April 28, 2010 • 28 mins
Prompted by a listener's e-mail, Jonathan and Chris tackle the complexities of air traffic control technology in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello, everyone,
welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette and
I am an editor here and how stuff works dot Com.
(00:22):
Sitting across from me, as he always does, is senior
writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, so, uh you know we
were looking at for podcast topics too hard. Well, no,
that's true, but for a while we were kind of
up in the air on this one. Yeah, but fortunately
a listener managed to uh to to get us on
target targets. So let's go to a little listener mail.
(00:50):
This listener mail comes from Paul, and Paul says, Hi,
John and Chris, I enjoy your podcasts and those of
your associates and How stuff Works very much. I thought
this might make an intra sting topic, the technology behind
air traffic control. I was told that at one time,
and perhaps this is still true, that the US is
using very old computer technology for air traffic control and
(01:11):
that plans to upgrade the system have been bogged down
for decades. But appreciate your insight into this. Thank you.
So much for keeping me entertained over long hours in
my car. Paul. Alright, Paul, Well, we're gonna talk a
little bit about air traffic control and what goes into
keeping everybody safe up in the skies and uh, well,
to talk about the old technologies. It's true that a
(01:33):
lot of the technology used in air traffic control has
been around for for a while. Um, there are plans
to eventually automate the system, but that still not here yet. Yeah. Yeah,
I don't know why he'd be concerned about that. I mean,
it's not like fifty thou planes are in the air
every day over the United States. Wait, oh wait, yes
(01:57):
they are on a good day. Um. Yeah. The the
automated thing, well, I'll go ahead and get this all
the way first. One of the there's several reasons why
it would take a while to move to a fully
automated system. One is that while you're upgrading to the
fully automated system, the existing system would have to continue
to operate. Because it's not like we can just say,
(02:18):
you know what, we're gonna take a i don't know
six months and not fly all right, you guys look
out for yourselves out there. Well yeah, we're gonna paint
all the planes a bright day glow pink or green
and uh and yeah, good best of luck. Now that
that's not the way it's gonna that's not the way
it can work. So obviously, if you're going to to
(02:39):
upgrade a system as huge as the air traffic control
system is, and we'll get into how big it is
in a minute, um, then it's gonna take a lot
of time, and you're gonna have to you're gonna have
to duplicate systems uh while you are ready getting ready
to switch over to the other side. And then if
there's an element that requires airplanes to also get upgrade,
(03:00):
it's that's an entirely different issue because now you're talking
about two totally different multiple systems really, because you've got
the government system, which would be the air traffic control
because that's overseen by the f A A, right, so
that's a government agency. And then you have all the
private companies that are the you know, the private airlines,
not to mention private pilots and uh, and you know,
(03:22):
to upgrade their equipment. That also is going to take
a really long time. So it's it's one of those
where the the the job is very complex, it's huge,
and it's the government. I think if you talk about
huge complex and government, you you realize that means lots
of time is going to go by before it ever happens. Yeah. Yeah,
(03:43):
but that's not because you know, people just don't want
to do it. It's it's complex, so right, and it's expensive,
it's you know, and again this money comes from taxes.
Turns out people aren't thrilled about paying taxes, so anything
that requires tax money it ends up being a clitical battle.
So I mean, the complex, like we said, goes well
beyond just the technology. But now that we've covered that,
(04:05):
let's talk a little bit about what is involved in
the air traffic control system. As a matter of fact,
speaking of complex, the air air traffic control system itself
is very complex and this probably will give you a
better idea too, in the types of technology we're talking about.
Um As it turns out the h the air traffic
(04:25):
control space is divided up really in three dimensions, which
is appropriate, but it's kind of it's kind of weird
to think about when you're not I guess, when you're
not thinking about how air traffic control works on a
data right basis, because um the United States is divided
up geographically into twenty one different zones also known as centers,
(04:46):
and each of those zones is divided into sectors. While
those are two dimensions, uh you know, the with the
United States and the length, and then you have the
altitudes in those zones, and they're are different groups of
people who are managing aircraft as they move from one
zone to the next. Um So, which is kind of
(05:08):
weird to think, like I said, and it's kind of
weird to think about it because you're thinking, Okay, well
I got it. You know, you're flying from say, Dallas
to Chicago. You know, you say in Dallas, hey I'm
going to Chicago, and Chicago says, okay, well come on,
we're ready for you. That's not really that simple, right,
it's you know, from from a passenger experience, what it
seems like to us is that you have when I
(05:29):
don't know about you, Chris, but when I think air
traffic control, I'm thinking of the towers at the airport, right,
So you're the only part of it, yeah, exactly. But
you're at the airport, you see the air traffic control tower.
You know that the pilot is talking to air traffic
control and saying, hey, I got a bunch of people here.
They want to get off the ground, and air traffic
control is like, well, we're gonna make them wait around
a while because we're jerks. And then the pilot says,
(05:52):
but we're the ones who get all the blame, and
the air traffic control says ha ha ha, And then
actually that's probably not how it works. But at any rate,
the pilot contacts air traffic control, they get the clearance
to take off, and then you're in flight, and then
you you pretty much don't really think about air traffic
control as a passenger until you get close to landing.
