DOT Says Air Traffic Overhaul Is Flawed -WP

An eight-year effort to upgrade the computers for the nation's air traffic control system is "facing obsolescence" before it has been completed, the Department of Transportation inspector general said in a report released yesterday.

A program launched in 1996 to replace aging computer displays for air traffic controllers is not expected to be completed until at least 2010 at a cost of $1.7 billion, an 81 percent increase from original projections. In some of the facilities where upgrades have been deployed, the system has been known to lose track of aircraft in flight, the report said.

The upgraded system "can have difficulty accurately tracking aircraft as they change altitude or it can drop an aircraft's flight information that should be displayed on the controller's screen," the report stated. It also said that "components being purchased today are now facing obsolescence, even though they were modern in 1996."
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The FAA said it is no longer wedded to a long-term upgrade with Raytheon Co. called STARS, short for Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System, and it is open to revamping its computer systems with other equipment, such as a system made by Lockheed Martin. Already, Raytheon, of Waltham, Mass., has received $800 million to upgrade 47 systems at the FAA and at the Department of Defense's air traffic centers. The FAA originally identified 172 systems in need of an upgrade.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20824-2004Nov29.html