US Transpo Sec wants air traffic control rebuild in 3 years, asks Congress for blank check US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has unveiled an ambitious plan to yank American air traffic control systems out of the 1960s - and he wants Congress to fund the whole project up front so it doesn't get derailed by political wind shifts. Air traffic control systems managed by the Federal Aviation Administration are a …
And, Former Transportation Chair Bill Schuster did say of Duffy: he's "committed to [...] President Trump [including] slashing regulations to get projects moving [...] for key priorities of Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk".
That's probably why his vacuous 8-page plan (linked under "proposal") is so thin on details, timelines, and costs -- it mostly just underlines the importance of initatives that the FAA has already undertaken, and are currently in progress (frankly, they would go faster with continued support rather than constant DOGE-style mangling, such as the 400 FAA layoffs, and other interference). Not bad though for a former MTV and ESPN Winnebago show star hunk!
This blank check carte blanche request is another one of these chummy no-bid-oriented law-skirting schemes aimed at funneling public funds to loyal buddies without the required scrutiny in terms of conflict-of-interest, among others, imho. It's par for the Orange course if you would, Orange SOP ...
It is a great idea in theory. In reality they are "decalcifying" by firing anybody they don't like and everybody who doesn't conform (ie not white and male). People might not like "DEI" or affirmative action programs, but hiring people who only say that Trump is the Pope is not the solution to anything.
I would agree with you if it was anything but the MAGA cabal. Authorising the spend all up front sounds nice and all, but it also lends itself for a quick get-rich scheme that will then miraculously run over budget and will require more spending, and some more, and yet more again...
But yet, dragging the FAA (well, ATC in particular) into the 21st century would probably be much appreciated by the aviation community. Of course, one would hope that they actually test stuff with real ATC controllers to make sure the new stuff doesn't induce higher stress levels instead of lowering them, because ATC controllers are leaving at a somewhat worrying rate.
They'll probably mix some cloud, blockchain and AI and work a way to get SpaceX involved and, trillions later, we will have something... different, at least.
(no, I didn't bother reading the details; all I need to know about Drumpf and gang's spending is the cuts to science and the increase in spending in golden trinkets.)
"They'll probably mix some cloud, blockchain and AI and work a way to get SpaceX involved and, trillions later, we will have something... different, at least."
An engineer would look at what can be done today with tech that's available today. No science projects, no "cutting edge" approach. It would also make sense to define a few (small, medium, large, gigantic) templates so teams could go in, suss all the places where things need to go and get busy with teams working 3-shifts. The money does need to be allocated and available so the contractors get paid on time/in-full as they complete milestones. Net 180 days and check stoppages every time there's some political posturing is going to chase job bidders away and the rest will increase their bids to compensate for having to wait 6 months to get paid from the date of invoice/inspection. 3 years is aggressive and probably not achievable since you can't hire people for this work the same as hiring people to make pizzas. Calibration and qualification is very technical and skilled work. It must be done perfectly and that takes time.
I've spent some time thinking about this.
Background: I spent 30 years or so in my youth in the aerospace business, programming, testing, supporting, etc, etc,etc. I saw some things that were well done and many more that weren't. That was a long time ago. But I don't think things have changed all that much. So, some highly opinionated conclusions.
1. These dudes look to be amateurs. Odds are that, given the opportunity, they will make most or all of the amateur mistakes. Given that ATC has proven in the past to be a huge challenge for people who might in some cases have had some clue what they were doing, I suspect that the chances of success here are somewhere between Slim and None.
2. I don't see that up full up front funding is necessary. In point of fact, continuing to throw money into floundering/doomed projects seems to me to be far more common than failing to adequately fund worthy efforts. But what do I know?
3. If they do insist on full up front funding, the payout should be contingent on meeting milestones. Tranch 1 is paid when an acceptable requirements document has been agreed to. Tranch 2 when a usable design spec exists, etc, etc, etc.
4. IMHO, the first step, and it would be cheap, would be to have one of the Federal Contract Resaerch Centers (FCRC) RAND, MITRE, et. al. review the ATC situation. What is/are the problem(s)? Why have previous attempts to upgrade failed? What, if anything, can be learned/salvaged from previous attempts? What really needs to be done? My GUESS is that such a study would take 18 months or two years, cost maybe 10-20 million dollars, and MIGHT actually work.
5. While I share the skepticism of many Reg readers about AI, and I think 80% of the bs we are being fed on the subject is nonsense, vaporware and outright lies, AI does indeed sort of work and can probably help out in some areas. Specifically, it can probably help make information available to designers. It can almost certainly help generate the extensive data bases that will likely be needed to adopt the system to individual airports. It can probably produce or help produce the probably voluminous user documentation that will be needed. And it can probably help train the controllers in use of the new system.