So you're thinking of the starting point in the endpoint,
(06:14):
uh as like the air traffic air traffic control tower
in both airports. Turns out there actually several stations along
the way that UM monitor your flight for the entire
duration of the flight. UM. Now, the the tower that
you're talking about, Jonathan, is the air traffic control tower
a t c T. And that's you can find one
(06:37):
of those that basically any airport that has regularly scheduled
flights and they you know, managed to take off and
landing in the ground traffic to make sure that they
know what's going on. But once the plane well, okay,
we'll talk about the other parts. Um. The other parts
are the Air Traffic Control System Command Center a t
C s c C, and that's uh basically that's in
(06:58):
charge of all air traffic can roll UM you know
we're talking about. They manage things, you know, routing traffic
and bad weather and and trying to figure out what's
going on with the UH UM traffic patterns and how
the runways are dealing with on the ground. But um,
locally you have Air Route Traffic Control Centers a r
(07:19):
t c C s UM. Each center has its own
r t c C and they manage traffic within the
sectors UH in that area except for the next group
the tray con terminal Radar Approach Control and they handle
the departing and approaching aircraft within that space that they
(07:39):
are assigned. And that space is around fifteen miles and radius.
So UM. Yeah, So what we're doing is we're going
from very large and getting progressively smaller here, right. Yeah.
So we've got the center, which is the big one.
You've got the you know, the air Route Traffic Control
Centers which that controls a zone or that's what we
(08:00):
you know, the center slash zone, however you want to
call it. So there are multiple sectors within that. Then
you've got the tray con, which can actually overlap sectors
depending on where it is geographically. But um, it's got
the fifty mile radius. And then what's next after that? Um? Wait,
after the traycon? Yeah, I guess the tracon is technically
the air traffic control tower because at that point you're
(08:21):
dealing with the airspace around the airport itself. And then
there's you know, the flight service station. So if you
need information about whether or the route or flight plan
for private pilots, um, then you would consult with the
flight service station. But those are in smaller, smaller areas,
and there are people like rural rural airports I'm sorry, yes, um.
(08:45):
And you know, in the case of emergencies and uh,
you know, if there are search and rescue operations that
need to be managed for a missing or overdo aircraft,
the flight service station us involved with that. But um, yeah,
I mean small small aircraft that are lying by vision
only visual flight rules. Um. You know, they don't really
(09:06):
they're not required by the f A to file a
flight plan. Um. So the mainstream traffic control centers don't
deal with these smaller aircraft, right. They they have specific
rules they have to follow which prevent them from getting
within the same sort of flight space as the massive
larger aircraft. But as long as they are following the rules,
(09:27):
than they don't have to to do a flight plan.
They don't have to check in as often as the
commercial flights do. Um. The ones that are the big boys,
like the commercial flights, Uh, they do. They follow the
instrument flight rules, right, which means they can fly in
all kinds of weather because they're they're using instruments to
(09:49):
guide them. Uh. Not just it's not just you know,
oh I can I I have good uh visibility. Yeah,
it's like I could see where I'm going going right,
that's part of it, right. Um And uh all I
f R flight rule pilots, Um, that was redundant. Thanks
(10:10):
um My file a flight plan within thirty minutes of
pushing back from the gate. Basically, what you don't see
the pilot doing is checking the weather, making sure that
the route is okay, and filing a flight plan. And
that's got all the information in it that the air
traffic control folks are gonna need to know like the name,
(10:31):
flight number of the air the airline, the type of
aircraft they're flying in, the equipment on board, the intended
air speed and cruising altitude, and the route of the
flight right and this is of course, all this information
is necessary for air traffic control to make sure that
there are aren't any uh there's not gonna be any
real congestion in the flight space about the United States,
(10:54):
not that kind of congestion, but to make sure that
you're not gonna have any potentially dangerous situations due to
too many aircraft occupying the same space at approximately the
same time. So that's why all these flight plans have
to be filed. It's uh, it's really to give air
traffic control the the big picture look at what is
going on at any given time above the United States airspace.
(11:18):
Should I go on? Please do? In the tower, We've
got a flight data person who's checking the weather and
flight plane information, um and then put it into the
f a a host computer and UM the computer comes
up with a flight progress strip that goes from the
controllers to you know, to the flight from different station
to station. Uh. So that it's possible to track a
(11:39):
particular plane, right, So as a plane travels from one
zone into another, the controllers for those zones have to
be able to pass the information along to the next
controller so that everything remains up to date and everyone
knows where everybody is. Uh. So it turns out that's important, right.
So for for a flight from one coast to the other,
(12:01):
you will cross through several zones, so many different controllers
will have their hands on that on your flight's information
as you go from one side to the other. So
let's say like Atlanta to l A. I'll be taking
that flight in June. So as I'm taking that flight,
you're I'm going to you know that that flight's information
(12:22):
is going to pass through not just the local air
traffic control uh team that's that's there at the Atlanta Airport,
but through many different centers as we fly across the country.
That's right. Um, I mean the ground controller is managing
the ground traffic, the traffic you know what's going on
on the literally on the ground where all the different
(12:43):
planes are with regard to the runways and taxi ways.
