The tower with a soul… 8
On 09/03/2010, in The tower with a soul, by lajos
Airport – the book and the real thing
In order for you to understand this part, we need to go back to the early days, when the tower was commissioned… We have to look back to those days because that is where the never ending problems have started. What follows here is conjecture on my part, but as they say, where there is smoke, there is fire…
In 1983, the year the tower started in live operations, we only had two television channels, both broadcasting in Hungarian. Under the regime then in power, movies from the West arrived on the “good” side of the iron curtain with a delay of several years. This was the reason why the film Airport made in 1970 from Arthur Hailey’s hit novel, was shown on Hungarian television 13 years after its premier, in 1983. This had far reaching consequences for us in the tower…
With there not being much of a choice, half the country was glued to the tube watching how the good folk of Lincoln went to protest aircraft noise, in spite of the heavy snow. Many of those who saw the film felt immediate sympathy with the Lincoln protesters. Before that movie I had never seen anyone protesting aircraft noise in Hungary, not even at places like Tokol where Mig-21 jet fighters blasted over their heads almost every minute. Call it a coincidence, but after hand-over of the new runway, people living around Ferihegy airport started protesting in much the same way they saw it in the movie. Why couldn’t Arthur Hailey write about ants or the underground instead of airports? The consequence was that take-offs from 31R and landings on 13L were immediately restricted. In other words, we lost an approach direction even before we started using it.
8.33 kHz Channel spacing – what is this?
On 04/03/2010, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
The radio spectrum, a scarce resort
One of the most basic activities in a cockpit is tuning the radio to the assigned frequency of whoever we want to talk to. Contacting ground control, the tower or one’s own company is done by turning a few knobs until the right numbers show in the radio control panel display and we can talk.
Air traffic controllers see the same thing slightly differently. They do not normally have to tune their radios. The proper frequencies for their sector or other working position are pre-set and need no further attention.
With the matter being so pedestrian and the actions so routine, few of us realize that the ability of pilots and controllers to talk to each other is in fact dependent on one of the scarcest resources in aviation, namely the radio spectrum allocated to aviation use.
Many other disciplines have their own radio spectrum and we all guard jealously what we have been given and for good reason. With so many users wanting to use the radio waves, the incumbents better watch or the use it or lose it principle kicks in. Luckily, the frequencies most widely used by aviation (118 – 137 MHz) are not coveted so strongly by others. Our problem is different but not in the least less serious.
Latest edition of SITA’s “Air Traffic Management Highlights” now available
On 25/02/2010, in Bookshelf, by steve
The latest edition of SITA’s newsletter, Air Traffic Management Highlights, dedicated to the ATM community is now available.
In this publication, you will learn more about two major initiatives undertaken by our industry in 2009:
• The Data Link Services Implementation Rule adoption by the European Commission and
• SITA’s selection by EUROCONTROL to deliver the Pan European Network Service (PENS).
This newsletter will also provide you with a high-level overview of the different air traffic management activities that SITA has been involved in recently.
Get your copy here.
29th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC) – Call for participation
On 01/02/2010, in Events, by steve
The 29th DASC will be held on 3-7 October 2010 in Salt Lake City, UT at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center. It is bylined “Improving our environment through green avionics and ATM solutions”. Conference Chair Bob Lyons has this to say about the 29th Digital Avionics Systems Conference.
Concern over the environment is very prevalent in today’s society and being “green” is becoming a product selection decision criterion for many on par with the cost and quality of the purchase being made. This is augmented by legislation in many industries to reduce the environmental impact of commercial product and service offerings. In the aerospace industry, this materializes as noise abatement requirements in densely populated areas, control of emissions from engines and auxiliary power units (APUs), and the disposal of worn out aircraft components to name a few. Digital avionics provide enabling technologies for green aerospace systems. Just as was the case at the 28th DASC, a dual focus will be maintained on airborne and ground systems.
Safety briefing – the missing element
On 28/01/2010, in Battle stations, by steve
This blog is about air traffic management. But, by the nature of our business, we tend to travel more than the average citizen and the pilots among us spend half their life strapped to the aircraft that carry us around. So it is appropriate to say something for once as a passenger rather than the ATM expert I often claim to be.
I am one of those passengers who actually follows the safety briefing, checks the location of the emergency exits and who has actually studied the operation of the damn things. I would hate having to read the opening instructions with smoke filling the cabin… I never take off my shoes until we are at cruising level. And yes, I do check that my life vest is under my seat and yes, I did find an empty container once and complained before we were airborne.
