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Nationwide FAA weather reporting outage

nco.ncep.noaa.gov

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Re: Nationwide FAA weather reporting outage

#101

Post by djbusby »

ceejayoz wrote: post #77
SamPatt wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should have been able to withhold for unnecessary foreign wars.

How do you imagine this withholding system would work? Does your tax burden stay the same, and they just make sure your dollars only go to the programs you support? Do they give you a list of every active program? Every single one? What happens with 800 page appropriations bills where you don't support one line-item? Can I opt not to fund the salaries of specific members of Congress? If my neighbor is a veteran, and…

Would love to designate which things to prioritize from my tax money. 50% family services and education, 30% infrastructure, 10% military, 10% general.

Re: Nationwide FAA weather reporting outage

#102

Post by vaidhy »

drstewart wrote: post #80
nerdponx wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed?

You need me to Google Medicare budget and defense budget for you? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States) >In 2020, US federal government spending on Medicare was $776.2 billion.[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_De... >Annual budget US$721.5 billion (FY2020)[2] Hopefully, I won't need a citation that $776 > $721

So, US spends approximately $12,000 per beneficiary per year. Given the cost of medical expenses, this does not seem too large..

Re: Nationwide FAA weather reporting outage

#103

Post by pookha »

mardifoufs wrote: post #78
flandish wrote: post #47

Just gotta ask: Southwest, NOTAM, and now this… Is some group pen-testing?

It's weird that americans always seem to have this sort of siege mentality. We already know the causes of the other outages, and they have nothing to do with the foreign interference boogeyman.

It's weird how Europeans have this fedual surf mentality.

Re: Nationwide FAA weather reporting outage

#104

Post by roamerz »

ceejayoz wrote: post #58
SamPatt wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a conversative. Presidents don't pass budgets. FAA funding has increased, not decreased. I can criticize my government all I want. You're turning this into a political party thing when it's a government service failure.

Presidents propose budgets (the CBO even uses the term "the President's budget"; https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58417 ), sign them into law, threaten Congress with vetos, and have significant influence over their party as a whole. Trump in particular was successful in drubbing opponents out of office; Liz Cheney went from #3 in House leadership to a pariah largely overnight.

>> Liz Cheney went from #3 in House leadership to a pariah largely overnight.

Seems to run in the family. The voters in Wyoming appear to agree.

Re: Nationwide FAA weather reporting outage

#105

Post by hackmiester »

acdha wrote: post #62
trollied wrote: post #6

Has anything happened regarding IT staffing at the FAA recently? There was the NOTAM outage last week [1], and now this! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34337158

The NOTAM system was apparently running on old SPARC hardware so I’d easily believe that they haven’t been given enough budget to hire engineers and are basically keeping the lights on. One peril of the government funding model is that it’s effective at shoveling money to contracting companies but not having skilled oversight, so you tend to see lots of big projects which founder under their own weight.

I would love to see more information about the underlying architecture of the NOTAM system, if you can recall where you saw that.

Re: Nationwide FAA weather reporting outage

#106

Post by pookha »

shmatt wrote: post #25
SamPatt wrote: post #15

Serious question: At what point does the failure of government services warrant the partial withholding of taxes? This isn't sufficient of course but when the FAA repeatedly demonstrates incompetence, when do we eventually just tell them no, you can't have any more of my money, you're obviously wasting it and making us worse off?

This is the conservative playbook. Cut funding until the entity can't run properly, then yell JEEZ GUYS YOU REALLY SUCK wHY DON'T WE SHUT YOU DOWN The previous president significantly cut the FAA's budget, maybe we're just seeing now how that affects us in the long term

Large complex systems don't work.

Re: Nationwide FAA weather reporting outage

#107

Post by idiotsecant »

wiz21c wrote: post #42
trollied wrote: post #6

Has anything happened regarding IT staffing at the FAA recently? There was the NOTAM outage last week [1], and now this! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34337158

Maybe there's an ongoing cyber attack ? :-)

Nope, just the regular old spending money on new projects that benefit the careers of powerful politicians but refusing to spend on maintenance attack.

Re: Nationwide FAA weather reporting outage

#109

Post by snuxoll »

jcutrell wrote: post #10
chasd00 wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Things I use as a pilot of a single engine piston: - Temp dew point spread - Barometric pressure - TAF / forecast - Wind shear - Freezing level - Cloud tops - Cloud level AGL - visibility measured in actual distance All of these things can’t be measured easily by a human. Visibility is probably the easiest, but can you tell me what the dew point is easily? If I use it, imagine the critical importance for airliners.

Armchair sim-only pilot/aviation enthusiast, simply not having accurate wind speeds is enough to prevent a jet from landing because you don't have data to run performance calculations.

Can you land without running performance? Sure. But now a standard landing is an emergency since you can't verify you have enough runway to come to a complete stop. (See SWA 1248 for what happens when you don't run landing performance calculations correctly in iffy conditions).

This is, of course, ignoring all the other issues that simply not having accurate barometric pressure and cloud levels when flying IFR. If you're flying an approach that descends over mountains through a cloud layer and lack accurate weather data (specifically barometric pressure) then the chances of your EGPWS shouting "TERRAIN! TERRAIN! PULL UP!" because you're low due to an incorrect altimeter reading are non-zero. Do this in a mountain range and the EGPWS calls may end up being too little, too late even if you immediately perform terrain escape maneuvers given you still need accurate altimeter readings for EGPWS to function correctly.

Accurate METAR reports are safety critical for aviation. Full stop.

Re: Nationwide FAA weather reporting outage

#110

Post by NegativeK »

zackbloom wrote: post #12

Unlike the NOTAM outage, a METAR outage will and should actually affect flights. Without weather at your destination it becomes impossible to know if it’s safe to land there. The forecasts (TAF) are actually used more in flight planning, but actual weather is very valuable while enroute, when not close enough to hear weather over the radio from the destination airport.

NOTAMs cover things like runway closures or airspace closures due to hazard, as well as a huge host of other issues.

Stopping takeoffs was absolutely the right move, since they couldn't handle the phone throughput.

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