Um and um. You know the local controller is in
the tower as well, watching the sky around met the
immediate area around the airport. Yeah. And as for what
kind of technology, these guys are using binoculars also radar
(13:04):
and so, you know, pretty dated stuff, but it works, right. Yeah,
it's it's one of those things now. Great, if visibility
is limited, they're going to be relying more in the
radar than the binoculars. Uh. And if it gets too limited,
that's when air traffic control says, you know what, the
conditions are too dangerous for flights to take off and
land out of this airspace, and so we are going
to delay any flights, uh for the you know, for
(13:28):
as long as the weather remains this bad as or
as of the day that we're actually recording this. This
guys are full of volcanic ash, right, So if you
are in the UK and you want to fly someplace
and you realize that, you know, or the eight air
Traffic Control realizes that the air is completely filled with
ash and it's really impacting visibility, you might be grounded. Yeah,
(13:51):
it's funny. Just as an aside that I was listening
to a report on that this morning and they said, yes,
you know, there are bits of glass in the air
thrown up there by the volcano. So yes, as it
turns out, flying through that is not very healthy, all right, Uh,
aside from a volcano story, yes, we've got um, we've
got the local controllers basically keeping an eye on things. UM.
(14:15):
And they're basically the ones giving clearance to the aircraft
for it to take off. UM. And as the as
the plane leaves the ground, the local controller is going
to hand off the plane, if you will, to the
departure controller at the tray con facility. UM. It's still
going to keep an eye on it within five miles
from the airport, but the pilot is now in communication
(14:37):
with the departure controller rather than the tower on the
ground with whom he or she was just speaking. And uh. Actually,
also as the plane is taking off, here's another piece
of technology for you, the transponder aboard the aircraft. The
pilots are are you know, engaging that and um, it
is identifying radar signals coming in and broadcasting radio a
(15:00):
signal of its own in the direction of the radar
waves that are coming to it. So it's locked on
to the radar and is saying, hey, here, I am here,
this is who I am, right, I am so transponder.
When you when you beam the radar signal at the plane,
the plane says, hey, there's a I've detected the radar signal.
It's from this direction. I am going to identify who
(15:24):
I am where I am and uh. It actually has
an amplifier as well, so it can amplify that signal
send it back to the radar facility. And then that's
how the ground can keep track of where planes are
as they're in the air. And as it turns out,
aircraft are equipped with radar detectors, although they very infrequently
(15:44):
get pulled over. Okay, then so the departure controller just
getting stared at the departure controller is is working at
the track on facility. Um and uh. You know, the
track on facility may actually be in charge of several airports.
We're not just talking a single airport because you know,
like we said, fifty mile radius, that's a big radius.
And if you know, if you're in a there, I
(16:07):
can think of like two airports in the Atlanta area
right off the top of my head that would fall
into that depending on where the traycon U was stationed.
That's right, um and uh. And here again we're talking
in three dimensions, So not only as the departure controller
looking for you geographically, he also wants to know what
(16:27):
the distance is uh vertically, to identify how the distance
between any ascending and descending aircraft um, because that is
again important to know. And they have specific ascent corridors
in various geographic regions. If you've ever taken off from
there's certain airports where you have a very steep ascent corridor,
(16:51):
that's true. I've where it's usually because of noise ordinances.
And then there's the geographical well there's also yes, there's
some that are geographic as well. But the mountain here
you need to pull up right, yeah exactly, But there
there are several where the the local area has a
noise ordinance where the in order to to obey that ordinance,
(17:11):
aircraft have to take off at a much steeper incline
than normal. And if you've ever experienced this, it's kind
of fun. None if I mean, I enjoy flying, so
for me, it's for those who are afraid of flying
the enjoy so much so. Um. Then the plane leaves
a trayon air space and enters a sector of the
A R T C C airspace where at least two
(17:34):
air traffic controllers are keeping an eye on the plane.
The radar associate controller is looking UM basically correlating the
flight plane information UM to what's going on, and the
associate controller is working with the radar controller in charge
of that sector UM basically that that person is in
charge of all the air to ground communication and trying
(17:54):
to make sure that planes are located in a reasonable
enough distance apart that they are operating safely. Right. And
you know, these controllers could be monitoring dozens and dozens
of planes at any given time because it's they're the
ones in charge of monitoring it over their particular center.
And as we said, you know there's just twenty one
(18:15):
of these across the United States. That means that these
are really big areas. So these guys are are men
and women. I shouldn't just say guys. Uh, they're keeping
eyes on on lots of different data all going on
at the same time. And again we've got like some
computers that are uh collating all this so that you
(18:36):
can look at a computer screen and see a data
representation of what's going on. But a lot of this
is still going with with humans monitoring tools directly like
the radar and UM basically the radar handoff controller is
helping out too with the radar and associate radar controllers
(18:58):
in situations where there's lots of traffic just to make
sure that that everything is is going okay, they got
another set of eyes on the situation. And as you
go from zone to zone, they hand you off, you know,
as you leave one space basically the next as as
part of the air traffic control system as a whole,
you pass over into the next space and then another
set of controllers helps you out right. And the data
(19:20):
from your flight is actually passed on ahead of your flight,
so it's not like you suddenly appear in someone's center
and then your data shows up and then they say,
oh crap, how do we fit them into what's going on?
Like occasionally aircraft have trouble or there's a or someone
makes a mistake and UM and the air traffic controllers
have to react to that and tell pilots to to
(19:41):
change their flight plan and uh, you know, especially like
if they if the weather at the destination starts to
get really bad and it was not expected and they
have to divert the flight. Uh, you know, you want
to catch the stuff as early as you possibly can,
and so um uh in order as part of that,
as the air air craft is getting closer to the
(20:02):
border of one center, uh, they'll go ahead and pass
that data on to the next center ahead of time,
sometimes up to a half hour ahead of time. And
then the that way everyone knows where everybody is before
it becomes a problem. Uh. But yeah, then that the
pilot will then be communicating with a new radio controller
(20:22):
and uh a radar control or rather not radio And
this continues until you get close to your destination. And
then it basically happens in reverse. Right you you start
communicating with the tower who can relay the conditions on
the ground, let you know what's going on as far
as traffic is concerned. Yeah, essentially it would be you go.
