The Future of Air Traffic Control

You buy your ticket, pack your bags, drive to the airport, check in, and board the plane bound for your destination. But while you're happily sitting in your seat,eating your peanuts and sipping your soda, there are hundreds of people you will never meet or see who are making sure that your plane arrives safely at its destination. These people have the thankless job of air traffic control (ATC).

Air travel has increased dramatically during the past 35 years, and is expected to continue to rise. This increase has put a huge strain on both the air space and air traffic controllers. the air is a very busy place. During peak travel time, there are about 5000 planes in the sky over the United States every hour. This equals approximately 50,000 aircraft in our skies each day! Air traffic controllers coordinate their movements, keep airplanes at a safe distance from each other, direct them during take off and landing and around bad weather, and ensure that there are minimal delays.

Are you wondering how air traffic controllers accomplish this monumental feat? Currently, they use radar to "see" where all of the planes are at all times. Because this radar is neither instantaneous nor continuous, it scans the sky every 3 to 12 seconds to ensure that planes are kept at a safe distance from each other in order to avoid collisions. Today, America's airways are divided into 21 zones, each of which is split up into smaller areas. Air traffic controllers are in charge of the planes in their air space until these aircraft exit the airspace and are passed to the next air traffic controller.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) controls America's air traffic control program, establishes rules and regulations, and works with other public and private organizations. For example, the FAA has determined that the current safe vertical-separation between aircraft is 1000 feet at altitudes below 29,000 feet, and 2000 feet at altitudes above 29,000 feet. The horizontal separation for planes at the same altitude is 5 miles. The Air Transport Association (ATA), a trade group for the airline industry, has recommended changing these separation values in order to use airspace more efficiently and reduce airport delays. Working together, the FAA and NASA have developed software called FAST (final approach spacing tool) to help air traffic controllers separate airplanes and avoid collisions.

The FAA, NASA, and other federal agencies are also working together tto develop modern software, upgrade host computers and voice communication systems, and install full global positioning system (GPS) capabilities. Recently, the FAA has expanded commercial airspace by freeing up some air space that was previously designated for military use. For its part, NASA is working to upgrade all software and improve the amount of time and space needed between airlines.

This week, the federal government awarded a contract worth more than $1 billion to ITT to begin building the key components of the next generation air traffic control system. This system will rely on satellites instead of radar to guide and locate planes. The goal is to allow planes to fly closer together and in more direct routes, hopefully saving both time and money. The projectis not expected to be fully operational until 2020, however, and is estimated to cost a total of at least $15 billion.

The FAA reports that this project comes at a crucial time when delays are at record levels. The number of passengers boarding commercial flights each year is expected to reach 1 billion by 2015 - up from 740 million in 2006. Still, the president of the air traffic controllers association says that the new system will do nothing for delays, since these delays are not caused by the "outdated" technology but instead by the lack of runways for landing, and the over scheduling of commercial flights.

Each agency is working hard both separately and collaboratively to rectify the issue and make the airways a more efficient place. Still, no agency has come up with an immediate or guaranteed correction to the issue. If you were a NASA engineer or an FAA engineer, how would you alleviate the airway congestion? Is the government's "next generation" system really going to work?? And what should we do until 2020, when the new system is in place?

CR4 Aerospace Blog