"Vaughn" wrote in message
...

"Bill Daniels" wrote in message
news:Z%vcd.381390$mD.373163@attbi_s02...

I still have an IBM PC XT that works as well as the day it was bought
back
in 1985. It just doesn't do anything useful in today's world. I expect
the
"glass cockpits" to be the same.

That is precisely my point.

Where I work we have tossed at least three generations of perfectly
good
computers over the last ten years. We are now replacing all of our phones
with
the new VOIP technology, and I am willing to bet you will not be able to
find
one of these units still in service five years from now.

Vaughn



I was at the Ralph Barnaby Lecture last night in Denver (About gliders and
soaring presented by Russell Lee, curator at the Smithsonian National Air
and Space Museum ). A lot of the diner table conversation was about the
impending TSA regulations on flight instructors but another topic came up in
relation to the Transportation Safety Administration.

It seems that the government wants to know where every airborne aircraft is
at all times. The FAA of course said "transponders" but it was pointed out
that radar coverage still has large gaps particularly at low altitudes.
(Burt Compton who operates a glider FBO in the west Texas town of Marfa
pointed out that his tow plane transponders almost never blink.) NASA
proposed ADS-B or automatic GPS position reporting. I expect that a variant
of ADS-B will be mandated soon so get ready to yank that old Mode C
transponder.

Bill Daniels