As demands for air travel continue
to increase, so do demands for air traffic control. Given what are currently
regarded as safe separation criteria, air space over major urban areas is
already saturated, so that simply adding more airports is not acceptable (in
addition to which residents do not want more airports, with their noise and
surface traffic). The need is to reduce separations in the air, and to land aircraft
closer together or on parallel runways simultaneously. This puts much greater
demands on air traffic controllers, particularly at the terminal area radar
control centers (TRACONs), where trained operators stare at blips on radar
screens and verbally guide pilots entering the terminal airspace from various
directions and altitudes into orderly descent and landing patterns with proper
separation between aircraft.
Currently, many changes are being
introduced into air traffic control which has profound implications for
human-machine interaction. Where previously communication between pilots and
air traffic controllers was entirely by voice, now digital communication
between aircraft and ground (a system called datalink) allows both more
and more reliable two-way communication, so that weather and runway and wind
information, clearances, etc. can be displayed to pilots visually. But pilots
are not so sure they want this additional technology. They fear the demise of
the “party line” of voice communications with which they are so familiar and
which permits all pilots in an area to listen in on each other’s conversations.
New aircraft-borne radars allow
pilots to detect air traffic in their own vicinity. Improved ground based radars
detect microbursts or wind shear which can easily put an aircraft out of control.
Both types of radars pose challenges as to how best to warn the pilot and
provide guidance as to how to respond.
But they also pose a cultural
change in air traffic control, since heretofore pilots have been dependent upon
air traffic controllers to advise them of weather conditions and other air
traffic. Furthermore, because of the new weather and collision-avoidance
technology, there are current plans for radically altering the rules whereby
high-altitude commercial aircraft must stick to well-defined traffic lanes.
Instead, pilots will have great flexibility as to altitude (to find the most
favorable winds and therefore save fuel) and be able to take great-circle
routes straight to their destinations (also saving fuel). However, air traffic controllers
are not sure they want to give up the power they have had, becoming passive
observers and monitors, to function only in emergencies.
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