Air Traffic Control: Upgrading for the 21st Century - Essay Sample

Introduction

Air traffic control for over four decades has been using the same system of traffic management, but with this era, many things have changed drastically and keep on changing. The number of trips and the number of aircraft has also increased exponentially. With these changes, the old system cannot keep up, thus leading to the frequent delays of flights and congestion at airports. A new system has to be incorporated to cope with these changes and the technological advancement of this era and thus the birth of free fall. In this research, we are going to review what is free-fall system and also its advantages and disadvantages.

The Air Traffic Management System (ATM) or commonly referred to as Air Traffic Control (ATC) is an air control system that was first used in London 1920, at Croydon airport. (Kaminski, 2020). The system is centrally based with a control tower at the airport where the controller is located. The main tasks of ATC are ensuring spacing and interval of all aircraft in his/her section to avoid a collision, initiating and maintaining orderly processing of air crafts. In this system, the controller does everything. At the same time, the pilots are passive and only follow the commands and direction given by the controller if the pilot wishes to change for example a route he/she must seek for permission and await clearance from the controller to change the way (Hoekstra, 2001).

The ATC faces a lot of challenges such as communication problems where the air controller has to listen to every word the pilot says, lousy weather and voice communication affects the communication efficiency. The constant delays, frequency congestion, limitations of the air controller to handle massive traffic, ATC also creates fuel inefficiencies. (Donciu & Octavian, 2009).

For 20 years, according to the FAA, the ATC will be phased out gradually and replaced with a less human-based system referred to as free flight. The main aim of this system is to reduce the centrally based control system and Contrary to ATC with this new system, the pilot reserves more freedom and control in modifying the routes and avoiding conflicts in real-time. For free-fall technology to be a reality, according to Ronald Azuma of HRL laboratories, there needs to be updated conflict resolution detection technology and development of resolution and visualisation tools to support the existing technology. (Azuma, Neely III, Daily, & Geiss, 2000).

Advantages of Free Flight

Minimise Accidents

According to plane crash info 2013 almost half of all air-related accidents are caused by human error for example on September 13, 1997, in Namibia there was an alleged mid-air collision in the Atlantic involving the US and German planes that claimed the lives of 33 people. The US AC.141B plane had nine occupants en route from Namibia to Ascension Island, while the German TU-154M was en route from Germany to South Africa. This followed an inquiry by the United States air force that concluded that faulty air traffic controls operations in Namibia and Angola contributed to the crash. With free flight technology, pilots can choose the routes instead of using the prescribed ways; hence planes will spread over the air space reducing conflicts such as the Namibia air collision.

Fuel Conservation

According to data by statica.com, the total fuel consumption of fuel by commercial airlines globally in 2005 was 68 billion gallons, which rose by 30 billion gallons for 14 years to 98 billion gallons in 2019. With this information going by a standard or average price of 2 dollars per gallon, the data shows that globally commercial airlines consume 196 billion dollars' worth of fuel. While this amount is likely to rise as the FAA recorded more and more people travelling using air with an increase of 7% annually. With free flight technology, fuel conservation is arrived at by increasing the efficiency of the aeroplanes; thus, the industry would be able to save around 3.5 billion dollars. (Barber & Morall, 1983).

Reduce Congestion

According to data research on passenger travels on the busiest airports conducted by the airports' Authority Council International (ACI) on their website the top busiest international airport of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta in the US recorded a passenger total of 1.07 million passengers in the year 2018 that used the airport. With this kind of traffic generated by the airport, it's not unusual to find a large number of passengers stranded daily due to delays caused by aircraft. Naturally, to prevent the collision or to comprise situations, planes usually observe the "separation minima" of 9 km horizontally and 300 metres vertically (Russel, 1995). Takeoff and landing depend on the sequence and spacing application that is usually done by the operating personnel at the airport, with flight free technology a new method in stopping and reducing the gridlock in the skies and landing delays. Therefore, this application lead, in the long run, reducing the congestion at the busiest airports, hence faster movement of passengers.

