http://www.sacbee.com/news/calreport/calrep_story.cgi?N162.HTML

Found this link on the Drudge Report......

Marines called in to relieve Palm Springs airport radar crisis with military fix

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. (AP) -- Marines have been called in to set up temporary military radar at Palm Springs International Airport, which has been plagued by a faulty system shut down three weeks ago because it wasn't detecting air traffic. Marine Corps specialists were at the airport Friday to select a location for the mobile radar facility, which was expected to be operational Monday, said Curtis Warren, local National Air Traffic Controllers Association spokesman.

The airport has been without radar since Dec. 19, when chronic problems led Federal Aviation Administration technicians to shut it down for repairs.

The balky radar, described by Warren as "a hodgepodge of cast off systems, covers a 30-mile radius.

"Much to the FAA's credit, they've called in the military and circumvented the entire procurement process and brought in the Marines," Warren said.

A 25-member FAA technical team spent eight days examining the radar facility five miles away from the airport and determined it was unreliable and couldn't be fixed.

"We were actually dropping targets, they're jumping, vanishing and altitudes are changing on us," Warren said.

Controllers, who have been spreading out traffic flying into the Coachella Valley 110 miles east of Los Angeles, have complained about close calls in the skies near the airport.

"Some missed between 100 to 300 feet," said Warren, who represents the 26 controllers at the airport. "It's the kind of separation that would get an air traffic controller suspended from duty.

"With radar at any one time we're talking to approximately 20 planes. In the non-radar situation, we're only talking to three or four planes, meaning 17 others are on their own."

Aircraft in the Palm Springs area must now stay 30 miles apart horizontally, the FAA said. The separation is normally three miles horizontally and 1,000 feet apart vertically.

Michael Lenick, the FAA manager of traffic for the airport, has said it was still safe to fly out of Palm Springs because controllers are trained in non-radar routing.

But Warren said the terminal's controllers are currently "blind" to any traffic below 8,000 feet, and they are maintaining most direction by sight and radio communication.

Lenick wouldn't discuss the arrival of the Marines, referring calls to FAA spokeswoman Kirsty Dunn at the agency's regional headquarters in Seattle.

"We are going to have a U.S. Marine Corps unit installed to supplement air traffic operations while the FAA evaluates the reliability of a replacement beacon," Dunn said.

That beacon, part of a secondary radar system, was expected to arrive late Friday and it will take several weeks to get it operational. The temporary military radar will be operational Monday.

"We want to assure the reliability of the replacement beacon, which is a more powerful beacon for the secondary system," Dunn said. "It boosts the radar's capability to overcome interference problems."

The FAA has refused to replace the failed primary system despite more than two years of complaints and repair attempts, Warren said.

A state-of-the-art system and control tower to replace the airport's 40-year-old facility would cost $30 million, he said.

Doyle Bordelon, spokesman for the FAA's national technical center, agreed earlier with Warren's assessment of the current Palm Springs radar.

"Mr. Warren is not out of line," Bordelon said. "We're working very closely, he's raising valid issues, and we're working as a team."

The FAA complains it doesn't have the money and Palm Springs is perceived as a small market that doesn't need a sophisticated system, the controllers union spokesman said. The airport handles 1.3 million passengers annually.

Radar was first installed in the Coachella Valley in 1979 after the air crash death of Frank Sinatra's mother, Dolly. Sinatra, who lived in Palm Springs, lobbied for the airport radar.

"It worked fine until they erected huge windmills that canceled out some of the radar returns," Warren said. "Targets were vanishing and dropping (off the radar).

"For $30 million we could provide the valley with the kind of safe air traffic enjoyed by every other metropolitan area in the country."

(Notice it WASN'T a Y2K Glitch!!! It was a ........ WINDMILL GLITCH!)

heeheeheeheehee DavePrime

-- DavePrime (DavePrime@hotmail.com), January 08, 2000

Answers

Sheez.

FWIW, we may need them here too, we'll see. I live a couple miles from the landing strip of an airport, and a few of those birds are flyin' low at night. Maybe one in ten planes, mostly at night. This is in VA.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 08, 2000.