(20:43):
You would start talking to tracon first, Yes, you would.
Tracon would would start to to guide the planes in
so that they are coming in at the proper angle
for the landing strip. Um. And actually, if you've ever
seen there's certain movies that show this. I'm thinking of
Pushing ten in particular. But the air traffic controllers at
(21:06):
tray Con and the ones at your destination work together
to uh to get these planes to line up so
that they can land in an efficient and yet safe manner.
So you actually can see if you're looking at the
radar that all these flights that are coming from various directions,
I mean, like anywhere that you can imagine, you know,
they're they're coming in, are all lining up like in
(21:29):
a straight line. Um, this requires a lot of coordination. Yeah, yeah,
it really does. And it's um A pardon my earlier
oversimplification of the landing process. I just didn't want to
get that email. No, yeah, I understand, and you and
you're right, Um, but yeah, I mean it's it's funny
because the probably the biggest piece of technology in the
(21:50):
air traffic controller world is the air traffic controllers. The
human technology involved with it. Yeah, I mean we have
the radar and and other computer information. But uh, that
seems like what we were talking earlier about automating the process.
I'm not sure that you know, the human can we
can completely automate that process. It seems like people are
(22:11):
a little too necessary. But uh, in general it seems
to work. Yeah, if we were to really break it down,
the actual computer system has lots and lots and lots
of different little components, each of which handles a very
specific set of tasks. But it gets so granular at
that point that it it's almost it's really difficult to
talk about because uh, you know, you're you you have
(22:34):
to break it down into such tiny, little little uh segments.
It's hard to get the big picture at that point.
It's so to call it a computer system in a
way is an oversimplification because there's so much stuff going on.
I mean, you're talking about different alert systems and different
uh you know, uh, organizational systems. But but we would
(22:55):
go insane if we tried to break it down into
every little tiny piece. So uh but yeah, and will
we ever see it automated? I think we probably will eventually.
But again, this is one of those things where it's
it's not just a technology thing, it's a political thing.
And uh and you know it's not it's not super
(23:17):
high up on our priorities list right now. Well, considering
the system is in general working, Yeah, Now, granted, if
we wanted to add a lot of capacity to that system,
then we would have to really start looking into upgrading
it because uh, you know, air traffic control, uh jobs
are are fairly stressful, Yes, one of those. I mean,
(23:41):
you think about it. You're in charge of the safety
of thousands of people every single day you go to work. So, um,
you don't want to make a mistake. Yeah, you don't
want to make their jobs more difficult. But um, but yeah,
it's it's I'm glad we uh we've had a conversation
about that was fun. Yeah all right, Well, if any
(24:02):
of you guys have some fun conversation topics he wants
to tackle, you should email us. Our email address is
tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com. You can
emails kind of like this next example of listener mail.
This listener mail comes from Johnny, and Johnny says, here's
(24:24):
a funny pun. I found people who plug their computer
keyboards into Hi Fi systems aren't idiots. That would be stereotyping. Also,
on your microwave podcast, do all the waves get reflected
or do some escape? My mom says I should stand
five feet away from the microwave when it's on. Is
this necessary? Um? First of all, well, Johnny always obey
(24:47):
your mother. Yeah, Johnny's mom, I I have I have
expressly told him to obey you. Um, but I think
it probably stems from an earlier incident you're not telling
us about. Well, my name is also Onathan, and I'm
i am Southern, so I'm a mama's boy. But no,
the to get to your question about microwaves and whether
(25:07):
or not any escape, Uh, well, first of all, microwaves
aren't really There are microwaves that are out and about already, yes,
not just not just coming from the microwave oven. But
the mesh that's on the door of the microwave is
because the microwaves are so big they can't pass through
(25:28):
that mesh. The mesh is gonna reflect them right back. Um.
So really, the whole fear of radiation leaking out is
a little overblown. Now, granted, if your microwave was somehow damaged,
then yes, microwaves might be able to escape the the door,
but in which the microwave anymore. No, But even then,
(25:50):
as as the founder the the guy who invented the
microwave oven could tell you, um, it's not necessarily gonna
cause you irreparable harm immediately. It might mal your chocolate bar.
That's true. As we discussed in an earlier podcast, the
person who discovered the microwave was figured it out because
he was standing next to a device that was admitting
(26:10):
microwaves and his candy bar moult. It was a radar
te radar antenna and that was where you know he
was doing start radar. I feel like I've heard that exactly. Um,
you must have been watching mash So thanks a lot, Johnny.
I hope you guys enjoyed this show. Also, we have
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(26:32):
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(27:16):
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(27:38):
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(28:00):
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reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello, everyone,
welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette and
I am an editor here and how stuff works dot Com.
(00:22):
Sitting across from me, as he always does, is senior
writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, so, uh you know we
were looking at for podcast topics too hard. Well, no,
that's true, but for a while we were kind of
up in the air on this one. Yeah, but fortunately
a listener managed to uh to to get us on
target targets. So let's go to a little listener mail.
