Today in News: "Change is coming to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The nation’s air traffic control system is getting a much-needed overhaul, transitioning from an outdated system based on radar to one that relies on GPS. Appropriately, the overhaul is called NextGen, and it’s designed to meet the future demands of the nation’s growing air traffic. NextGen is at the core of the FAA’s plans to accommodate an estimated 50 percent growth in air traffic projected over the next decade. Under the current system, planes are guided to their destinations through a series of handoffs from one regional control tower to another. Radar can take up to 36 seconds to provide an accurate read on a plane’s position. This may seem like an eternity considering the distance a plane covers when travelling at 500 miles per hour. As a result, air traffic controllers must guide planes with conservative buffer zones of 5 miles between planes in the air and 3 miles on landings."
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 20:08:22 +0000
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