Recently however I started missing something from the safety briefing. If you look at the statistics, the likelihood of needing my life vest is distinctly lower than the need to know what I should do in case the chap or gal sitting next to me turns out to have explosives in his or her pants and decides to use it too.
2010 ICNS Conference – Call for participation
On 20/01/2010, in Events, by steve
The 2010 Integrated Communications Navigation and Surveillance (ICNS) conference will take place on May 11-13 2010 at the Westin Washington Dulles Airport Hotel in Herndon, VA. The conference this year is by-lined as “The challenged of NextGen, new issues for aviation’s future”.
The Conference, jointly sponsored by government, civil and military, and industry, addresses long term research and development and early implementation of integrated CNS technologies needed to Enable NextGen.
The Conference is focused on providing understanding of CNS programs, longer term plans, standards development (RTCA, etc.), research, ICNS technologies, and the New Issues for Aviation’s Future that accompany NextGen.
Each day begins with a plenary session. Tuesday morning is all about Accelerating Implementation and Integration (I&I). Wednesday morning will focus on Interagency Systems Transformations, addressing multi-agency (DoD, DHS, and FAA) information sharing, and policies and procedures needed to insure airspace security while improving the support for each agency’s primary mission. NextGen Beyond 2018 is the topic for Thursday’s plenary.
Every afternoon, parallel technical sessions will be held on specific ICNS topics.
My FAB my Castle – is there hope for the European air traffic management enterprise?
On 27/11/2009, in Viewpoint, by pbn
I guess from a purely political point of view, criticizing the Functional Airspace Block (FAB) concept is probably not correct. I will not criticize the FABs. What I will do is share a few thoughts with you and also raise a few questions. Who knows, someone may even have the answers.
So what is a FAB? Contrary to what you may have heard, the FAB concept was/is an effort by the European Union to bring some order into the fragmented European ATM scene. That this was not exactly to everyone’s taste was amply evidenced in the time it took to get the first FAB (and subsequent FABs) off the ground. The process stalled a few times and lots of screaming brides had to be dragged to the altar before it was restarted again.
SITA selected to provide PENS – but SWIM is more than just ANSPs!
On 24/11/2009, in SWIM, by steve
Those of our readers who have looked at the various postings on System Wide Information Management (SWIM) will be familiar with the abbreviation PENS which stands for “Pan European Network Service”. PENS will allow air navigation service providers from 38 countries to exchange operational data communications across a common network for the first time.
Following an intensive competitive tendering exercise, SITA was selected as the provider of this managed IP based regional communications backbone service.
PENS will enable the 38 ANSPs of the EUROCONTROL Member States to exchange operational ATC data communications in a seamless and integrated manner; it will provide an alternative to the ad-hoc bi-lateral communications that are largely in place today between the ANSPs, resulting in improved service levels and reduced overall costs.
Aircraft Operational Fuel Savings & Noise Reduction – Past and Future
On 23/11/2009, in View from the left seat, by phil
The way pilots fly their aircraft can have a significant effect on the economics, fuel consumption and environmental performance of their airline. Many airlines and Air Navigation Service Providers are working on Constant Descent Approaches (CDAs) but to do these it is necessary to have well motivated pilots, good operating procedures and efficient ATM procedures.
Particularly on long flights, the pilots have many more things to do than just flying the aircraft. The tactical decisions they make on the day with regard to fuel load, payload, routes and altitudes, descent profiles and the deployment of flaps and landing gear can all affect the bottom line economics. In a lecture given to the Royal Aeronautical Society’s CEAS 2009 Conference last month, Captain Hugh Dibley described the work done in the past to improve operating procedures, the influence the flight crew can have over the fuel used, and some of the possible improvements in the future. In one example he showed that a fuel economy campaign and improved procedures produced savings in the order of 8%. Some recent simulation work done by SAS has shown that CDAs and optimised procedures could produce comparative savings of 18.4%. And even minor changes in operation can save at least 1% at no cost – in comparison, one engine manufacturer currently spends over £800,000,000 per year in Research and Development to improve consumption by 1%. The paper also shows how some airlines were able in the past to reduce their fuel burnt by nearly 10% virtually overnight.
NCS – What? Not CNS?!
