Airlines and airports

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Anyone got a line on snaffu's> I have to fly tommorow. Thanks

-- Taylor (taylorn@bellsout.net), January 02, 2000

Answers

Taylor,

there never was a problem with Aircraft. The main problem with the ATC computers were the old age of the computers (analog-same computer in the picture with me 28 years ago. The new computers they put in to replace them had glitches, not Y2K glitches, but glitches bad enough to bring them down and cause safety concerns. It seems (not sure though) that those glitches have been fixed.

What I would worry about now if I were you is the fact that the people getting pilots licences are not required to get very much training anymore, and do NOT have to learn all of the aircraft systems like they did in the past. That and the fact that the pilots they used to get were ex military with years of flying by the seat of their pants, which just doesn't happen any more. No wars for them to gain experience in.

So you have no Y2K worries, but you and everyone else need to start demanding pilots get more training before they pick up a licence. What we don't need to allow is pilots having the same attitude as a teenager who gets his first licence and thinks he knows all their is to know.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), January 02, 2000.


So Cherri screams at us that we should not have listened to anyone on embeddeds who did not work in the industry, acheiving expert status, and now she wants you to listen to her on Pilot qualifications? Go figure...

-- ralph (wretch@heave.com), January 02, 2000.

A friend booked a RTT through Northwest. He was supposed to go east to Hartford via a stopover in Minneapolis. Instead, he got "bumped" and ended up flying with United through Chicago. Coming back he again was bumped and ended up on a Delta flight via Cincinatti. OTO, he got an upgrade to business class coming back. If a little later than planned.

He also said that airport security seemed a little harried and confused. He was ordered to produce his tickets for examination by a guard who had just finished a long lecture on leaving baggage unattended (this to 50 people standing in line). His tickets were in a coat pocket going through the old fluoroscope so...he had to leave his bags unattended in order to retrieve his tickets. My friend is a Geek and routinely travels with laptop,meters, calculator, soldering iron, leatherman tool, and odd bits of wire and other electronic gear. These they ignored.

-- chairborne commando (what-me-worry@armageddon.com), January 02, 2000.


Cherri u still haven't addressed the boeing thread.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 02, 2000.

Your friend got bumped *off* of Northwest?

How lucky can he get?

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 02, 2000.



As far ATC systems go, in my region, all critical ATC systems appear to be operational. I actually worked air traffic during the UTC roll over (more critical than local time for us) and everything rolled over smoothly with nary a glitch. I was pretty surprised and then overjoyed. Radios, radars, weather and flight data processing equipment all were functioning normally after 0000Z time 1/1/00. The only other systems that we were worried about were phone and modem lines that were likely more sensitive to local time but they also appear to be working normally.

Someone posted on this list that AWOS experienced glitches but this is an older piece of weather sensing equipment with limited deployment, mostly replaced by a 2nd generation weather sensor called ASOS which was working normally when I left work. Major airport do not use AWOS. There was also a local news report about the interface between AIRINC and ATC communications equipment going down on west coast oceanic sectors but that hasn't been confirmed and would only present an inconvenience as the phone lines are still up. Overall ATC is doing much better than anticipated.

As for aircraft systems, well that's someone else's thing. I personally would feel safe flying in our own aircraft (older) after a good check out around the field and think that probably most others are probably okay too as there has been a lot of flying out of our area by cargo and passenger carriers.

-- Cathy AKA Ramp Rat (ldalcorn@alaska.net), January 02, 2000.


ralph,

uhhh well, I kinda know Boeing aircraft like the back of my hand.....

Andy,

What Boeing thread?

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), January 03, 2000.


Cherri I'll bring it to the top of the new answers...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), January 03, 2000.

Hi Cathy - I understand Atlanta, Denver, several other major airports with wind shear radars failed at 2400/0000 GMT.... did not come back up for about two hours. After restarting, they are now running okay.

FAA had failures of the private pilot infomration circuits, and also "local weather" failures. Don't know the details about those.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 03, 2000.


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