Sat, Dec 30, 2006
Officials Say The State Can't Wait Until Late 2008
The state of Illinois
says it must have a backup airport surveillance radar for
O'Hare sooner that the FAA's planned 2008 delivery date. State
officials are in a lather to avoid a repeat of the radar outage at
the Chicago hub earlier this month that caused a bit of an aerial
traffic jam.
According to the Chicago Tribune, members of the state's
congressional delegation sent FAA administrator Marion Blakey a
letter asking her to speed delivery of a backup system scheduled
for installation in late 2008.
The letter stated in part, "It is astounding that Atlanta and
Dallas-Ft. Worth have multiple radars to cover for catastrophic
failures on site, but FAA does not believe O'Hare should be given
similar consideration."
On December 15 a faulty switch took O'Hare's ASR-9 radar down
for a number of hours in the early morning. Another radar that
primarily serves Midway provided some coverage, but its limited
view to the north forced controllers to reduce the number of planes
going in and out of O'Hare.
The FAA plans to install a backup radar at O'Hare when the first
runway under the airport's $15 billion expansion project is
commissioned in late 2008.
According to city officials, though, the project is behind
schedule and there's no telling when the runway will open.
The state's letter to the FAA also said, "Without sufficient
technology investments, O'Hare will continue to experience delays
and congestion, having far-reaching effects on our entire
system."
According to the Tribune, the FAA isn't biting. FAA spokeswoman
Elizabeth Cory told the paper, "We are evaluating the request. At
this time the FAA has no plans to move from what we are doing at
O'Hare in terms of coordinating installation of the new equipment
with the construction on the airfield."
Maybe Mayor Daley can get a few more bulldozers over there and
speed that expansion project up a bit...
More News
Airbus Racer Demonstrator Makes Inaugural Flight Airbus Helicopters' ambitious Racer demonstrator has achieved its inaugural flight as part of the Clean Sky 2 initiative, a corners>[...]
A little Bit Quieter, Said Testers, But in the End it's Still a DA40 Diamond Aircraft recently completed a little pilot project with Lufthansa Aviation Training, putting a pair of >[...]
Line Up And Wait (LUAW) Used by ATC to inform a pilot to taxi onto the departure runway to line up and wait. It is not authorization for takeoff. It is used when takeoff clearance >[...]
Contributing To The Accident Was The Pilot’s Use Of Methamphetamine... Analysis: The pilot departed on a local flight to perform low-altitude maneuvers in a nearby desert val>[...]
From 2015 (YouTube Version): Overcoming Obstacles To Achieve Their Dreams… At EAA AirVenture 2015, FedEx arrived with one of their Airbus freight-hauling aircraft and placed>[...]
Airbus Racer Helicopter Demonstrator First Flight Part of Clean Sky 2 Initiative
See All