Reduce Carbon Dioxide Emission

The aviation industry is one of the rising sectors in worldwide carbon dioxide emission, though it only contributes to about 2% of all emissions globally. The international council on clean transportation estimated that in 2018, the aviation industry contributed to over 900million tons of gases, which is a rise of over 30%. According to the United Nations body mandated with environmental impacts, this is a 70% rise faster than earlier estimates. This number is likely to rise factoring that airbus an aircraft production company which estimates that the number of aircraft would increase to a double of 48,000 planes globally. According to carbon independent.org calculations it was calculated that a total value of about 250kg of carbon dioxide is emitted in one hour of travel. Factoring in that with free flight travels to Europe from the states will be reduced by 10 minutes according to an article by the economist newspaper, thus if 10 minutes of travel are squashed that is 42kg of carbon emission reduced per flight quite a significant amount. We can also go further to try to estimate and calculate globally per day, going with the numbers provided by the federal aviation administration sourcebook of air traffic by numbers of 2019, the FAA offers services to a daily total of over 44,000 flights. Assuming that al flight reduce 42kg per flight as established earlier, taking the total number of flights by the reduced emission it leads to a staggering slash of about 1800 tons of carbon emission daily if all planes are fitted with the free flight technology.

Eliminate the Need for Air Controllers

The federal aviation association in its annual report 2019 of air traffic by numbers it estimates the number of air traffic controllers by numbers to be at more than 14,000 was an increase of one and a half from the previous year. With the implementation of the free flight mode technology, this number would almost be halved or even erase the need for air controllers, which would, in turn, save the federal government of the United States and estimate of about 5 billion dollars in a year.

Disadvantages of Using Free Flight

Expensive to Implement

One of the biggest hindrance of free flight implementation it's the cost of the technology to install. However, no estimates have been made of the cost of the equipment it could run from several hundreds of thousands that could spiral upwards. The cost could discourage small plane owners who with the technology would have been able to access large airports in times adverse conditions such as bad weather.

Unsafe

One of the critical barriers to the implementation of free flight technology is the issue of establishing whether the system is safe, as nothing can guarantee safety. One would argue that implementing available flights in rea sense doesn't provide security as ultimately it's still controlled by humans, as it only hands over more control to the pilot that has been stripped from the air controller. Also with accompanied with the uncertainty of technological failure, especially in the aviation industry that is usually catastrophic when an accident occurs, leads to a hesitation in the implementation of free flight technology.

Loss of Jobs

The aviation industry according to data by the FAA employs around 14,000 air traffic controllers, and like in any industry when it comes to implementing or incorporating technology in the industry or organisation it usually translates to the loss of jobs and lively hoods, the aviation industry being no exception. With free flights technology, the need for air traffic controllers would be almost halved and gradually would be faced out to become part of history.

Conclusion

We are living in a technological era, and it's hard to believe that with all these technological advances even with the aircraft themselves that if not almost air controllers at airports use an outdated 60-year-old control system. The system creates delays as it limits the number of planes the controller can handle, and with the world going green with new ideas of environmental conservation, the system creates fuel inefficiencies. With free flight technology, the delays and congestion at airports will be a thing of the past and hence should be fast-tracked to face out the ATC system.

References

Azuma, R., Neely, H., Daily, M., & Geiss, R. (2000). Visualization tools for free flight air-traffic management. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 20(5), 32-36.

Barber, D., & Morall, J. C. (1983). fuel conservation and economy constraints.

DONCIU, B., & PLETER, O. T. (2011). Free flight vs. centralized air traffic management. INCAS Bulletin, 3(4), 67-75.

Kaminski, D. M. (2020, February 25). colourised images mark centenary of worlds first control tower. flight global.

Rector, R. H. (1995). Enemy Course of Action Prediction: Can We, Should We?. ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLL FORT LEAVENWORTH KS SCHOOL OF ADVANCED MIL ITARY STUDIES