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By
Robert L. Candiotti
March 29, 2008
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If the proposed new international Ivanpah Valley Airport in Southern Nevada gets the green
light, and is built to open as projected in 2018, almost certainly, from day one, it will operate with Global Positioning
System (GPS) air traffic control management. Not radar.
In the future, busy airports like London's Heathrow (pictured
here) probably will not rely primarily on radar for its air traffic control.
Last August, the Federal Aviation Administration
awarded ITT a contract to develop and implement a satellite-based air traffic control system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast
(ADS-B).
Of significance for the proposed Ivanpah Valley Airport - projected to open in 2017 if it clears all the
Environmental Impact Statement hurdles - is that the FAA stipulates in the contract the system will be ready in 2010, and
will have national coverage by 2013.
Ivanpah Valley Airport will most likely be the first new American international
airport that is designed from the very beginning with the ADS-B GPS air travel control system.
ITT's contract
with the FAA includes $207 million in the first three years, and a total of $1.8 billion up until 2025 if the work includes
all options.
The first country to implement a satellite-based air traffic control system
is Australia.
Australia
is already using a satellite-based air traffic control system, according to an article in E-Commerce Times, August
31, 2007.
In the story, FAA spokesperson Tammy Jones is reported as saying the FAA is interested in integrating
the system with the ATC of other countries. "It's an international effort," says Jones.
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In a Future Airport magazine supplement
section, Issue 1 2008, James Burnley - U.S. Secretary of Transportation from 1983 to 1987, and now a partner in a Washington
DC law firm specializing in transportation issues - says all regions with heavy air traffic "will have to convert to
GPS at some point."
In the interview by Barry Mansfield, Burnley states that radar systems are unable
to accommodate growing demand.
"But it's worth pointing out," he adds, "that radar is still
vital as a backup system because of the fragility of GPS, and its vulnerability to disruption at the hands of people with
malicious intent. You really don't want radar to be your primary method of air traffic management with today's traffic,
though."
Therefore, according to Burnley, for the next decade or so, there will probably be a complementary
juxtaposition of both radar and GPS air traffic control in the U.S.
How Ivanpah Valley Airport is set up for air
traffic control will be interesting to see.
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In a USA Today piece by Alan Levin, titled "Airport radar soon a blip in history," it is noted some controversy
revolves around the approaching air traffic control transformation.
The following paragraph is directly from the
USA Today article:
"There is a lot of anxiety," says Massachusetts Institute
of Technology professor John Hansman, who has conducted extensive studies of how the new system will work. "People don't
know what the standards are, don't know what piece of equipment to buy. Benefits won't accrue until everybody has
it and you have the procedures to take advantage of it. And both of those will take time and a lot of effort."
Still, Hansman says today's system has to be renovated. Radars and radios introduced in the 1950a no longer are
sufficient. "We can't not do it," states Hansman.
The main benefit of the ADS-B system is it will
allow airplanes to fly closer together, safely.
Radar sweeps can take as long as one every 12 seconds. ADS-B can
update positionings once every single second. And not only air traffic controllers, but other aircraft pilots, and ground
stations with proper equipment, can see what's going on in the broad sky.
Therefore, also in Levin's USA
Today article, planes could fly safely three miles apart, instead of five miles with radar, enabling the aviation industry
to improve on capacity as air travel demand increases over the next several years.
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