I’m No Longer From The Government, And I’m Here To Help

There is an actual, credible move underway to privatize air-traffic control (ATC) – a long-overdue move to modernize a system where government’s hide-bound, politically-driven intellectual sclerosis isn’t merely slow, annoying and exquisitely expensive, but directly threatens lives:

Air-traffic control (ATC) is operated by the Federal Aviation Administration and funded by a combination of aviation taxes and a subsidy from general revenues. Ever since the Reagan administration, the FAA has been trying to modernize the ATC system, taking advantage of new technology to unclog the congested airways. Yet the system still relies on 1960s technology: radar instead of GPS to keep track of planes, paper flight strips with handwritten changes instead of electronic data on controllers’ screens, and unreliable voice radio instead of digital communication. Tens of billions have been spent on new computer systems and minor technology upgrades, but three decades of reports by the GAO and the Department of Transportation’s inspector general have documented repeated cost overruns and late deliveries and an ever-receding target date for true modernization.

The push isn’t new:

Dating back to Reagan’s transportation secretary, Jim Burnley, a growing consensus has emerged that air-traffic control is better viewed as a 24/7 high-tech service business than as a tax-funded, federally subsidized bureaucracy. National commissions, think-tank reports, and industry studies have all reached this conclusion, but reform efforts have gotten nowhere in Congress — until this year. In February, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee passed a bill that would remove the Air Traffic Organization (the operational arm of the FAA) from the FAA and reconstitute it as a self-funded, nonprofit, private company. It would be governed by a board representing all segments of aviation and regulated for safety — at arm’s length — by the remaining FAA, just as that agency regulates airports, airlines, and private pilots.

Read the entire article – which notes that many of the other nations that both the left and right admire have done the same, with great success (and arrested and diminishing cost (!) in recent years.

And then stop and think – where else would this work?

Posted

May 2, 2016

Capitalism v Socialism, Conservatism

Mitch Berg

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Comments

14 responses to “I’m No Longer From The Government, And I’m Here To Help”

bosshoss429

May 2, 2016

One of the dumbest moves Bush made was creating another ineffective, bureaucratic gubmint entity in the TSA.
Joe Doakes

May 2, 2016

Lack of innovation occurs because the federal government takes over something and freezes it. The written test for ham radio operator was full of build-your-own-radio electronics questions that would have been cutting edge in the 1940’s leavened by obscure FCC regulation questions, little relevant to getting ON the air. The written test for Sport Pilot was full of aerodynamics questions that would have been cutting edge in the 1940’s, plus obscure FAA regulations, little relevant to getting IN the air.

The book says the four forces of flight are thrust, gravity, lift and drag but pilots joke the last one is “FAA.” Getting FAA out of the ATC business might be good for airlines; I question whether it would be good for general aviation (little airplanes, Cessna’s and Pipers), which is the feeder program for airline pilots plus a lot of fun in its own right.
bikebubba

May 2, 2016

A friend of mine who works in electromagnetic compatibility notes that the very worst places he’s ever seen for EMC and EMI (EM interference) issues are control towers. You combine radars that saw action in Korea and computer systems completely cobbled together, and it’s a miracle anything works.

You’d have to do your FMEAs right and get reliability down, but even absent MIL-SPEC qualifications for the equipment, this isn’t much of a difficulty.
Ian in Iowa

May 2, 2016

I had occasion to work on ERAM during a brief stint at Lockeed-Martin in Eagan a few years ago. During my new-hire tour, I was shown how, despite the ubiquity of LCD flat-panel monitors, their lab test machine still used a proprietary 20″ square CRT. The reason I was given? The Air Traffic Controllers union had a strangehold on the requirements. Couple with some other outdated thinking when it came to software-test, and I opted to seek employment elsewhere. Two months later, an ex-girlfriend sent me a link to the Strib article about how Lockheed-Martin was closing their Eagan plant.

Here’a link indicating the ERAM has been rolled out to 20+ ARTCCs nationwide. The picture indicates that the unions must’ve finally relented on the CRT (Well, kind of– Custom aspect-ratio monitors ain’t cheap): https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/eram/
bikebubba

May 2, 2016

Ian, not just unions–when you substitute a new part, you need to redo all of your source and first article inspections, your reliability analysis, your FMEAs, and more. That’s the big question I’ve got about privatization–do you get to actually circumvent that (do you want to for ultra-high-rel?), or do you just swap out a government source inspector for a private source inspector, etc..?

So getting big CRTs is cheap compared to the alternative…in a former job, I was routinely shepherding source and first article inspections for parts designed 40 years back. Scary at times.
bosshoss429

May 2, 2016

The same ancient technology operates our power grid. It can’t be upgraded, for fear that everything will break (and actually has done so), yet power companies supposedly can’t afford to create new stuff.
nerdbert

May 2, 2016

The FAA is affected by the same problems most large companies when it comes to new software projects: nearly all have massive cost overruns and many fail. But the FAA is even more brain dead than private companies because like most government agencies because they have very few engineers in their ranks that qualify as anything other than a project manager. Very few of their engineers ever get to do actual engineering, so very few of them understand the difficulty or craziness of their specs. (I’ve explained how it was in NASA, and it’s rare there to be an engineer doing real work. It’s worse in more bureaucratic agencies like the FAA.)

