CNN article on problems in Air Travel, as seen by FAA

On Sep 12, 1:12 pm, Mxsmanic wrote:
me writes:
Not necessarily airport flight paths, but the general "corridors"
in which they fly. My understanding of this GPS based system
is that it planes will generate their own flight paths and to
a great degree "control" themselves. The result will be more
direct paths between airports. Paths which are not currently used
much or at all.

But the only residents exposed to noise from aircraft regularly are those
directly adjacent to airports. How would GPS navigation diminish this noise,
as the article implies?

It barely implies it. It didn't say what the objects were at all.
And
since it listed "environmentalists" as one of the groups, it doesn't
have to be merely about noise.

The system being proposed is that each plane "broadcast" to other
planes their location, based upon GPS coordinates. Possibly also
their flight plans. It gets ATC "out of the loop" to a great degree
and merely puts them in more of a "monitoring" mode. I'm sure
each airport will still have a tower controlling take-offs and
landings.

Sounds like a terrorist's fondest dream. And each failure endangers aircraft
for miles around, and when there are lots of aircraft aloft, it's not
fail-safe, it's fail-for-sure.

Well, you presume that ATC doesn't exist at all. It merely
changes the role of ATC and the pilots as well. Pilots gain control
and the ATC reliqueshes it to some degree. The airforce already
has a fair amount of autonomy in the skies (when it wishes).
It merely requires certain systems and failure procedures. Really,
in general, it will be better merely because more information is
available to more people, all of whom have an interest in not
crashing.

There is plenty of airport capacity out there. There are a few
that are all jammed up, but plenty more that have little crowding at all.

Then apply quotas to commercial airline traffic, so that it is forced to
distribute the load over many different airports (or make fewer flights with
larger aircraft, which would be more efficient, anyway).

You're talking about rationing and it already exists to some
extent.

Their margins are low and they are trying to increase profits
through volume.

But they are not serving the public interest in doing so. Perhaps it's time
to re-regulate.

Some have advocated that. Most folks don't agree that's the
solution. Virtually everyone involved in the system agree that the
primary problem is ATC's in ability to manage the available
resource.

me writes:

Some have advocated that. Most folks don't agree that's the
solution. Virtually everyone involved in the system agree that the
primary problem is ATC's in ability to manage the available
resource.

Hire more controllers.

On Sep 13, 12:57 am, Mxsmanic wrote:
me writes:
Some have advocated that. Most folks don't agree that's the
solution. Virtually everyone involved in the system agree that the
primary problem is ATC's in ability to manage the available
resource.

Hire more controllers.

And concentrate them where they are needed.

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 06:57:42 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

me writes:

Some have advocated that. Most folks don't agree that's the
solution. Virtually everyone involved in the system agree that the
primary problem is ATC's in ability to manage the available
resource.

Hire more controllers.


Right. Hire more controllers to man a system already at capacity.
That would do a lot alright.

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:30:59 +0000, John Kulp wrote:

Right. Hire more controllers to man a system already at capacity. That
would do a lot alright.

This issue is "where's the bottleneck". If it really is in control over
airspace, hiring more controllers is probably not a bad idea.

However, we all know that that's not the most critical issue at all
despite the claims of some otherwise. The real issue - runway count
combined with the hub/spoke model - gets no benefit from additional
controllers.

I do have one odd data point, however. I sat on the ramp in a small
airliner at EWR recently, waiting for weather to improve between EWR and
my destination in Ohio (I forget which airport). I was watching the
weather from my "phone". If I'd an airliner's speed and range, I'd have
taken off in a different direction (to the north would have been my
choice). Make a left around Albany, and the entire route would have been
weather-clear.

[Even w/o the range, I could have added a stop en route for fuel.]

Instead of that, though, we waited until the cells (which were over an
hour away when the wait started) passed EWR eastbound. Then we departed.

Why? Why didn't we take the path I saw? *That* makes me wonder about
airspace control issues, but I'm just guessing that that might have been
the cause. It could have been a myriad of other issues as well.

- Andrew

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 14:52:50 -0400, Andrew Gideon
wrote:

On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 14:30:59 +0000, John Kulp wrote:

Right. Hire more controllers to man a system already at capacity. That
would do a lot alright.

