EWR radios and radar fail again

Autothrust Blue said:
As I am sure you are doubtless well aware some of that smoke is coming from inside our own building.
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I’m specifically talking about pilots, yes. I just wish I could switch over and not have to cut in between flying yokels on the radio vamping on the radio like Wolfman Jack.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
that means circuits on different paths, from different vendors. Which is expensive enough that not many customers do it.
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Came here to say this as well. The problem of making a remote TRACON isn’t that different than a 911 dispatch center, which relies on backhaul links from the dispatch center to all the remote mountain top communications sites. In that field you cannot rely on fiber or internet alone for safety critical communications, and there is usually a point to point microwave backhaul system, with line of site microwave dishes pointed between the towers and the center. If the distance is beyond line of site (in the case of PHL to EWR) it just takes multiple intermediate hops, but it can still be done. A lot of microwave backhaul systems are set up in a loop as well, providing two independent paths if one goes down. Google “AT&T long lines” for an extreme example of one of these systems.

Let me be clear - this is a solved problem, that the FAA unsolved through incompetence or being too cheap to do the job correctly.
 
NovemberEcho said:
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Mary Schiavo has always been an alarmist. That doesn't mean she is wrong here. The FAA should have moved the equipment from N.90, and set up all new lines, not just create a remote. I suspect they did this in order to make the move happen fast, before it could be blocked again, either by the union or some bureaucrats raising the very concerns that are manifesting now.

I wish I could say I am surprised that NATCA has no comment, but I am not.
 
Autothrust Blue said:
Like Palmdale wouldn’t get nuked if LA was.
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Oh, man. Coming out of Van Nuys, somewhere near Palmdale, there's a handoff - check in - frequency change in the readback - SoCal. WTF is the point of that, could we all just wait thirty seconds and check in with the next one anyway?
 
Roger Roger said:
my grandpa on my moms side was a telecom engineer for MaBell during that time period. I guess he had his name on a bunch of their patents.
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MaBell was a weird monopoly that broke some rules about how monopolies were supposed to act. They weren't Wayland-Yutani tossing peasants to the xenomorphs.

Monolithic to the extreme, they were supremely vertically integrated so that there was virtually no part of their system that wasn't made, controlled or specced out exactly to what they wanted.

Certainly their labs were designed to make their processes better to further their business, but it a bizarre and I'm sure unintentionally altruistic way they believed that research into theoretical physics would lead to a better way of doing things. This led to the laser, the transistor, UNIX, and they discovered the very "song" of the universe, among a host of other things.

Their list of Nobels, Turings and IEEE prizes would make any university blush.

Yea, it cost money, and your phone bill wasn't cheap. But you picked up the handset, and you had a dial tone every time. Their idea of robust infrastructure and "uptime" was in a league of it's own.

I'm sure they had some mean practices, but they seemed to keep it under wraps.
 
Richman said:
MaBell was a weird monopoly that broke some rules about how monopolies were supposed to act. They weren't Wayland-Yutani tossing peasants to the xenomorphs.

Monolithic to the extreme, they were supremely vertically integrated so that there was virtually no part of their system that wasn't made, controlled or specced out exactly to what they wanted.

Certainly their labs were designed to make their processes better to further their business, but it a bizarre and I'm sure unintentionally altruistic way they believed that research into theoretical physics would lead to a better way of doing things. This led to the laser, the transistor, UNIX, and they discovered the very "song" of the universe, among a host of other things.

Their list of Nobels, Turings and IEEE prizes would make any university blush.

Yea, it cost money, and your phone bill wasn't cheap. But you picked up the handset, and you had a dial tone every time. Their idea of robust infrastructure and "uptime" was in a league of it's own.

I'm sure they had some mean practices, but they seemed to keep it under wraps.
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Well, the $$ they paid him, plus investing during one of the most prosperous economies in history, are what paid for all his grandkids (yours truly included) to go to college, so I certainly would have to look hard to find any complaints.
 
T/O w/FSII said:
To be clear the FAA hasn’t changed anything. You have always been able to go to therapy if you pay cash and don’t get insurance involved.

If you want insurance to pay for it, they need to diagnose you with something.

