Word: radars
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...roster of passenger carriers grew by 97 (to 157). The FAA offers another explanation for the rising number of near midairs: its reporting system has improved. In 1983 the FAA began installing what controllers and pilots call a "snitch" alarm system. Aircraft now move across a controller's green radar screen as a blip of light in the middle of a round white "halo" or "doughnut," representing an area that has a diameter of five miles. The aim of the controllers is to "keep green" between the doughnuts. Whenever two circles begin to intersect, indicating that two planes have violated...
...while it was being repaired, the main computer went down for nearly four minutes on Aug. 4 and for an hour on Aug. 5. A control center in Albuquerque was knocked out for 40 minutes on Nov. 6. The busy Washington center lost all its radar and computers for 20 minutes on Nov. 29. When this happens, pilots have no choice but to fall back on "see and avoid" flying practices. But that is sometimes difficult to do in today's instrument-filled "glass cockpits," which require pilots to keep their heads down much of the time. Flights are diverted...
While relations between controllers and pilots usually remain professionally courteous, there are subtle tensions between the two groups. Christine West, a controller hired just after the strike, works in the New York radar-control facility. West is proud that "we do pretty close to twice the amount of work with half the staffing we had before the strike." But she is critical of many pilots. "We have their lives in our hands, but they relate to us like we were the enemy," she says. "It can be stressful when you're taking insults on a frequency and you have...
...same center, complains that pilots talk too often on their radios and do not listen carefully to the controllers. When any pilot close to a control center presses his mike button, it blocks other nearby flight crews from hearing the controller. "It is not unusual to sit on a radar position and have a pilot respond that he's blocked over and over again," says Morris. "Radio discipline has become atrocious...
Designed by the FAA and built by both Allied Bendix and Sperry/Dalmo Victor, TCAS II uses a transponder to interrogate as well as answer another plane's radar beacon by sending out information on its position. When two planes are on a potential collision course, onboard TCAS computers alert the pilots with flashing lights, voice messages and a radar screen display showing the planes' relative positions; the computers even indicate up or down evasive action. Following the Cerritos tragedy, the FAA ordered that no aircraft be allowed into the terminal control area above major airports without an altitude-signaling transponder...