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FAA Works to Modernize Air Traffic Control Computers

Story Filed: Tuesday, October 26, 1999 10:51 PM EST

Oct. 26, 1999 (WORLD AIRPORT WEEK, Vol. 6, No. 43 via COMTEX) -- For years, one of the great ironies of the modern American aviation system was that the backbone of that system - air traffic control (ATC) computers - weren't modern at all. In many cases, aircraft were kept in the sky using vintage 1960s-era computers. While the aging Display Channel Complex (DCC) system, which relied on these ancient computers, hadn't compromised safety, it was blamed for causing hundreds of flight delays at airports across the United States.

With delays in the U.S. reaching record levels in recent months, the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) past air traffic control misadventures have come into sharper focus.

The FAA is in the midst of an ATC modernization program. But given the agency's lackluster record, many aren't buying FAA chief Jane Garvey's recent claim before a congressional subcommittee that the preponderance of delays over the spring and summer were caused by "unusual weather patterns," not a flawed ATC system. (see WAW, Oct. 19, 1999)

The Air Transport Association (ATA), for example, released a report stating that "the dramatic rise in delays is caused by an inefficient and outdated air traffic control system, coupled with inadequate management of that system by the federal government. ... For all airports, over 100,000 people were delayed each day because of the air traffic control system."

At her congressional appearance, Garvey countered that the FAA is "well into a successful modernization plan... I am very confident in our modernization program."

Garvey defended what some deem to be a moribund ATC overhaul: "Our incremental approach to modernization ensures that we are never too committed to a program to accept responsibility for its problems. This attitude, which highlights lessons learned from past FAA practice, means we are acknowledging and dealing problems earlier in the process... When you read about the bad news (regarding failed or troubled FAA modernization efforts), it only means we are finding the problems, facing the problems and fixing the problems. So that's not really bad news."

Replacing the DCC

For years, the FAA got away with operating a DCC system using shockingly out-dated computers. Until the mid-1990s, there were very few problems with the system. But when the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, studied the DCC system, it concluded that it had been kept running smoothly only by the ingenuity of the staff that maintained it. According to a now-classic 1996 GAO report, FAA officials attributed the DCC's success in thes early 1990s to "heroic maintenance efforts using 'chewing gum and chicken wire'."

By the mid-1990s, chewing gum and chicken wire no longer got the job done. DCC computers regularly broke down. Worse, the parts needed to fix the antiquated machines hadn't been produced for years and the technicians who developed the computers (and thus knew how to fix them) had long since retired.

The GAO cited the old-time computers as the culprit for a growing number of flight delays and chastised the FAA for being so far behind the times. An embarrassed FAA quickly replaced the DCC computers with temporary stand-ins and began developing a permanent replacement.

The agency came up with the apply named Display System Replacement (DSR), which, according to the FAA, features "high resolution color displays, improved real time weather information and weather displays, improved operational flexibility, built-in redundancies and efficient software upgrade capabilities."

With last week's installation of a DSR system in the Fort Worth air-route traffic center at Dallas Fort/Worth International Airport (DFW), half of the nation's high-altitude control centers now have the new display. The FAA says the display replacement program, "which is on schedule and within budget," will be completed by May of next year.

"This state-of-the-art system is another milestone in our continuing effort to infuse new technologies into the air traffic control system of tomorrow," said Monte Belger, the FAA's assistant administrator for air traffic services, who was in Texas to oversee the installation. "From an operational point of view, it is a cornerstone of our air traffic modernization efforts, and from a financial point of view, its nationwide installation is on schedule and within budget."

The FAA's emphasis on being on time and within budget is in response to past criticism, particularly from GAO. In a March 1999 report, GAO noted that "while FAA has delivered some of its major (ATC) systems, it must be recognized that many of these projects encountered difficulties in meeting their original cost and schedule goals." (see WAW, June 1, 1999)

For Garvey, successful ATC modernization is vital to U.S. interests. "Air travel is a critical engine of economic growth, whether it is the leisure travelers who fuel tourism or the many business travelers who depend on reliable, convenient air service," she told Congress. "If we do not reform ATC to enable it to accommodate the anticipated growth of air travel, we will be making a fundamental decision to limit our nation's economic growth during the 21st Century."

Many are hoping the FAA has learned from past mistakes and is up to the task this time.

Copyright ) 1999, Phillips Publishing International, all rights reserved.

You may now print or save this document.

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), October 27, 1999

Answers

I just had to laugh when I read this thread's header. EVERY story about the FAA is deja vu all over again. Or maybe I'm just having a chemtrail day.

-- Faith Weaver (suzsolutions@yahoo.com), October 27, 1999.

I used to work on those old computers. They used rube technology and had big servo-systems in them. To see a picture look here;

http://www.jediknight.com/~smpoole/cherri1.html I was not joking when I said I have been working on computers so long that I had worked on analog mainframes.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), October 27, 1999.

So the FAA is 100% compliant, tested, installed, and Y2K verified, on the old hardware. You know, the old stuff that IBM said should have been replaced.

So now that they've spent all that money, time, sweat, bad PR, all sorts of aggrivation to get there, now they're in the middle of yet another modernization attempt? How much of that sweat, and money, is going to be "replaced" in the next few months? I guess we've got to keep those IT guys busy. Maybe some of those, what was it, 967 changes, that the GAO "found" can be related to this. But isn't the GAO doing a Y2K audit?

There must be a better way...

But hey, it's our .gov at work folks.

Tick... Tock... <)00=

PS - Hoff, I know you'll be checking in here. Maybe this is a good place to continue our previous FAA talk. I'll get back to our Milne thread soon. I'm a little late tonight, and have a few things to do now that I'm home. Had to stop at a friends office and fix a Novell problem for him. He has a 5 employee business, and I'm sort of his part-time CNE. Actually, it wasn't Novell at all, it was a noisy network card. Easy fix, he had a spare!

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), October 27, 1999.

Sysman,

The old equipment should not have been there that long. When I found out they were still using those things I was appalled. When the ATControllers refused to wotrk on it a few decades ago because it was so old, Reagon fired all of them and put ATC under the control of the FAA. In my personal opinion (I don't give that often) the FAA is corrupt and does a lousy job. The new computers should NEVER have been put into place until all the bugs were worked out of them. But some were and had to be taken out again when they kept crashing.

I didn't know they were looking for people to work on those old computers, geeze I could charge a LOT to work on them, especially those old servo-systems. I haven't even seen one since 1977, but I still remember how to set them up.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), October 27, 1999.

Cherri,

First, you know that I will never visit Poole's site. We have a well known history here. We went at it bit by bit. It really is too bad. Sure, I knew he was a polly, maybe even a trool (gasp), but for a while, I did respect him, and his opinion. Yea, I know, I told him to go F-off, at least a half dozen times, but we did somehow manage to "make up" and keep on rockin'. We were even trading jokes. Then, he showed his true colors. Case closed. End of story. Don't even think about it.

Anyway, Cherri, sometimes you're the polly's polly, but sometimes you're the doomers best friend. You go girl! And don't let me get in your way...

Tick... Tock... <:00=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), October 27, 1999.

Sysman,

You could at least go look at the picture and see the equipment.....

If I see a problem I'm gonna scream, if I see there is no problem or there is a problem that got fixed, I'm not going to scream. I call them as I see them. And I have some things for "doomers" to sink their teeth into when Y2K is over....

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), October 28, 1999.