No insurance = no diagnosis. No diagnosis and it’s not reportable (it’s not asked) on your medical.

However that means thousands of pilots across the country that can’t afford 300 dollars a week for weeks on ed, can’t get help.

It also means the pilots that do have the money (91/135 guys without a union or short/long disability or Loss of License insurance) are also not in the position to spend 6+ months without a job just to go through the program because of depression.

TLDR: The system is still •ed.
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Pilots are dinged for getting therapy for depression and anxiety? Seriously?
 
Roger Roger said:
Well, the $$ they paid him, plus investing during one of the most prosperous economies in history, are what paid for all his grandkids (yours truly included) to go to college, so I certainly would have to look hard to find any complaints.
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Some people just want to watch the world burn, and they don't really care who gets caught in the crosshairs. Airline deregulation was another example.
 
Despite being based at the “crown jewel” of airports I only do LGA trips… well, the EWR disaster gave me the opportunity to pick up a 2-day premium EWR trip tomorrow.

Help me, @NovemberEcho, you’re my only hope.
 
CFI A&P said:
Oh, man. Coming out of Van Nuys, somewhere near Palmdale, there's a handoff - check in - frequency change in the readback - SoCal. WTF is the point of that, could we all just wait thirty seconds and check in with the next one anyway?
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Gives that sector an operation. Allows them to request more money next budget season.
 
inigo88 said:
Came here to say this as well. The problem of making a remote TRACON isn’t that different than a 911 dispatch center, which relies on backhaul links from the dispatch center to all the remote mountain top communications sites. In that field you cannot rely on fiber or internet alone for safety critical communications, and there is usually a point to point microwave backhaul system, with line of site microwave dishes pointed between the towers and the center. If the distance is beyond line of site (in the case of PHL to EWR) it just takes multiple intermediate hops, but it can still be done. A lot of microwave backhaul systems are set up in a loop as well, providing two independent paths if one goes down. Google “AT&T long lines” for an extreme example of one of these systems.

Let me be clear - this is a solved problem, that the FAA unsolved through incompetence or being too cheap to do the job correctly.
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Wildly off topic but did you happen to see what happened at BART today?
 
nabbyfan said:
We turned CDPLC on at our Center last year, and we were told by the Cadre guys that have done this at every ARTCC that “Monitor” frequency changes were turned off specifically because SWA wasn’t doing them correctly, and their company freaked out when the FAA requested them to give their pilots extra training on the “Confirm Assigned Altitude” function. So they decided it was easier to just make folks keep checking in even with a CPDLC Change.

I use it mostly for crossing restrictions and re-routes, which has been super helpful. But for everything else I find it almost easier to just use voice.
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Well not saying that is what you were told but it isn’t SWA that you are waiting on for “Monitor” to be turned on, we were told it was coming back in early April.
 
arkavgal said:
Pilots are dinged for getting therapy for depression and anxiety? Seriously?
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If you think that’s bad, you should see how FAA Aeromedical treats transgender people or let alone anyone that ever had an ADHD diagnosis as a kid even if it was never treated with meds!

Nothing’s more fun than submitting a large amount of unnecessary and invasive medical details while simultaneously having to provide at my own expense psychiatric evaluations based on that false premise that just because someone is trans they are therefore suicidal.

Both my GP and PsyD look at what the FAA requires and wonders what century the rock they live under is in.
 
Karnage said:
If you think that’s bad, you should see how FAA Aeromedical treats transgender people or let alone anyone that ever had an ADHD diagnosis as a kid even if it was never treated with meds!

Nothing’s more fun than submitting a large amount of unnecessary and invasive medical details while simultaneously having to provide at my own expense psychiatric evaluations based on that false premise that just because someone is trans they are therefore suicidal.

Both my GP and PsyD look at what the FAA requires and wonders what century the rock they live under is in.
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Yes, I was put through the ringer with neuropsych testing for ADHD about 20 years ago, despite never having taken medication.

What basis do they have for giving people with gender dysphoria issues? I'm no longer maintaining an FAA medical, but given I'm trans and a psychiatric nurse practitioner, you've piqued my curiosity.
 
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