Word: traffice
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...agency embarked on a massive effort to design, buy and install a series of complex, computerized systems to replace the straining, watchful eyes and reflexes of the air-traffic-control workers. These were going to be cutting-edge, glittering new systems--the newest generation of whiz-bang electronics, avionics, software and hardware, many of them custom-designed to keep up to date with the needs and desires of American aviation...
...keep the antiquated systems at terminal and en route centers--the ones I saw in 1974 (when I visited an en route center as part of my flight training) should already have been phased out or replaced--running for even longer. This equipment was never expected to handle air traffic beyond the late 1980s. Now the FAA says it can last through...
...danger posed by the outdated air-traffic-control system is compounded by a shortage of the special radar needed to help planes cope with bad weather...
Pilots know that weather causes about 40% of aircraft accidents and about 65% of air-traffic delays longer than 15 minutes. Thankfully, technology can defuse the threat. Doppler radar can predict and pinpoint rapid, dramatic shifts in wind by bouncing beacons off different air masses...
Time and again, my office uncovered practices that would shock the public: sloppy inspections of planes, perfunctory review of pilots, lax oversight of airline procedures, disregard for bogus airplane parts, sievelike security at airports, antiquated air-traffic-control systems. Only with a major crash, only with people dead and sobbing survivors filling television screens, does the FAA step up to the plate and make changes. I found the FAA's complacency toward accidents difficult to accept...