(00:50):
This listener mail comes from Paul, and Paul says, Hi,
John and Chris, I enjoy your podcasts and those of
your associates and How stuff Works very much. I thought
this might make an intra sting topic, the technology behind
air traffic control. I was told that at one time,
and perhaps this is still true, that the US is
using very old computer technology for air traffic control and
(01:11):
that plans to upgrade the system have been bogged down
for decades. But appreciate your insight into this. Thank you.
So much for keeping me entertained over long hours in
my car. Paul. Alright, Paul, Well, we're gonna talk a
little bit about air traffic control and what goes into
keeping everybody safe up in the skies and uh, well,
to talk about the old technologies. It's true that a
(01:33):
lot of the technology used in air traffic control has
been around for for a while. Um, there are plans
to eventually automate the system, but that still not here yet. Yeah. Yeah,
I don't know why he'd be concerned about that. I mean,
it's not like fifty thou planes are in the air
every day over the United States. Wait, oh wait, yes
(01:57):
they are on a good day. Um. Yeah. The the
automated thing, well, I'll go ahead and get this all
the way first. One of the there's several reasons why
it would take a while to move to a fully
automated system. One is that while you're upgrading to the
fully automated system, the existing system would have to continue
to operate. Because it's not like we can just say,
(02:18):
you know what, we're gonna take a i don't know
six months and not fly all right, you guys look
out for yourselves out there. Well yeah, we're gonna paint
all the planes a bright day glow pink or green
and uh and yeah, good best of luck. Now that
that's not the way it's gonna that's not the way
it can work. So obviously, if you're going to to
(02:39):
upgrade a system as huge as the air traffic control
system is, and we'll get into how big it is
in a minute, um, then it's gonna take a lot
of time, and you're gonna have to you're gonna have
to duplicate systems uh while you are ready getting ready
to switch over to the other side. And then if
there's an element that requires airplanes to also get upgrade,
(03:00):
it's that's an entirely different issue because now you're talking
about two totally different multiple systems really, because you've got
the government system, which would be the air traffic control
because that's overseen by the f A A, right, so
that's a government agency. And then you have all the
private companies that are the you know, the private airlines,
not to mention private pilots and uh, and you know,
(03:22):
to upgrade their equipment. That also is going to take
a really long time. So it's it's one of those
where the the the job is very complex, it's huge,
and it's the government. I think if you talk about
huge complex and government, you you realize that means lots
of time is going to go by before it ever happens. Yeah. Yeah,
(03:43):
but that's not because you know, people just don't want
to do it. It's it's complex, so right, and it's expensive,
it's you know, and again this money comes from taxes.
Turns out people aren't thrilled about paying taxes, so anything
that requires tax money it ends up being a clitical battle.
So I mean, the complex, like we said, goes well
beyond just the technology. But now that we've covered that,
(04:05):
let's talk a little bit about what is involved in
the air traffic control system. As a matter of fact,
speaking of complex, the air air traffic control system itself
is very complex and this probably will give you a
better idea too, in the types of technology we're talking about.
Um As it turns out the h the air traffic
(04:25):
control space is divided up really in three dimensions, which
is appropriate, but it's kind of it's kind of weird
to think about when you're not I guess, when you're
not thinking about how air traffic control works on a
data right basis, because um the United States is divided
up geographically into twenty one different zones also known as centers,
(04:46):
and each of those zones is divided into sectors. While
those are two dimensions, uh you know, the with the
United States and the length, and then you have the
altitudes in those zones, and they're are different groups of
people who are managing aircraft as they move from one
zone to the next. Um So, which is kind of
(05:08):
weird to think, like I said, and it's kind of
weird to think about it because you're thinking, Okay, well
I got it. You know, you're flying from say, Dallas
to Chicago. You know, you say in Dallas, hey I'm
going to Chicago, and Chicago says, okay, well come on,
we're ready for you. That's not really that simple, right,
it's you know, from from a passenger experience, what it
seems like to us is that you have when I
(05:29):
don't know about you, Chris, but when I think air
traffic control, I'm thinking of the towers at the airport, right,
So you're the only part of it, yeah, exactly. But
you're at the airport, you see the air traffic control tower.
You know that the pilot is talking to air traffic
control and saying, hey, I got a bunch of people here.
They want to get off the ground, and air traffic
control is like, well, we're gonna make them wait around
a while because we're jerks. And then the pilot says,
(05:52):
but we're the ones who get all the blame, and
the air traffic control says ha ha ha, And then
actually that's probably not how it works. But at any rate,
the pilot contacts air traffic control, they get the clearance
to take off, and then you're in flight, and then
you you pretty much don't really think about air traffic
control as a passenger until you get close to landing.
So you're thinking of the starting point in the endpoint,
(06:14):
uh as like the air traffic air traffic control tower
in both airports. Turns out there actually several stations along
the way that UM monitor your flight for the entire
duration of the flight. UM. Now, the the tower that
you're talking about, Jonathan, is the air traffic control tower
a t c T. And that's you can find one
(06:37):
of those that basically any airport that has regularly scheduled
flights and they you know, managed to take off and
landing in the ground traffic to make sure that they
know what's going on. But once the plane well, okay,
we'll talk about the other parts. Um. The other parts
are the Air Traffic Control System Command Center a t
C s c C, and that's uh basically that's in
(06:58):
charge of all air traffic can roll UM you know
we're talking about. They manage things, you know, routing traffic
and bad weather and and trying to figure out what's
going on with the UH UM traffic patterns and how
the runways are dealing with on the ground. But um,
locally you have Air Route Traffic Control Centers a r
(07:19):
t c C s UM. Each center has its own
r t c C and they manage traffic within the
sectors UH in that area except for the next group
the tray con terminal Radar Approach Control and they handle
the departing and approaching aircraft within that space that they
(07:39):
are assigned. And that space is around fifteen miles and radius.