6. Since Air Traffic Control is an important safety issue, there needs to be a fully independent review/test organization focused on making sure the system fails safe when it fails. Independent means that it's done be a competent separate contractor who doesn't build any part of the system and has no reason to pull punches about problems it observes.
"6. Since Air Traffic Control is an important safety issue, there needs to be a fully independent review/test organization focused on making sure the system fails safe when it fails. Independent means that it's done be a competent separate contractor who doesn't build any part of the system and has no reason to pull punches about problems it observes."
The "Devil's Advocate Department" is key. An independent engineering group that reviews the systems and reports back to the FAA with their assessment and any concerns that need to be addressed. It adds cost in a worst case scenario, but it can save enormous amounts of money if it catches a big WTF or a contractor that's cutting corners to maximize their profit.
When I was in aerospace, I spent the last couple of years as the safety officer in addition to managing avionics. I had to keep thinking about "what if" and encouraging others to think that way as well. Along with the engineering manager, we received a lot of nice feedback from the 45th Space Wing at the Cape and from our FAA overseers on the documentation we sent them. It pays to keep ahead of their concerns.
They already started handing it over to the AI, that's why we are in this mess ( I told you guys to avoid US airspace when they handed it over, and fired most air traffic controllers).
They will give it to the x bot and pocket the blood money. We are dealing with career criminals and frauds. It's what they do. Crime.
Bollox, mate. The decay in US air traffic systems has been going on for decades, and if you're looking for a trigger point, that would be when a pea-brained Hollywood actor fired a whole load of air traffic controllers back in 1981, and the system never really recovered from that. It might have, but Covid effectively repeated the body blow of losing a lot of experienced staff. And once talent walks out the door, it rarely walks back in. And rebuilding from the inside is sloooooowwwww.
I know an air traffic controller, he had to memorize all sorts of stuff not only about the airport he works at but a host of airports all around the region they're responsible for. He rattled off this long stuff of categories of stuff they have to instantly recall and my eyes glazed over long before he stopped talking. Plus they have to keep in their memory all the planes they are responsible for at the moment, knowing their heading, altitude and so forth. But it makes sense because you can't go looking stuff up in a handbook or asking a colleague when you're directing one airplane to change altitude to maintain distance from another while simultaneously instructing a plane which runway to take at another and handing off a third to other air traffic airspace. He said it took about three years from the time he began his training to the time when he was a "full member" of the team.
You're constantly multitasking, and you have to plan your breaks ahead of time and coordinate with your coworkers for them. No time to take a few minutes of mental break to chit chat about your day or whatever like most of us do, even though of us who nominally prefer to work alone without distraction. Definitely not a job for everyone.
"they have to keep in their memory all the planes they are responsible for at the moment"
Which works until that controller falls over dead from a heart attack. Or has to use the toilet. Hence the use of flight progress strips or an electronic equivalent*.
*Maintaining the capability of reverting to the paper system in the event the automation goes T.U. Not that we'd ever expect that to happen.
"This mess is all Biden's fault."
and Obama, Clinton, Bush (with and without onions), etc. Every President that's kicked the can down the road is responsible.
So many politicians have lost sight of basic infrastructure on their way to being a SJW. The Roads Must Roll.
Oh. now the executive recognises that congress aportions funding for federal agencies.
Am currently watching latest Legal Eagle (featuring Liz Dye) on YouTube - general tone is Project 2025 is using Trump seizing control of the spending (and not spending it on anything) as means to reach their ends.
I'm sure they've had a lot of 'expert' input from the tech bros about all the wonderful easy improvements that could be done to this legacy gear.
The sad reality is that ATC systems are exotic stuff on a par with avionics (if anything much worse due to uptime and other factors), and the engineering required is not trivial. And there are a lot of things you don't use and don't do because your performance and reliability requirements are on a level the average techy type probably can't even start to comprehend. Something like VOIP for example can be a non-starter.
Doubtless the plan is to try to go quick, cheap COTS on the basis of 'how hard can it be?' and it'll go badly wrong and those responsible won't even begin to understand why.
And it's not like you can afford to blow it all up a few times and claim it was all useful tests, or spend years with it maybe working under endless beta; if this stuff is in service it has to work, first time and every time.
You just know that some of the chancers/self proclaimed geniuses will have stuck their noses into this despite having zero clue and this not being a realm where their bluffs can work.
"You just know that some of the chancers/self proclaimed geniuses will have stuck their noses into this despite having zero clue and this not being a realm where their bluffs can work."
Cough...'bigballs'...cough!
But it's all OK, he'll know everything there is to know about 'agile techniques', so it'll be done fast and quickly (three years, hah six months max, promise), yes stuff will break (and alas in this case there will be mid-air collisions and lots of people will die; but that's a small price to pay for Musk to make more money! Yes?