On 22/11/2009, in Viewpoint, by steve
Whoever came up with the abbreviation CNS (a.k.a. Communications/Navigation/Surveillance) probably had no idea how much damage their invention would cause in air traffic management by perpetuating the kind of silo mentality that keeps many organizations hopelessly divided and experts retreating into their respective ivory towers.
If at least the inventors had the good sense of putting their beloved letters into some kind of logical order, like history, which would have given us NCS… We did navigate first (as in trying to find our way by reading the names of train stations and flying along highways), then communicated at first with lights and hand signals and later via radio and more recently we do surveillance. Not that NCS would have been any better at driving the silo mentality from the face of the earth.
Of course in the old days there was some logic in looking at navigating and communicating as something totally different from each other. You trained for one or the other, aircraft carried separate navigators and radio operators and when radar came along, the wizards of that kit were a completely new breed yet again. It was only logical also that separate fiefdoms should grow up along the letters NCS with hardly any horizontal contact between them. That they should fiercely protect their respective domains was perfectly natural…
GDP and the Key Performance Indicators of air traffic management
On 18/11/2009, in Viewpoint, by pbn
Time magazine in their 2 November issue published a very interesting essay. The author, Steven Faris, argues that using GDP (Gross Domestic Product) to judge how well a country was doing is wrong and misleading. The idea behind GDP was only to show how much money is changing hands, nothing more, nothing less. Should we not use a metric that actually measures the things we really care about, he asks.
To illustrate the inadequacy of GDP to measure what we always thought it did, he gives a few telling examples. Natural disasters, oil spills, car crashes, riots, crime: anything you pay to fix will boost GDP. Helping a neighbor up the stairs, skipping work to see your son’s basketball game or walking in the woods will not.
Reading the essay it occurred to me that in air traffic management we have our own ingrained GDP equivalent, the famous KPIs or Key Performance Indicators. True, GDP was devised by economist Simon Kuznets at the end of the Great Depression (not the current one but the one before it…) and the KPIs for things like the SESAR project were put together within the last five years. They should be ok… Well, I am not so sure.
Single Sky Committee unanimously supports Aeronautical Data and Information Quality (ADQ) Implementing Rule
On 04/11/2009, in SWIM, by steve
The drive is on to transform Aeronautical Information Services (AIS) into Aeronautical Information Management (AIM). This is needed to set the scene for the introduction of System Wide Information Management (SWIM), the ultimate goal of the activity.
The change from AIS to AIM is primarily the morphing of the traditional, package based aeronautical information system into a data-based one, where users are provided with data to feed their particular applications in the way they need it rather than being fed with pre-cooked packages that do not really satisfy anyone while also being extremely difficult to change when new requirements turn up.
Enterprise Architecture and service orientation – what is this?
On 03/11/2009, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
Few abbreviations connected with the future air traffic management system have given rise to so many questions and misunderstandings as EA (Enterprise Architecture) and SOA (Service Oriented Architecture). In the United States both concepts are part and parcel of air traffic management system development since the marching orders were given by the Federal Government. In Europe, however, it was only during the SESAR development phase that EA and SOA were first introduced into the ATM context and the reception was at first mixed.
To-day there is probably no doubt any more that EA and SOA are the way to go but the fact remains: to many in the air traffic management family the exact meaning of both remains a puzzle.
Let’s try to set out the pieces and see what picture emerges.
A short (unofficial) history of air/ground digital link – 3
On 24/10/2009, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
Pioneers to the rescue
In spite of the positive business case, airspace users were not exactly rushing to equip with air/ground digital link. Because of the slow down of traffic growth in the wake of 9/11, the expected ACARS problems did not materialize and the ATC frequency congestion was also pushed far into the future. In other industries, such a period of respite might have been used to prepare for the times when business recovery would once again make air//ground digital link essential. But that is not how aviation works. With the immediate threat receding and even some of the big carriers fighting for survival, enthusiasm for investing in things that would generate benefits only many years down the road cooled.
Of course for the planners of the ATM system this was a situation that spelled trouble for later. The frequency congestion problems were not a mirage even if for the time being those problems slipped into the future. The need to put together a comprehensive kit of capacity enablers had not become less important, only the urgency had changed somewhat. For LINK2000+ the big question was: how to jump start equipage? The question was not self serving at all. If Maastricht UAC controllers did not get digital link equipped aircraft to work with, it would be impossible to build and maintain proficiency and to shake down the system in real operational circumstances.