So UM. Yeah, So what we're doing is we're going
from very large and getting progressively smaller here, right. Yeah.
So we've got the center, which is the big one.
You've got the you know, the air Route Traffic Control
Centers which that controls a zone or that's what we
(08:00):
you know, the center slash zone, however you want to
call it. So there are multiple sectors within that. Then
you've got the tray con, which can actually overlap sectors
depending on where it is geographically. But um, it's got
the fifty mile radius. And then what's next after that? Um? Wait,
after the traycon? Yeah, I guess the tracon is technically
the air traffic control tower because at that point you're
(08:21):
dealing with the airspace around the airport itself. And then
there's you know, the flight service station. So if you
need information about whether or the route or flight plan
for private pilots, um, then you would consult with the
flight service station. But those are in smaller, smaller areas,
and there are people like rural rural airports I'm sorry, yes, um.
(08:45):
And you know, in the case of emergencies and uh,
you know, if there are search and rescue operations that
need to be managed for a missing or overdo aircraft,
the flight service station us involved with that. But um, yeah,
I mean small small aircraft that are lying by vision
only visual flight rules. Um. You know, they don't really
(09:06):
they're not required by the f A to file a
flight plan. Um. So the mainstream traffic control centers don't
deal with these smaller aircraft, right. They they have specific
rules they have to follow which prevent them from getting
within the same sort of flight space as the massive
larger aircraft. But as long as they are following the rules,
(09:27):
than they don't have to to do a flight plan.
They don't have to check in as often as the
commercial flights do. Um. The ones that are the big boys,
like the commercial flights, Uh, they do. They follow the
instrument flight rules, right, which means they can fly in
all kinds of weather because they're they're using instruments to
(09:49):
guide them. Uh. Not just it's not just you know,
oh I can I I have good uh visibility. Yeah,
it's like I could see where I'm going going right,
that's part of it, right. Um And uh all I
f R flight rule pilots, Um, that was redundant. Thanks
(10:10):
um My file a flight plan within thirty minutes of
pushing back from the gate. Basically, what you don't see
the pilot doing is checking the weather, making sure that
the route is okay, and filing a flight plan. And
that's got all the information in it that the air
traffic control folks are gonna need to know like the name,
(10:31):
flight number of the air the airline, the type of
aircraft they're flying in, the equipment on board, the intended
air speed and cruising altitude, and the route of the
flight right and this is of course, all this information
is necessary for air traffic control to make sure that
there are aren't any uh there's not gonna be any
real congestion in the flight space about the United States,
(10:54):
not that kind of congestion, but to make sure that
you're not gonna have any potentially dangerous situations due to
too many aircraft occupying the same space at approximately the
same time. So that's why all these flight plans have
to be filed. It's uh, it's really to give air
traffic control the the big picture look at what is
going on at any given time above the United States airspace.
(11:18):
Should I go on? Please do? In the tower, We've
got a flight data person who's checking the weather and
flight plane information, um and then put it into the
f a a host computer and UM the computer comes
up with a flight progress strip that goes from the
controllers to you know, to the flight from different station
to station. Uh. So that it's possible to track a
(11:39):
particular plane, right, So as a plane travels from one
zone into another, the controllers for those zones have to
be able to pass the information along to the next
controller so that everything remains up to date and everyone
knows where everybody is. Uh. So it turns out that's important, right.
So for for a flight from one coast to the other,
(12:01):
you will cross through several zones, so many different controllers
will have their hands on that on your flight's information
as you go from one side to the other. So
let's say like Atlanta to l A. I'll be taking
that flight in June. So as I'm taking that flight,
you're I'm going to you know that that flight's information
(12:22):
is going to pass through not just the local air
traffic control uh team that's that's there at the Atlanta Airport,
but through many different centers as we fly across the country.
That's right. Um, I mean the ground controller is managing
the ground traffic, the traffic you know what's going on
on the literally on the ground where all the different
(12:43):
planes are with regard to the runways and taxi ways.
Um and um. You know the local controller is in
the tower as well, watching the sky around met the
immediate area around the airport. Yeah. And as for what
kind of technology, these guys are using binoculars also radar
(13:04):
and so, you know, pretty dated stuff, but it works, right. Yeah,
it's it's one of those things now. Great, if visibility
is limited, they're going to be relying more in the
radar than the binoculars. Uh. And if it gets too limited,
that's when air traffic control says, you know what, the
conditions are too dangerous for flights to take off and
land out of this airspace, and so we are going
to delay any flights, uh for the you know, for
(13:28):
as long as the weather remains this bad as or
as of the day that we're actually recording this. This
guys are full of volcanic ash, right, So if you
are in the UK and you want to fly someplace
and you realize that, you know, or the eight air
Traffic Control realizes that the air is completely filled with
ash and it's really impacting visibility, you might be grounded. Yeah,
(13:51):
it's funny. Just as an aside that I was listening
to a report on that this morning and they said, yes,
you know, there are bits of glass in the air
thrown up there by the volcano. So yes, as it
turns out, flying through that is not very healthy, all right, Uh,
aside from a volcano story, yes, we've got um, we've
got the local controllers basically keeping an eye on things. UM.
