Raising the Safety Margin

From Oklahoma City's Will Rogers Field one day last week, a giant Boeing roared into the air with 18 stubby antennae jutting from its fuselage. The jet that looks like a porcupine is the newest tool of the Federal Aviation Agency in its effort to check on the efficiency of the navigational aids on the nation's airways. Loaded with electronic equipment, the plane was off for its first check run at its home base, FAA's Aeronautical Center at Will Rogers Field. It will fly back and forth across the U.S., following a carefully plotted grid course, to check the strength and direction of ground-based signals, cover the entire network every 90 days.

The porcupine is not the only new plane joining the center's fleet. Soon it will have a Lockheed Electra, a Convair 880 and a Boeing 720. They will serve as flying classrooms to teach the FAA flight inspectors proper flying procedures in an effort to improve safety in the crowded air, where 11,000 planes are aloft at all times.

The new planes are all a part of a speeded-up program to put U.S. air-traffic control on a modern basis. After years of congressional neglect and feeble leadership in the Civil Aeronautics Board, the U.S. lagged so badly in airway control that the jet age has caught the nation dangerously unprepared. Until electronic devices are perfected to control the airways, the FAA must depend on humans to close the gap and to try to eliminate such tragedies as the collision over New York a fortnight ago (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

The Freezing Point. To the Aeronautical Center, FAA's chief training installation, come about 1,000 men each year for introductory training or refresher courses in installing and maintaining air navigational aids. The center is the only training school for air-traffic-control operators, currently runs 2,000 men a year through an eight-week cram course. After a brief introduction to basic operating procedures, the students are put to work controlling traffic on a scale model of Will Rogers airport laid out on a classroom floor. The instructors set up traffic problems with model airplanes, make them more complex as the students catch on, occasionally throw in a real crisis.

The atmosphere is startlingly real. Says Instructor Frank E. Tuckett, a veteran of 14 years of traffic-control experience: "We build up the pressure to such a point that the beginner freezes. You feel the presence of hundreds of people in the air and aircraft worth millions of dollars. You know it all depends on you. If you can't take the responsibility, you're out." About 20% of all beginners quit. Controllers never stop learning, must continually practice to be able to meet every emergency.

Air-traffic controllers are taught to use simple language; all use the same terms so pilots are not confused. Above all, they are never to get excited. "If a crash or emergency occurs," says the FAA manual, "you should not appear to be emotionally disturbed by it. The very act of continuing to use an efficient, competent and apparently unmoved voice will actually help you feel that way, too. It will instill confidence in others."

One big FAA problem is getting good men at the salaries FAA can pay. When a plane is being brought in during bad weather, the controller is often more responsible for the plane than the pilot. But controllers start at $4,500; the top salary is only $8,950 (v. $30,408 a year for DC-8 captains).

3-D Radar. FAA is working to eliminate the human element almost entirely and turn traffic control over to computers, is spending $200 million a year to develop an all-weather, electronically controlled system. Devices for the new system are already being developed and tested at FAA's experimental center at Atlantic City, NJ. One of the chief projects: three-dimensional radar, which, unlike present radar that shows only distance and bearing, will also show altitude. The FAA is testing an experimental 3-D radar apparatus, designed by New York's W. L. Maxson Corp., which picks up a target with a supersensitive antenna, shows one blip in the center of the screen for direction and bearing, a second blip on the edge of the screen that is calibrated with concentric rings, each representing 10,000 ft. Thus, the controller knows at a glance whether two planes are at the same altitude and in danger of collision.

All airliners carry weather radar, but the sets show only the proximity of storms and not other aircraft. The FAA soon hopes to have an automatic, lightweight anticollision device that would warn approaching planes, as in the New York crash. One possibility: Bendix Corp. has developed a collision-avoidance system that bounces signals both off neighboring aircraft and off the ground to determine an approaching aircraft's course, tells the pilot what evasive action to take. The Sperry Rand Corp. is developing a system that uses high-frequency radio-wave techniques to detect the proximity of another aircraft; Motorola, Inc. is working on an infra-red detection device that picks up the red running lights on other planes, warns the pilot of their nearness.

To cut down on delays in transmitting flight information to the ground, the FAA is testing an electronic device called the Automatic Ground-Air Communications System (AGACS). With AGACS, a recorder takes down a running record of the plane's speed, altitude and bearing. When the pilot reaches a check point, he simply presses a button and AGACS instantly transmits the flight data to an air-route traffic-control center. If the pilot is off course, he is instantly warned.

The keys to electronic control on the airways are the data-processing controls that will be set up in the major air-traffic-control centers. Into the computers will be fed the day's plans for flights originating in that area. The computers will check them, make sure none conflict, and pass the information along to computers in areas the flights will cross. As the flights progress, the computers will keep track of them, alert the controllers if any plane is failing to live up to its flight plan. The first data-processing center is scheduled to be put into limited operation by late 1962 in Boston. By 1970, when the first Mach 3 airliners are expected to come into service, the computer network will be so complete, FAA men hope, that a plane will be able to have its landing clearance even before it takes off.

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