| Air travel can be extremely dangerous. The use of radar technology has made piloting airplanes and managing air traffic in our nation's skies safer. Radar technology provides controllers with more information, more precise data, and faster, than traditional pilot voice communications alone would provide. Radar technology has allowed air traffic controllers to manage more airplanes in a much safer environment than prior to the advent of radar. Air traffic in the United States has gradually increased over the past several years since September 11, 2001, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) projects this growth to continue. To manage the increase in air traffic, the FAA reduced the separation distance between aircraft within radar control to not less than five miles, and in some cases, three miles between airplanes. However, wireless communications' industry has recently required an increased use of the radio spectrum to satisfy the user demand for emerging technologies. This increased use of and further demand for more radio spectrum, now used by air traffic control, may reduce the efficiency and capacity of the national airspace system. Can air traffic controllers manage air traffic safely and maintain required separation distances given the encroachment of wireless technologies in air traffic control radio spectrum?;U.S. Government studies show that wireless technologies, when operating on the same radio frequency as air traffic control radars, induce lost or corrupt radar data. This study examined how controllers use ground-based radar and transponder system data and whether lost or corrupt data would make a difference in managing air traffic. Additionally, this study uncovered how technical specialists support the air traffic mission in terms of radar data. This project used an ethnographic method of inquiry, including observations of, and interviews with, participants in an air route traffic control center. The results of this ethnographic study can provide the basis for other studies on interference to radar used for air traffic control. This research also forms the basis for further study on how corrupt or lost radar data affects air traffic controllers' ability to track aircraft. |