(14:15):
And they're basically the ones giving clearance to the aircraft
for it to take off. UM. And as the as
the plane leaves the ground, the local controller is going
to hand off the plane, if you will, to the
departure controller at the tray con facility. UM. It's still
going to keep an eye on it within five miles
from the airport, but the pilot is now in communication
(14:37):
with the departure controller rather than the tower on the
ground with whom he or she was just speaking. And uh. Actually,
also as the plane is taking off, here's another piece
of technology for you, the transponder aboard the aircraft. The
pilots are are you know, engaging that and um, it
is identifying radar signals coming in and broadcasting radio a
(15:00):
signal of its own in the direction of the radar
waves that are coming to it. So it's locked on
to the radar and is saying, hey, here, I am here,
this is who I am, right, I am so transponder.
When you when you beam the radar signal at the plane,
the plane says, hey, there's a I've detected the radar signal.
It's from this direction. I am going to identify who
(15:24):
I am where I am and uh. It actually has
an amplifier as well, so it can amplify that signal
send it back to the radar facility. And then that's
how the ground can keep track of where planes are
as they're in the air. And as it turns out,
aircraft are equipped with radar detectors, although they very infrequently
(15:44):
get pulled over. Okay, then so the departure controller just
getting stared at the departure controller is is working at
the track on facility. Um and uh. You know, the
track on facility may actually be in charge of several airports.
We're not just talking a single airport because you know,
like we said, fifty mile radius, that's a big radius.
And if you know, if you're in a there, I
(16:07):
can think of like two airports in the Atlanta area
right off the top of my head that would fall
into that depending on where the traycon U was stationed.
That's right, um and uh. And here again we're talking
in three dimensions, So not only as the departure controller
looking for you geographically, he also wants to know what
(16:27):
the distance is uh vertically, to identify how the distance
between any ascending and descending aircraft um, because that is
again important to know. And they have specific ascent corridors
in various geographic regions. If you've ever taken off from
there's certain airports where you have a very steep ascent corridor,
(16:51):
that's true. I've where it's usually because of noise ordinances.
And then there's the geographical well there's also yes, there's
some that are geographic as well. But the mountain here
you need to pull up right, yeah exactly, But there
there are several where the the local area has a
noise ordinance where the in order to to obey that ordinance,
(17:11):
aircraft have to take off at a much steeper incline
than normal. And if you've ever experienced this, it's kind
of fun. None if I mean, I enjoy flying, so
for me, it's for those who are afraid of flying
the enjoy so much so. Um. Then the plane leaves
a trayon air space and enters a sector of the
A R T C C airspace where at least two
(17:34):
air traffic controllers are keeping an eye on the plane.
The radar associate controller is looking UM basically correlating the
flight plane information UM to what's going on, and the
associate controller is working with the radar controller in charge
of that sector UM basically that that person is in
charge of all the air to ground communication and trying
(17:54):
to make sure that planes are located in a reasonable
enough distance apart that they are operating safely. Right. And
you know, these controllers could be monitoring dozens and dozens
of planes at any given time because it's they're the
ones in charge of monitoring it over their particular center.
And as we said, you know there's just twenty one
(18:15):
of these across the United States. That means that these
are really big areas. So these guys are are men
and women. I shouldn't just say guys. Uh, they're keeping
eyes on on lots of different data all going on
at the same time. And again we've got like some
computers that are uh collating all this so that you
(18:36):
can look at a computer screen and see a data
representation of what's going on. But a lot of this
is still going with with humans monitoring tools directly like
the radar and UM basically the radar handoff controller is
helping out too with the radar and associate radar controllers
(18:58):
in situations where there's lots of traffic just to make
sure that that everything is is going okay, they got
another set of eyes on the situation. And as you
go from zone to zone, they hand you off, you know,
as you leave one space basically the next as as
part of the air traffic control system as a whole,
you pass over into the next space and then another
set of controllers helps you out right. And the data
(19:20):
from your flight is actually passed on ahead of your flight,
so it's not like you suddenly appear in someone's center
and then your data shows up and then they say,
oh crap, how do we fit them into what's going on?
Like occasionally aircraft have trouble or there's a or someone
makes a mistake and UM and the air traffic controllers
have to react to that and tell pilots to to
(19:41):
change their flight plan and uh, you know, especially like
if they if the weather at the destination starts to
get really bad and it was not expected and they
have to divert the flight. Uh, you know, you want
to catch the stuff as early as you possibly can,
and so um uh in order as part of that,
as the air air craft is getting closer to the
(20:02):
border of one center, uh, they'll go ahead and pass
that data on to the next center ahead of time,
sometimes up to a half hour ahead of time. And
then the that way everyone knows where everybody is before
it becomes a problem. Uh. But yeah, then that the
pilot will then be communicating with a new radio controller
(20:22):
and uh a radar control or rather not radio And
this continues until you get close to your destination. And
then it basically happens in reverse. Right you you start
communicating with the tower who can relay the conditions on
the ground, let you know what's going on as far
as traffic is concerned. Yeah, essentially it would be you go.
(20:43):
You would start talking to tracon first, Yes, you would.
Tracon would would start to to guide the planes in
so that they are coming in at the proper angle
for the landing strip. Um. And actually, if you've ever
seen there's certain movies that show this. I'm thinking of
Pushing ten in particular. But the air traffic controllers at
(21:06):
tray Con and the ones at your destination work together
to uh to get these planes to line up so
that they can land in an efficient and yet safe manner.