What is nanotechnology’s equivalent in air traffic management?
On 17/10/2009, in Viewpoint, by steve
It has been all over the trade press recently. 10 billion extra euros to go into French aeronautics research, the money coming from a planned public bond issue. Some of the fruits of this dough will come in the form of ground and flight demonstrations in the 2011-2014 time-frame and the primary aim of the effort is to meet the threat to Europe’s lead in the narrow-body aircraft area. Those new Chinese and Russian (not to mention Canadian) designs are being taken seriously and for good reason. Replacements for the A320 family and of course the 737 will be needed and probably sooner than later if Europe and the US wants to remain big players.
The line-up of planned demos is impressive. Replacing hydraulics with electrics, 15 % improvement in the performance of existing turbofan technologies, improved rotorcraft, and blended winglets… Airframes with nanostructure enhanced materials and intelligent skin and even new cockpits to mate up with SESAR and NextGen are also on the Agenda. All very good and timely.
Whatever happened to (the benefits of) Mode S Enhanced Surveillance (EHS)?
On 14/10/2009, in Viewpoint, by cleo
Though there are few who will not be familiar with the term Mode S Enhanced Surveillance, let me quickly recap. Mode S is a legacy, ground based surveillance system which has a rudimentary data link capability. It is this latter that was being pushed in the 90s as a solution to all ills of air traffic management. Using the link capability, certain parameters from the aircraft, the so called DAPs, can be sent to the ground ATM system. Part of these are for display to the controller and part serve in theory to enhance system functions.
Back then the airspace users saw clearly that the benefit claims made for Mode S EHS were grossly overstated. It did not help that the first business case created for Mode S EHS was, to put it mildly, questionable. A later version showed more realistic figures but the damage was done.
A short (unofficial) history of air/ground digital link – 1
On 12/10/2009, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
Introduction
Talking to a group of young controllers the other day I suddenly realized that Controller Pilot Digital Link Communications (CPDLC) and its enabler, air/ground digital link were a kind of given for them… Their centre has either already implemented it or had plans for it and while their opinion diverged on the usefulness of the thing, they certainly did not consider it as anything exciting. In a way this is good. The more everyday air/ground digital link becomes, the more we can consider having cleared a major hurdle in implementing an important capacity enabler.
But not being familiar with the history of a particular development reduces our ability to understand its shortcomings and its future potential.
With this article I would like to put on the table a few, sometimes amusing, sometimes incredible, details from the last 15 years of so about air/ground digital link development in the hope that it will be provide some insight into what is after all a very exciting development in air traffic management.
The story will not be comprehensive; it is only a summary and is based mainly on my recollections. I was pretty close to the fire but possibly for that very reason I may have seen things in a light that was colored differently from the actual reality. If you have better information, do comment on my version of the tale.
SWIM – Institutional aspects first and foremost
On 11/10/2009, in SWIM, by steve
Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine has recently published a very interesting article with the title “Integration Nightmares”. It is about the problems planners and engineers are facing in integrating the battlefield “system of systems”. As the author reports, high level military planners do not like to pay to solve complexity… Researchers have to weave through political, technological and financial obstacle courses to figure out how to create that “system of systems”.
You may shrug this news off and ask what relevance does this have to air traffic management’s SWIM? After all, we have SESAR and it will take care of such detail.
Sure, SESAR will help in bringing the partners together and in coordinating things but the obstacle course will still remain and needs to be negotiated. OK but why single out SWIM?
For most people, System Wide Information Management (SWIM) is a physical network, some standards and protocols and a few applications with some kind of network management thrown in, but little else.
New directions for Airport Collaborative Decision Making (CDM)
On 07/10/2009, in CDM, by steve
What exactly is CDM?
Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) is not a new concept. It is being practiced to a certain degree both in the US and in Europe, focus being on en-route in the former and airports in the latter. Mature as the concept may be, surprisingly we still see experts who seem to believe that CDM is little more than a few wise men sitting together and deciding things for the benefit of the community… Little wonder that they see a role for CDM that is strictly limited to the strategic planning phases. They seem to hang on to this view even in the face of actual CDM implementations at some airports (e.g. Munich) which are anything but limited to the strategic phase. So, what is CDM?
The concept of CDM is very simple. Decisions on all levels must be made not in isolation but based on a shared, common view of the state of the ATM network with full awareness of the consequences of the decisions on every aspect of the operation. Collaborative in this context does not necessarily imply people sitting together or working together remotely. A single person can also make a collaborative decision if the decision is based on the shared information provided by the partners and if it takes into account the impact of the decision on those partners and the ATM network as a whole.
