Ok, I don't do links, so bear with me.

The FAA recently declared they're 100% done, and are merely awaiting independent verification of their remediation.

If you go to their website:

http://www.faay2k.com/html/progress.html

and you are greeted with a boring chart showing everything is all done.

However, look at the footnote beneath the chart:

"As of June 30, 1999, 100% of all mission critical and non-mission critical systems requiring implementation have been implemented. The FAA is ensuring compliance of all systems by having the systems documentation examined by an independent verification and validation contractor, the DOT Inspector General, and the General Accounting Office. "

So the only thing the independent contractor is going to inspect is THEIR DOCUMENTATION??????

Anybody in the software development and testing business knows this is absolute garbage.

Now, this may be a typo, but I doubt it.

Jolly doesn't like to fly anyway.

-- Jollyprez (jolly@prez.com), July 07, 1999

Answers

"As of June 30, 1999, 100% of all mission critical and non-mission critical systems requiring implementation have been implemented."

I'm sure they have. Somewhere. Just not everywhere. Maybe only in Denver, Atlanta and Seattle.

-- Lisa (lisa@work.now), July 07, 1999.

Jolly,

I recognized this also and pointed it out to a few DGI's I know. They basically said "It doesn't matter. If the FAA says they're done, they must be". I just chuckled and shook my head...

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), July 07, 1999.

For a look at another wonderful implementation by the great FAA, see Report: Jet safety program falls short.

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), July 07, 1999.

The polly-o's will jump all over this next statement, but who cares?

The FAA has lied about compliance in the past. They may be lying this time. They may be telling the truth. They may be spinning the "truth" with some "lies" mixed in. They may not know which end is up on their airplanes or their radar screens.

Yawn.

Boring.

Y2K remediation reports are the metaphysical equivalent of vaporware until we pass rollover. Then, all the malarkey will be sorted out over the ensuing months.

With respect to your catch about systems doc, that IS right-on. As a small piece of verification, sure. As a description of it, garbage.

-- Spoken as one who has been involved in past audits of mainframe operating systems --

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), July 07, 1999.

Did the FAA ever actually replace the old IBM mainframes that IBM said, no pleaded to the FAA, that they will simply NOT WORK?

IBM, Big Blue, said that these systems COULD NOT be remediated long ago. Did the FAA replace them?

I haven't heard a word. Anyone know?

Mike =================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), July 07, 1999.

Reference to FAA's situation in IEEE's June 9, 1999 Open Letter to Congress: http://www.ieeeusa.org/FORUM/POLICY/99june09.html

[snip]

"...Existing large-scale systems were not made safe from Y2K long ago for good reasons. Many systems resist large-scale modernization (e.g., IRS, FAA Air Traffic Control, Medicare) for the same reasons. Wide-spread, coordinated modifications across entrenched, diverse, interconnected systems is technically difficult if not impossible at the current level of transformational technology

[snip]

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), July 07, 1999.

What would be the opposite of an non-denial denial? A non-assertive assertion?

Nowhere in the footnote posted above, which can be found on the FFA website as a progress report, does it claim to be Y2K compliant! It does say that things have been implemented, but they were implimented years ago. It does mention compliance, but not Y2K compliance.

Am I being too cynical here? Or does that depend on what the meaning of is is? :-)

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), July 07, 1999.

An Airline Captain's perspective on FAA/ATC Y2K readiness.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), July 07, 1999.

Jolly, thanks for the heads up. I had to read that twice to catch what I skated over the first time! :-) I'm sure the FAA's documentation is Y2K compliant and will not burst into flames at rollover. The Air Traffic Control is, of course, another matter.

I travel for my job and I like flying, but I hate airports. Giant bus stations as far as I'm concerned, where chaos reigns on "normal" days. Even if planes "will not fall out of the sky" next January, odds are luggage will get lost, security won't work, ticket counters will be mobbed, and passengers will probably wait for hours in the terminal before being told all flights are cancelled and the planes grounded.

Oh, wait, that was last week.

-- Margaret (janssm@aol.com), July 07, 1999.

Hmmmm.. I wonder, Maybe it was something else then not Y2k related last Friday when we where told in Boston that the local FAA radars are out and umteen flights where canceled or where up to 5 hrs delayed. They are y2k-ok. At least so they say. But then hey ya never know.

