ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 17, 1997 TAG: 9701170069
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHICAGO
SOURCE: Associated Press
You have up to 40 blips - representing airplanes traveling hundreds of miles an hour - crawling across your radar screen when the computer goes DING! Suddenly you lose the information that helps you guide those blips safely through the sky.
``That's the time when your heart stops,'' said air traffic controller Bryan Zilonis. ``It's like driving down the highway and your windshield goes completely black. You know the road is out there; you know the cars are out there; you just don't know where.''
The Federal Aviation Administration hopes to end such nightmares - and the resulting delays for travelers - with new computer systems like one unveiled Thursday at the nation's busiest air traffic control center.
``The equipment we are dedicating today is an important measure of our success,'' acting FAA Administrator Linda Hall Daschle said during a ceremony at the Aurora center 36 miles southwest of Chicago. ``It replaces that balky old display computer that controllers have worked with for the past 25 years.''
The new system is the first of five being installed at regional control centers where periodic breakdowns of 1960s-era computers have disrupted air travel in recent years - including 23 outages in 1995.
The next system will go to Dallas-Fort Worth in March, with others to follow in New York, Washington and Cleveland.
The computers process radar and such other data as plane speed, altitude, weather conditions and conflict alerts that help controllers make decisions.
At the Chicago-area center, which scans 120,000 square miles of sky, outages force delays from coast to coast, including Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
Zilonis said Chicago's breakdowns frequently happened at the end of a heavy traffic period, when it was possible for controllers to juggle duties and use backup systems.
``You're doing everything you can, but when it's all over you just thank whoever you can that everything worked out,'' said Zilonis, a 10-year veteran controller.
The new system is capable of processing 6.5 million instructions per second, compared with 1.2 million on the old system. It also operates two parallel systems, so that if one fails the other can take over, the FAA said.
A modernized air traffic control system is scheduled to be installed nationwide starting next year, with work continuing through 2003, but the repeated breakdowns forced the FAA to act more quickly.
The equipment for the five centers is expected to cost about $3.1 million less than the budgeted $63.4 million, Daschle said.
LENGTH: Medium: 56 linesby CNB