It’s rare for me to be complimentary to most regulatory agencies I’ve had to deal with, but the FAA is nearly in a class by itself for mismanagement. I’m convinced it’s a dumping ground for politically connected folks who are at the whims of those they regulate.

I’ll note that this is at least the third time they’ve tried to revamp the computers controlling the flights. The first two were complete disasters, and the latest NextGen system makes the Obamacare website look bug free, but at least it’s mostly working.
Emery

May 2, 2016

Ian from Iowa: Didn’t Lockheed Martin take over flight service station ATC functions in 2005? My neighbor who is a retired ATC says LM eliminated 2/3 of the former Federal workforce and their FS21 system caused major havoc with the rest of the tower and en-route structure as LM stuck to a facility closure and consolidation schedule in the quest for an executive level bonus in summer of 2007. Better check and see how congress handled the issue for private aircraft owners and operators that use the system and how they were impacted by privatization. Again, you will be taking a job whose bottom line is safety and turn it over to companies whose bottom line is profit. What do you think the result will be again?
bikebubba

May 3, 2016

Emery, with government the bottom line is not safety. It is preservation of jobs. Honestly, how long have you been on this ball of rock and not learned this? :^)
Bill C

May 3, 2016

It would be governed by a board representing all segments of aviation and regulated for safety — at arm’s length — by the remaining FAA, just as that agency regulates airports, airlines, and private pilots.

This presumes that bureaucratic creep wouldn’t happen and the same imminently capable hands that run the TSA and Homeland Security don’t have the opportunity to touch this private organization…

No one likes their ox getting gored.
Kevin

May 3, 2016

Just to be clear about my biases. I’ve worked at Lockheed Martin for 15 years, in their air traffic control division. Over ten years of that was on Common ARTS, which until recently controlled a vast majority of air traffic in the United States at the terminal level. I’m currently working on ERAM which controls the vast majority of air traffic in the United States at the enroute level. I’ve also spent a number of years teaching air traffic controllers and technicians both on site at air traffic control facilities and at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City.

First of all, to address a rather sly implication by Ian. Lockheed Martin moving of Eagan didn’t have anything to do with any shortcomings you feel they had. As you well know (or should have), most of that building and it’s 2000 employes actually belonged to another division of Lockheed entirely (mostly naval defense work). It was only a small ~200 employees that worked in air traffic. The other division (who owned the building decided to leave Minnesota), and the air traffic division was forced to find a home elsewhere. And we are still in Eagan. If you don’t believe me drive down Corporate Center Drive, and look for the big blue Lockheed sign.

All that said, most of the shortcomings you’ve all identified are very valid. Two cynical phrases I’ve had over the years was “Solving today’s problems tomorrow, using yesterday’s technology” and “Give the FAA two choices, one of which is obviously correct, and one of which is obviously wrong, they’ll choose the wrong one every time.

Yeah, many of the systems are archaic. Some of the this is due to bureaucracy and some of it is the reality of the technology.

First, to speak to the bureaucracy. Yeah, the FAA is handicapped by being part of a political system and also handcuffed by unions. Most decisions are less technical and more political. And unions will often drag their feet on authorizing something until they get their payoff. HOWEVER, the dedication to safety is VERY real. It just takes experience and skill to navigate governmental bureaucracy. Some people are better at that than others.

Which sort of leads to the next part, is the reality of the technology. This is a safety critical system. It’s no exaggeration to say a single bug can, and has, cost lives. So there is a very real reluctance to change to something unproven. And when we do change, it needs to be tested to within an inch of it’s life. And these are very large (occasionally bloated) systems that are very complex. That requires all sorts of safety studies that often takes years to complete. As someone previously pointed out we’re just getting around to fielding GPS (in the form of ADS-B which I taught at the FAA Academy). I think the deadline for all airlines to install ADS-B equipment in their aircraft is 2020.

How much of this would improve from privatization? It’s hard to say. You still have very large systems, and you still have very powerful unions.
Ian in Iowa

May 4, 2016

Kevin,

The building I worked in was on Pilot Knob Rd. And you’re right, ERAM was only part of the work done there. If you say that Lockheed-Martin is still in Eagan, I’ll take your word for it. I haven’t lived in the Cities for 6 years now.

It wasn’t my intention to imply anything. I’ve recounted my time at Lockeed-Martin to a few people as an example of a poor career decision on my part. After leaving there, I moved permanently out of the Cities. The subsequent Strib article later confirmed to me that I had avoided being in another layoff not long after being part of a Reduction-In-Force at a Twin Cities defense contractor. Force of habit, nothing more.
Ian in Iowa

May 4, 2016

Emery: I wasn’t aware that management of the FSSes had been handed over to L-M. I last used their services back in ’03. It’s not unheard of for a “changing of the guard” to cause delays with any large system, but are the problems still there? Having the federal government take over 1/6 of the economy with the provisions of the ACA has exactly been a cakewalk either. While you malign the “profit motive”, it does serve as a good incentive for a business to operate efficiently. You’re preaching to the choir when you rail against any business that places profit above the lives of its customers, but would that happen in this instance? And just what is the incentive for the government to operate anything efficiently?
Kevin

May 5, 2016

Ian, I’m aware of what building you’re referring to. I was in that same building. And you wouldn’t have been part of any layoff situation. It wasn’t our group that was leaving Minnesota so we did no laying off. In fact we absorbed a number of people from the other Lockheed division that WAS leaving Minnesota.