Cynic, me, absolutely not, why would you even think that?
Continuity is vital. On one of the recent Newark outages, the cause was reported a bad electrical connection on a piece of equipment that had just passed its EOL date. So actually, one essential job is just keep up with the maintenance of the current system, as unsexy as that is. Then they need to add in new replacement systems, while keeping the old ones as backup for a year or so while bugs are worked out.
"Then they need to add in new replacement systems, while keeping the old ones as backup for a year or so while bugs are worked out."
For a large airport, it can make the most sense to build a new system separate from what's in place including a new tower. During commissioning, the new gear shadows the existing system for a period and when everything checks out and has been tested for all sorts of issues such as power interruptions, things are switched over late one night and the old system then shadows the new until there's the confidence to stand down the old tower which might be repurposed for security and other tasks.
ATC systems are exotic stuff
But every airport has one, or access to one. I take it there's some obvious reason I've missed why there isn't at least the framework of a standard solution waiting in the wings to be customized. Is it simply that you'd only get to sell one a decade owing to the reluctance to replace them?
"Is it simply that you'd only get to sell one a decade owing to the reluctance to replace them?"
How many votes is a politician going to get by backing a spending bill to upgrade ATC infrastructure? The body count isn't high enough for most people to care.
You can't come in, fire a bunch of people, then plan and execute a major project like that in only three years no matter how much money congress allocates. It isn't the first (or second) time they've tried to do this.
Obama signed a bill to modernize the ATC system in I think 2012, which was the result of several years of planning and winning the necessary support in congress. Supposed to be complete in five years but of course was running behind schedule and over budget, and Trump killed the effort when he was president the first time. So if there's anyone to blame for the mess we're in now, he need only look into the mirror. Of course if he hadn't killed the project that doesn't mean it would have been done by now, but it is laughable that they think they can do this in three years. Especially if they adopt a Musk style "move fast and break things" credo.
Trump talked about privatizing ATC in his first term maybe this is all a big show so they can say "look the government can't do this" and they'll privatize it so we can have the same broken system we have today but pay three times as much for it - gotta pay those executive bonuses and stock options after all!
"Obama signed a bill to modernize the ATC system in I think 2012"
If a bunch couldn't be done in 4 years, that means it was the wrong bill. It also has to be an ongoing line item on the FAA budget, not something that will take special allocations from Congress every so many years.
I don't think there's going to be the talent on the ground to do the overhauls at many airports simultaneously. There will need to be a priority list and a intention of getting each project started and completed quickly. If airport Kxxx upgrades are going to take 5 years, WTH is going on? An entire airport can be built in less time (not counting planning/approvals/budgeting).
Even "Unlimited money" might not be enough to complete the process in 3 years. ATC is pretty much the definition of a "legacy system we can't turn off in order to upgrade." That plus "do it faster than we've ever done it before" == Good luck you'll need it.
"Even "Unlimited money" might not be enough to complete the process in 3 years."
There isn't the unlimited qualified labor to work the jobs. Trenching for cable? No problem. Terminating the wires, a bit less easy. Qualifying the systems, very hard with people needing extensive qualifications. Government might do well to encourage college bound students to get engineering degrees through making loans partially compensated if they work some time on this projects with a corresponding increase in fees for those looking to get "blue hair" degrees. It will take time to grow the talent, but in the mean time, somebody pursuing a degree in electronics should be able to get a summer job working on these projects as a paid intern. Perhaps there can be some school credit given too.
"ATC is pretty much the definition of a "legacy system we can't turn off in order to upgrade." "
Building in parallel is the only way to do these upgrades. You can't turn one off to do upgrades and you can't switch over to the new system without some sort of backup, at least for a while.
"Just wondering what years not to fly."
I've given up flying altogether and drive or take the train. Of course, that's meant oceans are big barriers as there is almost nothing in the way of ship crossings. The QM2 doesn't run very often and is expensive. Anything on the Pacific?
So every radio, in everything from a Piper Cub to an Airbus A380 needs to be replaced with the new VOIP equipment? At whose expense? (And avionics tend to be really expensive because of all the testing and robustness required.) And what do you bet StarLink will be the preferred satellite provider to funnel more money to Elon Musk? What could possibly go wrong?
They aren't talking about replacing the air/ground radios with IP based equipment, they are talking about replacing the network that connects rafars, tracons and towers together with network infrastructure that people know how to maintain and you can get spare parts for.
We did that in the UK decades ago (2002).
And what do you bet StarLink will be the preferred satellite provider
I do love the concept of the US government/FAA putting all the proverbial "eggs in one basket", particularly when one of the key players happens to be Elon Musk himself.
