What is Wrong With ATC Transponders, And How to Fix Them For Just About Free

B. Keith Peshak

Abstract:	We now have a complete disaster for ATC, Air Traffic Control. The "pilot-in-command" is really the "radar controller" and is a person on the ground, with a display scope, whom decides where and how each and every of the many aircraft he is responsible for in his sector will move. In the early 1980s the ranks were decimated by a labor strike over safety, and have never been restored, while the qualifications for "full performance level" controller have been reduced. The pilot is not allowed to make unauthorized maneuvers. This is centralized, not distributed, decision making, we can only hope which satisfies the Nyquist criterion. For his decision making process, the controller relies entirely on ATCRBS, Air Traffic Control Remote Beacon System, "at-crabs" "radar" as his sensory apparatus, which isn't working. "Radar" is a transponder based system, where an interrogation on 1030 MHz from the ground (tell me a number that I assign to you today, then tell me your altitude, and sing a song of those to my tune so that I can tell you are singing to me, and not some other radar), is to generate a reply on 1090 MHz from the air (radar receives on different frequency then it transmits). This paper will explain just of few of the ATCRBS broken technology, which we fix in the airplane, so that it can be trusted by the world again. Then we also augment with a second, fully independent, distributed, cockpit based collision avoidance technology, utilizing GPS satellites, which has been proven safe and effective and compatible and cheap. The FAA is preventing the use of both, so it is only available outside the United States, and neither can be used to save our lives in our country.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 58th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation and CIGTF 21st Guidance Test Symposium (2002) June 24 - 26, 2002 Hyatt Regency Hotel Albuquerque, NM
Pages:	206 - 216
Cite this article:	Peshak, B. Keith, "What is Wrong With ATC Transponders, And How to Fix Them For Just About Free," Proceedings of the 58th Annual Meeting of The Institute of Navigation and CIGTF 21st Guidance Test Symposium (2002), Albuquerque, NM, June 2002, pp. 206-216.
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