Things That Make You Go...

Things That Make You Go...Huh ?

US transport secretary visits Baghdad air traffic centre

Duh !

US Replacing Air Traffic Control Radars

For me (and I hope my readers) it’s a no-brainer. NextGen isn’t going to replace radar. Or more precisely, ADS-B isn’t going to replace radar. Please note that this story is about ASRs -- Airport Surveillance Radars. That would be radars used to separate airplanes close to the airports. There hasn’t been any new ARSRs Air Route Surveillance Radars installed since the mid-90s. And all of those were on the U.S. Borders. (nice map at the link.) The main radar I used for 25 years was a ARSR-1. And it’s still being used.

(Think 9/11, NORAD was busy looking “out” instead of “in”, the reason ATC lost track of American 77, billions spent upgrading our security but not on radars and all this is a whole other story.)

What I really want you to note is the location of the radar story -- Defense Industry Daily. Well, you could note several things from that but the one I’m after is that fact that it isn’t exactly what you would call “mainstream.” It’s been out there for days -- since May 22nd. Yet, no mainstream news organization has picked it up. And in the same period of time, there have been dozens of stories about upgrading ATC, à la NextGen. There’s reality and then there’s hype.

Somebody has lost the flick.

As for Secretary Peters going to Iraq...you’re on your own. I can’t explain that one.

Don Brown
May 29, 2008