This issue is "where's the bottleneck". If it really is in control over
airspace, hiring more controllers is probably not a bad idea.

However, we all know that that's not the most critical issue at all
despite the claims of some otherwise. The real issue - runway count
combined with the hub/spoke model - gets no benefit from additional
controllers.

I do have one odd data point, however. I sat on the ramp in a small
airliner at EWR recently, waiting for weather to improve between EWR and
my destination in Ohio (I forget which airport). I was watching the
weather from my "phone". If I'd an airliner's speed and range, I'd have
taken off in a different direction (to the north would have been my
choice). Make a left around Albany, and the entire route would have been
weather-clear.

[Even w/o the range, I could have added a stop en route for fuel.]

Instead of that, though, we waited until the cells (which were over an
hour away when the wait started) passed EWR eastbound. Then we departed.

Why? Why didn't we take the path I saw? *That* makes me wonder about
airspace control issues, but I'm just guessing that that might have been
the cause. It could have been a myriad of other issues as well.

You ignoring all the other traffic that the airport was handling at
the same time which most likely made your flight do what it did. You
can't just do as you did and assume that space is available for your
aircraft. That's why they have controllers in the first place.

On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:30:58 +0000, John Kulp wrote:

Why? Why didn't we take the path I saw? *That* makes me wonder about
airspace control issues, but I'm just guessing that that might have been
the cause. It could have been a myriad of other issues as well.

You ignoring all the other traffic that the airport was handling at the
same time which most likely made your flight do what it did. You can't
just do as you did and assume that space is available for your aircraft.

Why not? There is a lot of sky, even in only one direction. A single
airway at a single altitude can accommodate three new aircraft every
minute at 200 Kts. Admittedly, this is a gross simplification of time
and separation, but it's also only a single airway at a single altitude.

The airport itself was launching some traffic, but not much. And, at
least at the start of this wait (while the weather was pretty far away),
local weather wasn't an issue. This did change later, however.

What other limit(s) might be at issue? That's what I wonder.

- Andrew

On Sep 19, 9:35 am, Andrew Gideon wrote:
On Fri, 14 Sep 2007 19:30:58 +0000, John Kulp wrote:
Why? Why didn't we take the path I saw? *That* makes me wonder about
airspace control issues, but I'm just guessing that that might have been
the cause. It could have been a myriad of other issues as well.

You ignoring all the other traffic that the airport was handling at the
same time which most likely made your flight do what it did. You can't
just do as you did and assume that space is available for your aircraft.

Why not? There is a lot of sky, even in only one direction. A single
airway at a single altitude can accommodate three new aircraft every
minute at 200 Kts. Admittedly, this is a gross simplification of time
and separation, but it's also only a single airway at a single altitude.

The airport itself was launching some traffic, but not much. And, at
least at the start of this wait (while the weather was pretty far away),
local weather wasn't an issue. This did change later, however.

What other limit(s) might be at issue? That's what I wonder.

First of all your pilots would have had to request it. They would
have had to file the appropriate flight plans (which admittedly
they can probably amend via the radio as they sat). But
furthermore, they would have to figure out the relative fuel
burn for your alternate itinerary and the one they originally
intended. Large route changes cause excess fuel use.
They can sit and idle on the taxiway a long time before
they burn up that kind of fuel.

"Andrew Gideon" wrote

Why? Why didn't we take the path I saw? *That* makes me wonder about
airspace control issues, but I'm just guessing that that might have been
the cause. It could have been a myriad of other issues as well.

As I understand it, this is one type of issue that could be greatly improved
when true "free fly" routing is in place. Take off in any direction that
will meet the needs, and not worry about the airways.

Makes sense to me, on paper, at least! g
--
Jim in NC

Morgans writes:

As I understand it, this is one type of issue that could be greatly improved
when true "free fly" routing is in place. Take off in any direction that
will meet the needs, and not worry about the airways.

It depends on how much of the congestion is en-route, and how much is in
approach and departure. Free flight would help in the former case, but it
wouldn't make much different in the latter case.

Additionally, although truly random free flight would eliminate en-route
congestion, it would also raise costs, since most random, free-flight routes
are going to be longer than the optimal route. There would be a tendency for
everyone to try to fly the shortest route, and then the congestion would
return.