So you actually can see if you're looking at the
radar that all these flights that are coming from various directions,
I mean, like anywhere that you can imagine, you know,
they're they're coming in, are all lining up like in
(21:29):
a straight line. Um, this requires a lot of coordination. Yeah, yeah,
it really does. And it's um A pardon my earlier
oversimplification of the landing process. I just didn't want to
get that email. No, yeah, I understand, and you and
you're right, Um, but yeah, I mean it's it's funny
because the probably the biggest piece of technology in the
(21:50):
air traffic controller world is the air traffic controllers. The
human technology involved with it. Yeah, I mean we have
the radar and and other computer information. But uh, that
seems like what we were talking earlier about automating the process.
I'm not sure that you know, the human can we
can completely automate that process. It seems like people are
(22:11):
a little too necessary. But uh, in general it seems
to work. Yeah, if we were to really break it down,
the actual computer system has lots and lots and lots
of different little components, each of which handles a very
specific set of tasks. But it gets so granular at
that point that it it's almost it's really difficult to
talk about because uh, you know, you're you you have
(22:34):
to break it down into such tiny, little little uh segments.
It's hard to get the big picture at that point.
It's so to call it a computer system in a
way is an oversimplification because there's so much stuff going on.
I mean, you're talking about different alert systems and different
uh you know, uh, organizational systems. But but we would
(22:55):
go insane if we tried to break it down into
every little tiny piece. So uh but yeah, and will
we ever see it automated? I think we probably will eventually.
But again, this is one of those things where it's
it's not just a technology thing, it's a political thing.
And uh and you know it's not it's not super
(23:17):
high up on our priorities list right now. Well, considering
the system is in general working, Yeah, Now, granted, if
we wanted to add a lot of capacity to that system,
then we would have to really start looking into upgrading
it because uh, you know, air traffic control, uh jobs
are are fairly stressful, Yes, one of those. I mean,
(23:41):
you think about it. You're in charge of the safety
of thousands of people every single day you go to work. So, um,
you don't want to make a mistake. Yeah, you don't
want to make their jobs more difficult. But um, but yeah,
it's it's I'm glad we uh we've had a conversation
about that was fun. Yeah all right, Well, if any
(24:02):
of you guys have some fun conversation topics he wants
to tackle, you should email us. Our email address is
tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com. You can
emails kind of like this next example of listener mail.
This listener mail comes from Johnny, and Johnny says, here's
(24:24):
a funny pun. I found people who plug their computer
keyboards into Hi Fi systems aren't idiots. That would be stereotyping. Also,
on your microwave podcast, do all the waves get reflected
or do some escape? My mom says I should stand
five feet away from the microwave when it's on. Is
this necessary? Um? First of all, well, Johnny always obey
(24:47):
your mother. Yeah, Johnny's mom, I I have I have
expressly told him to obey you. Um, but I think
it probably stems from an earlier incident you're not telling
us about. Well, my name is also Onathan, and I'm
i am Southern, so I'm a mama's boy. But no,
the to get to your question about microwaves and whether
(25:07):
or not any escape, Uh, well, first of all, microwaves
aren't really There are microwaves that are out and about already, yes,
not just not just coming from the microwave oven. But
the mesh that's on the door of the microwave is
because the microwaves are so big they can't pass through
(25:28):
that mesh. The mesh is gonna reflect them right back. Um.
So really, the whole fear of radiation leaking out is
a little overblown. Now, granted, if your microwave was somehow damaged,
then yes, microwaves might be able to escape the the door,
but in which the microwave anymore. No, But even then,
(25:50):
as as the founder the the guy who invented the
microwave oven could tell you, um, it's not necessarily gonna
cause you irreparable harm immediately. It might mal your chocolate bar.
That's true. As we discussed in an earlier podcast, the
person who discovered the microwave was figured it out because
he was standing next to a device that was admitting
(26:10):
microwaves and his candy bar moult. It was a radar
te radar antenna and that was where you know he
was doing start radar. I feel like I've heard that exactly. Um,
you must have been watching mash So thanks a lot, Johnny.
I hope you guys enjoyed this show. Also, we have
some cool announcements to make. Indeed, one is that if
(26:32):
you are on Facebook and you like tex stuff, now
you can like tex stuff while you are on Facebook
because we have a tech stuff fan page. So do
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tech stuff fan page and joined that because we're gonna
have links to different articles and blog posts and discussions
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(26:54):
are on the Twitter, you can follow the official text
stuff Twitter account, which is tech Stuff h s W.
So yeah, I've go to uh to twitter dot com
slash tech stuff h s W. That is the official
tech stuff Twitter feed. Yep, you'll see our I don't
know album cover on there, so you'll know you're in
(27:16):
the right place. As a matter of fact, you you
can also follow all of the how Stuff Works podcasts
and blogs because now we all have our own new
fan pages and stuff. It's not that you'd want to know,
because we're you know, far and above right, because we
know how Twitter works and they don't. We plan on
using that to our advantage. All right, We'll hope you
(27:38):
enjoyed the show, and Chris and I will taught to
you again really soon. If you're a tech stuff fan,
be sure to check us out on Twitter tech Stuff
hs WSR handle, and you can also find us on
Facebook at Facebook dot com slash tech Stuff h s
W for more on this and thousands of about their topics.
(28:00):
Does it how stuff works dot com, And be sure
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