Another ITYS
I’m not the only one that has been Telling You So. And, as you’ll see, I’m not the only ex-controller that knows how to write.
Why Southwest’s Boeings Keep Coming Apart Above 30,000 Feet—Part I
Don Brown
April 4, 2011
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The Flick -- A term used by air traffic controllers to describe a mental model representing the current and future positions of air traffic in a section of airspace. Controllers visualize the paths of multiple aircraft in terms of position, altitude, trajectory and speed. Controllers also refer to this as "having the picture." But the picture moves -- like a movie -- hence the term “the flick.”
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I’m not the only one that has been Telling You So. And, as you’ll see, I’m not the only ex-controller that knows how to write.
Why Southwest’s Boeings Keep Coming Apart Above 30,000 Feet—Part I
Don Brown
April 4, 2011
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From Bloomberg by By Will Daley - Apr 3, 2011 8:36 PM ET
ITT Corp. (ITT) and investment banking firm Nexa Capital Partners LLC created a $1.5 billion fund aimed at helping airlines speed adoption of a satellite-based air- traffic control system.
Carriers would lease equipment that uses Global Positioning System signals to pinpoint planes in flight, cutting delays, ITT, the lead investor and an aviation-electronics maker, said in a statement. The Federal Aviation Administration wants the technology in place by 2020.
Replacing the current air-traffic control system, which relies on radar, means buying and installing new equipment for planes as well as for ground tracking stations. White Plains, New York-based ITT, won a contract in 2007 to begin the overhaul, a project that has been dubbed NextGen.
“All of our investors are strategic investors, in other words, they all have a vested interest strategically for their companies in having NextGen move ahead,” said Russell Chew, general partner of NextGen Equipage Fund LLC. “If you are involved in the NextGen business, whether it’s infrastructure or avionics, you have an interest in NextGen not being stalled.”
Chew, a former executive at JetBlue Airways Corp. (JBLU) and one- time chief operating officer for the FAA, declined to identify other investors. Companies that make NextGen equipment include ITT and Honeywell International Inc. (HON)
Buy, Lease
NextGen Equipage Fund will use investors’ money to buy NextGen equipment, then lease it to airlines, said Chew, who also was a pilot and former manager at AMR Corp. (AMR)’s American Airlines.
Payments would be deferred until NextGen services come online, ITT said in the statement. The advantage to airlines is being able to equip planes for NextGen without a large cash outlay or adding more debt, ITT said.
Instead of using radar signals bounced off a plane to plot its position and voice-based communications, NextGen will keep tabs on planes with more-precise data from GPS satellites and relay information to other planes and controllers by text message.
With better aircraft tracking, controllers should be able to safely put more planes in the same amount of airspace than is possible now, easing delays, the FAA has said.
ITT’s 2007 contract, which may be valued as much as $1.8 billion, calls for building and managing about 800 ground stations as part of the NextGen system. More than 300 have been deployed, said John Kefaliotis, an ITT vice president.