Word: faa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...computer buffs at ease with the graphic virtuosity of Max Headroom, the FAA demonstration might seem primitive. But to air-traffic professionals gathered in the agency's sixth-floor "war room," it represented a technological breakthrough. Prior to last week, FAA radar data showing the location of planes flying over the U.S. could be shown only piecemeal on computer screens at one or more of the aviation agency's 20 regional control centers. Now, all that information has been merged and displayed on a single cathode-ray screen, giving the nation's air-traffic controllers an unprecedented view of overhead...
Well, at least impressively intricate. Last week's display -- more evolutionary than revolutionary -- involved the funneling of data on aircraft position, altitude, speed and identification from each of the regional air- traffic control centers to the FAA's Washington headquarters. There the information is merged into a manageable whole by an assembly of Apollo workstations and displayed via custom-designed software on as many as three dozen screens. The objective of the system is to provide centralized management of traffic problems as they may build up at any of the country's 12,500 airports. Cost of the new computer...
...near misses to record levels. In the first three months of 1987, midair close calls increased 13%, to about 215, while errors by overtaxed air controllers jumped 18%. The looming safety crisis prompted James Barnett, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, to recommend earlier this month that the FAA take "immediate action" to reduce air traffic at key airports before the anticipated summer air-travel crush...
...FAA officials say that with their new control system they will be able to meet those recommendations without reducing the number of flights entering or leaving the critical choke points. Using the new computers, supervisors can monitor with greater precision specific sections of airspace that are becoming dangerously overcrowded. Traffic jams can then be alleviated or prevented by shifting the altitude of some flights or rerouting others so that they bypass congested areas. By this fall, when more complex computer programs should be in place, controllers hope to be able to predict at least two hours in advance when...
...Tulsky, spent more than two years pursuing the story. Their findings led the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to assume control of the troubled local court system last April. The gold medal for public service went to a series by Pittsburgh Press Reporters Andrew Schneider and Matthew Brelis that exposed inadequate FAA screening of airline pilots for drug abuse and other medical problems...