(Sure, sure, sure. There is going to be "redundancies" in place, along with a "robust disaster recovery plan". But I seriously doubt anyone has the balls to switch to "redundancy" if someone something should happen with an exclusive Starlink-only air-to-ground comms.)
I mean, seriously, what could possibly go wrong?
"So every radio, in everything from a Piper Cub to an Airbus A380 needs to be replaced with the new VOIP equipment?"
No. Nothing in aircraft will need to be changed. It's the computers ATC is using and the communications between locations. Starlink would be a poor choice. That would put the ATC at the mercy of one Elon Musk and it's also too easy to damage that system. The satellites are hard to hit, but not the ground stations. If the SHTF, everybody and their pet snakes would immediately get online and start publishing their theories on the situation which would likely slow Starlink down to a trickle and more so if ground stations have been deleted.
Similar issues addressed in this investigation from 1996.
https://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-text/ntsb/special-investigation-reports/SIR96-01.pdf
Nothing good happens when you fire some of the people who repair the existing ATC systems:
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/02/20/some-of-400-jobs-were-cut-faa-helped-support-air-safety-union-says.html
"https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/02/20/some-of-400-jobs-were-cut-faa-helped-support-air-safety-union-says.html"
I'd never take a job with a 1-2 year probationary period. What's up with that? It doesn't take into account somebody new that's taken over the role of somebody that's been in place for a couple of decades and retired/died/quit.
If there are techs and mechanics that are sat on their backside all day, most days, that's a sign there's too many of them. If they can't do any other work due to union rules, that would be a good place to apply some mace. If there is no mechanic that can fix something right away, that can be highly safety critical and could bring air travel in a whole region to a halt. If you planned to go to Atlanta, re-routing to Nashville is a PIA.
I thought that too, so I looked it up, Wiki says in the US it was Air Men, then changed to Air Missions but that change itself ended this year presumably because of Mr Fart.
Here in the UK it's supposedly a "Notice to Aviation" but that doesn't account for the M. I assume that it a typo and it's "Notice to Animation" so presumably Nick Park is on the cc: list.
I fully recommend the report, https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/2025-05/Brand%20New%20Air%20Traffic%20Control%20System%20Plan.pdf if only for the pics. I actually have that fan!
I don't want to be dismissive, but I would be impressed if they replaced one airport's complete systems in a mere 3 years. Even with existing tech it would be a challenge, but going for 'state of the art' is, as Sir Humphrey Appleby might say, 'ambitious'. And if ATC is in a bad way, what about ground traffic control systems?
However, I wish them luck.
Now, where did I put that Cunard brochure?
"Now, where did I put that Cunard brochure?"
If you have 8 days you can spend on a ship and can plan 6 months plus in advance, sure, the Queen Mary 2 is quite nice. I've seen adventure travelers manage to hitch a lift on cargo ships and have always wondered about how to do that. It's not much cheaper, there's no buffet, casino or gala shows, but lots of ships so timing is much easier. Where's Michael Palin when you need him?
They are the ones that should be picking up the tab on this. They're the ones making billions every quarter off the system
I'm fucking tired of paying for every corporation to make bank when all they do is shutdown in country manufacturing so they can pay themselves bonuses and dividends.
Maybe we need more United Healthcare target practice to teach Wall St. that their shit stinks too.
Strangely in communismist Britain, the ATC was privatised and is owned by the airlines.
This means that if more investment would make the system more efficient and make money for the airlines they can do it - without it requiring an act of God Congress and permission from the bond market
"They are the ones that should be picking up the tab on this. They're the ones making billions every quarter off the system"
They are and they aren't, respectively.
There are fees airlines pay for each landing. Take-offs are still free. After it was de-regulated in the US, the business is so cut throat that airlines don't make much money even where the execs are hauling in fat sacks of compensation. It's usual for airlines to declare bankruptcy periodically to clear their books.
Shirley it's up to the indivisual States to get their "local" ATC in order and modernise it all. I'm sure 50 small, independent ATCs will work much better than a "wasteful" Federally budgeted one and will all interoperate smoothly. Smaller government is what they voted for, yes?
I've upvoted, but I do fear that the sarcasm may well be lost.
But I must say I thought that the accidental typo 'indivisual states' was most appropriate. Presumably these are states that can't see each other. Just what you need for an ATC system!
Yeah, iiuc smaller gov means outsourcing and privatization through friendly outfits owned by counter-revolutionary loyalist billionaires, no-bid contracted for-profit to re-hire laid-off fed workers as temps, overhaul FAA for continued Starlink dividends (this proposed blank check), push FEMA and associated "space weather" management to States (for a lesser ability to negotiate with relief providers, especially housing), and so forth ...
It's so brilliant it glows Orange ... (and chihuahuas!)
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