communications for an extended period, IFR flights in northern California and much of the Pacific were left to fend for themselves. No problem, said the FAA, safety wasn't compromised. But if some little pilot like you or I were to intrude six inches into their airspace when their radar is working, that would be a MAJOR SAFETY VIOLATION. Perception.
(Oakland technicians were doing routine maintenance tests during the busiest traffic period when they caused everything to fail. They could perform such maintenance after midnight when few planes are aloft. Why don't they? Good question.)
I'm told that some controllers are getting to play with a new control console, called a DSR. DSR stands for Display System Replacement, the DSR would have been an ISSS under AAS! Wow, I'm glad I understand that! Anyway, the new picture tube isn't green, it's full color. That seems a lot like an idea that swept the TV industry about 40 years ago. (For perspective, 40 years ago is more than halfway back to Lindburgh's flight across the Atlantic.) Anyway, the new display with full color capability shows everything in - you guessed it - GREEN. Why? Because that's the way the old consoles looked and it wouldn't be fair to subject a controller to something new.
Actually, there is some color. Three levels of weather. The capability exists to display thousands of gradations, but no, three is enough. And all the traffic and their datablocks and airways and navaids and airports and all the rest are green.
Old datablocks had three lines of flight data. Now there is room for four lines. The contract for the new equipment called for four, they installed four, we paid for four. But as you might expect, ATC only uses three because they've always used three. So it was necessary to redesign to eliminate the extra capability. And guess who paid for that?
Do you get the idea that maybe privatizing ATC wouldn't be such a bad idea after all?
Incidentally, the high resolution 20 inch picture tubes are only made one place. Japan.
But let's get back to the question of eliminating primary radar. FAA has stated that since all airliners are equipped with TCAS, the possibility of a catastrophe is very low. It seems that they have unwittingly agreed with what general aviation pilots have been saying all along, that we need to see and be seen. That's what TCAS does, it lets the flight crew see the traffic. The place to make the flight decisions is on the flight deck, not in some federal installation far away.
In the meantime, some of the horror stories that the controllers are spreading about privatized ATC are really humorous. If you have the chance, check out some of the online forums such as CompuServe's AvSIG. Some of the authors are very talented, maybe they should give up government employment and write for Letterman. These stories tell of pilots loosing their credit cards and not being able to land anywhere, of airline captains leading the passengers in clearance prayers, of ATC mergers and acquisitions that happen in midflight, of commercials on the VOR.
A half century ago we used to pick up the phone and hear "number please". Perhaps if the operators had been government employees and the phone system had been run by the FCC, we would still be placing calls that way today. I'm sure a good operator could have made up entertaining and scary tales about what would happen if the highly trained telephone operators were replaced by stupid relays. But in the free market (and even with the monopolistic Ma Bell) technology will prevail. The advantages we enjoy in the modern phone system could not have been foreseen by those operators.
On the other hand, look at what has happened in those same years under socialized ATC. Not much. IFR flights still zig-zag along the airways without regard for operating efficiency. The old IBM 9020 computers from the 1960s were "hosted" around 1988 by IBM 3083s. Host means to modify the new computer to use the old programs, that is, to pay for new computers without getting any of the benefits. Hosting is necessary because the old equipment is wearing out and parts are no longer available.
Now, in 1995, a few centers are about to be "re-hosted". That will happen by 1998, they say. FAA will spread the perception that the new equipment is state-of-the-art modern stuff. FAA will tell us that America deserves the best for something as important as air safety. But the truth is that the computer code, the instructions that make it work, will mostly be the same tired old code, and the computing capability will be largely wasted, just as the colors are wasted on that green DSR.
Is it any wonder that the airlines are having a hard time making a profit? There are fundamental problems with socialism, whether it's socialized agriculture or socialized medicine or socialized air traffic control.
The title of this column is THE OTHER WING. Sometimes I wonder which wing the other wing is. I used to think that aviation was flying around with only a right wing, and my goal was to apply a little lift to the other side. But there are days, listening to the aviation alphabet organizations argue in favor of socialism, that I'm not so sure.