Interesting people, unusual flight plans…
On 04/10/2009, in Interesting people, by steve
Rob Mead – Long-way turn from Yellowstone to Seattle
I put passion into
everything I did...
What were you dreaming of becoming when you were a kid?
Actually… I did not dream of anything in particular. I put passion into everything I did, wanted to be good in what I did… I always felt that life was going in a good direction and I just went with it.
What made you become part of the aviation family?
The blame for that goes to the US Air Force. By pure chance I ended up flying in the back of RC135s and never looked back since. I knew right from the start that flying was the pladce to be for me. Still feel the same way.
Click here to read the full article
SWIM, the external enabler – now read the book!
On 28/09/2009, in SWIM, by steve
Towards the end of the SESAR definition phase the airspace users in Europe presented a paper, arguing that System Wide Information Management (SWIM) was in fact external to air traffic management and as such, its implementation could and should happen at its own rate matched to the need to ensure mximised, early benefits.
The reasoning behind this argument was that SWIM could generate major efficiency benefits by improving situational awareness and decision making even in a basically legacy system and hence its implementation should not be tied to more advanced air traffic management developments slated for later years only.
Although the document has not been updated in the past year and parts of it have now been possibly superceeded, it still contains valuable information for those engaged in the definition and scoping of SWIM. The document as such is not an official position from the airspace users even if the content had originally been thoroughly discussed with their representatives. SInce it had been presented in an open meeting, it should now be considered as being in the public domain and we are pleased to share it with our readers for the benefit of the SWIM community.
Click on SWIM DOC to download your copy.
(Before) all else fails… read the Concept! Part 2.
On 23/09/2009, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
What is a net-centric system?
Net-centric, in its most common definition, refers to “participation as a part of a continuously evolving, complex community of people, devices, information and services interconnected by a communications network to optimise resource management and provide superior information on events and conditions needed to empower decision makers.” It will be clear from the definition that “net-centric” does not refer to a network as such. It is a term that covers all elements constituting the environment referred to as “net-centric”.
Exchanges between members of the community are based not on cumbersome individual interfaces and point to point connections but a flexible network paradigm that is never a hindrance to the evolution of the net-centric community. Net-centricity promotes a “many-to-many” exchange of data, enabling a multiplicity of users and applications to make use of the same data which in itself extends way beyond the traditional, predefined and package oriented data set while still being standardized sufficiently to ensure global interoperability. The aim of a net-centric system is to make all data visible, available and usable, when needed and where needed, to accelerate and improve the decision making process.
(Before) all else fails… read the Concept! Part 1.
On 22/09/2009, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
The birth of the SESAR Concept of Operations (CONOPS), perhaps not unexpectedly, was not an easy process. Although SESAR is claimed to be a user-driven project, when the airspace users tried to drive the development of the CONOPS, the road proved to be anything but smooth. Plenty of natural and artificial obstacles had to be negotiated before the final product was crafted and pronounced airworthy. In the end, the CONOPS had turned out to be much more than the usual representation of the smallest common denominator, agreed and supported by most, criticized by others.
Now, some two years after version 1 of the CONOPS saw the light of day, we still see a worrisome degree of misunderstanding, hesitation and claimed or actual ignorance persist around the concept. Apparently, some people just continue with legacy thinking, pleading ignorance that there is any direction being set that is relevant to them. Ignoring the guidance encapsulated in the CONOPS or giving it a new interpretation not in line with what was originally intended represents a grave danger to the effectiveness of the new air traffic management system and the SESAR project itself.
In this article, I will try to clarify a number of issues still burning around the CONOPS, answering also questions which have been put to us in recent months. Some items may appear trivial to those who have been involved in the SESAR definition phase but will be useful to our worldwide readers many of whom are innocent when it comes to any phase of SESAR.
SWIM in the USA
On 17/09/2009, in SWIM, by ahmad and lesley FAA
System Wide Information Management (SWIM) is an advanced technology program designed to facilitate greater sharing of Air Traffic Management (ATM) system information such as airport operational status, weather information, flight data, status of special use airspace, and National Air Space 
(NAS) restrictions. SWIM will support current and future NAS programs by providing flexible and secure information management architecture for sharing NAS information. SWIM will use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware and software to support a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) that will facilitate the addition of new systems and data exchanges, and increase common situational awareness.