-- Rickjohn (rickjohn1@yahoo.com), July 07, 1999.

Lisa's link points to a letter from a pilot who ON THE RECORD says that the FAA has a lowsy record with ATC.

I have a relative who worked for IBM (before they sold the subdivision to another company) for years. They literally spent a decade trying to upgrade the hardware of the ATCs. I couldn't believe how long it took them just to award the contract. They kept running into design problems because they wanted the new system to LOOK like the old one so they would have less retraining of controllers to do.

He moved on to a different project a couple of years ago, but they still weren't finished. Planes may not fall out of the air because of Y2K, but the ATC will not be ready.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), July 08, 1999.

Rickjohn - The problem last week at Logan was that an electrical storm took out the regional station in Nashua NH. Far as I can tell, not at all Y2K-related. However, just the kind of complication that could make concurrent FOF activities much more difficult.

In the same way, our major electric utility (Boston Edison) took one of its major power plants (Pilgrim nuclear in Plymouth) offline for routine maintenance too late this spring, blew the transformer during a Y2K upgrade, and lost the services of that generator for an additional month. That month extended into an unusually hot period in late June. As a result, because too many things went wrong at the same time (or more to the point, because the local grid operator does not have a realistic contingency plan), the Boston area experienced an actual Y2K brownout, 6 months before the rollover and 12 months in advance of what Dick Mills anticipated!

There will be more ATC failures, and whatever the reason, they add to the instability that will be exacerbated by Y2K.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), July 08, 1999.

A few points here about some of their quotes:

<< 100% of all mission critical and non-mission critical systems requiring implementation >>

1. Yes - I'm sure all "of the mission critical and non-mission critical systems have been implemented". If they were not implemented, then the systems would not be there, and would not be threatened by failure next year. The fundamental question remains: have these systems been surveyed, remediated, tested, reintegrated, and the resulting integrated system re-tested for Y2K compliance?

2. There is a new software design process being taught (that works well for NEW software systems developed entirely under the new method). It requires that new programs and modules be only tested by "review" and "peer inspection" at the coding and design level. I can argue the theory of this method - some of its processes are valid, others questionable - but it must be emphasized repeatedly: The FAA systems (programs and operating systems) and hardware (computers, radar, transmission and amplifiers, and control screens themselves) are ancient. These old systems and programs cannot be "inspected" and declared "safe" or "defect free" using the new software methods.

They can only be tested thoroughly, then declared "free of defects in what we have tested, for the things that we tested against, in the way that we tested the systems."

There is a difference.

But maybe this will all blow over: maybe their documentation will fly.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), July 08, 1999.

[ For Educational Purposes Only ]

7/8/99 -- 10:58 PM

Control center loses link with planes for 13 minutes

MIAMI (AP) - South Florida's main air traffic control center went dark for 13 minutes Thursday, leaving controllers unable to direct some 200 planes.

No mishaps took place after an unsupervised construction worker inadvertently knocked out the power, Federal Aviation Administration officials said. But flights in and out of South Florida were delayed about a half-hour.

Planes already approaching their destinations were placed in holding patterns until communications were restored.

The Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center is the main radar complex that controls and separates airplanes from Orlando to San Juan, Puerto Rico.

``There was extreme potential for disaster here,'' said Jerry McArthur, who heads the National Air Traffic Controllers Association's Miami chapter.

McArthur said two jets flirted with disaster over the middle of the state when a Southwest flight nearly caught up with a Delta jet as both climbed toward the same altitude. The Southwest jet turned away and outclimbed the Delta plane.

The FAA said it does not believe the two airliners breached federal separation standards, which call for planes to remain five miles apart horizontally and about 1,000 feet apart vertically.

McArthur said the situation was so harrowing for the controller who had been monitoring the two planes that he filed a medical report for trauma.

The problem happened about 7:40 a.m. Thursday, when a worker accidentally bumped into an electrical switch, tripping a circuit breaker and cutting off power to the center's Voice Switching and Control System, the FAA said. That's the system that allows controllers to talk to airplanes by radio and to other radar complexes on the ground.

A backup system failed to take over.

As controllers worked to restore order, 14 planes were held on the ground at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and 37 planes were held at Miami International.

Flights around the nation bound for South Florida also were held at their gates, officials said.
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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), July 09, 1999.