How did SWIM originate?
EUROCONTROL initially presented the SWIM concept to the FAA in 1997, where it has been under development ever since. In 2005, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Global Air Traffic Management (ATM) Operational Concept adopted the SWIM concept to promote information-based ATM integration. SWIM is now part of development projects in both the United States (NextGen) and the European Union (Single European Sky ATM Research – SESAR).
Standing all together… separately?
On 16/09/2009, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
Reading the upbeat communication from the SESAR Joint Undertaking (SJU) announcing the arrival of the airspace users on board the project, it may be worthwhile to take a look at the composition of the new arrivals and start worrying… just a tad mind you but still. There are individual airlines, both big and small and associations ranging from giant IATA to IAOPA (much smaller but with significant influence) and a consortium coordinated by EBAA. Diversity is nice but who exactly will be the conductor of this orchestra?
In the past one of the strengths of the airspace users was in their ability to speak with a common voice. This common voice in Europe came from IATA (mainly on technical matters) and from AEA (on the political level). Achieving the common voice was not easy and sometimes downright impossible but at least while there was disagreement, no cacophony of diverse tunes was allowed to fill the auditorium.
Scientific elite joins SESAR
On 18/08/2009, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
Twelve renowned scientists have been signed up to create the new Scientific Committee of the SESAR Joint Undertaking. The Committee will deal with all scientific aspects of the work programme and will focus on:
• the scientific analysis of SESAR from different angles: economics, human factors, statistics, mathematics, computer science, physics, technology;
• the liaison between SESAR and the academic and scientific communities across Europe including education of the future “SESAR interested engineers & scientists”; and
• the scientific value of the SESAR results.
The list of personalities is impressive and covers institutions situated all over Europe.
At the cradle of SWIM
SWIM, well the name that is, was born in the early morning on a misty February day in a hotel room in Luxemburg. It was 1998.The abbreviation of System Wide Information Management, SWIM has now become an integral element of both SESAR and NextGen, the air traffic management development projects in Europe and the USA, respectively. Getting here was not easy.
Following the publication of the first issues of the European ATM Operational Concept Document (OCD) and the ATM Strategy for 2000+ it was felt that the wide-ranging and informal discussions that can take place at a workshop would generate valuable additional information to feed subsequent editions of those documents. The workshop took place in February 1998 in Luxemburg.
The air was pregnant with the need to do something about the horribly inefficient manner the sea of information generated by and consumed in air traffic management was being handled.
Net-centric air traffic management system explained
On 11/08/2009, in Buzzwords explained, by steve
Net-centric, in its most common definition, refers to “participation as a part of a continuously evolving, complex community of people, devices, information and services interconnected by a communications network to optimise resource management and provide superior information on events and conditions needed to empower decision makers.” It will be clear from the definition that “net-centric” does not refer to a network as such. It is a term that covers all elements constituting the environment referred to as “net-centric”.
Exchanges between members of the community are based not on cumbersome individual interfaces and point to point connections but a flexible network paradigm that is never a hindrance to the evolution of the net-centric community. Net-centricity promotes a “many-to-many” exchange of data, enabling a multiplicity of users and applications to make use of the same data which in itself extends way beyond the traditional, predefined and package oriented data set while still being standardised sufficiently to ensure global interoperability. The aim of a net-centric system is to make all data visible, available and usable, when needed and where needed, to accelerate and improve the decision making process.
Are we doing enough?
On 10/08/2009, in Viewpoint, by steve
Aviation Week and Space Technology, in their August 3 issue’s Market Focus commentary painted a very bleak picture of the US and European aerospace industry’s future. Referring to developments in China, they postulated that the 2010s may well be the last decade of US and European pre-eminence in the sector. This came on top of TIME magazines July 20 cover story “Generation Disappointment” by-lined: “Badly paid, unemployed and going nowhere. Why young Europe has so little to smile about.”
Only one of the stories is specifically about aviation but when a major magazine writes about “the broken hopes of a generation”, we should listen.
Air traffic management is not isolated from the troubles of the aerospace industry nor from the qualities, motivation and attitudes of the young people who will be entering the job market in coming years, some of whom might chose aviation and ATM in particular as the place to be.
Will they come because of the prospects and cutting edge nature of ATM or just because there is little else? Are we doing enough to make sure the reason is the former?
