Live data from Hacker News

Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

youtube.com

41–50 of 104 posts

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#41
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has to do with how ATC needs to be able to communicate with all planes in the air, even ones built 100 years ago. They have to use radio so everyone can hear everyone else. There’s no other technology that is as ubiquitous as radio, so they have to work with what they’ve got. Upgrading to other stuff would be an absolute nightmare, though they are making progress on less critical fronts.

I think one of the best things they could add would be an electronic drawing tablet for ATC to draw a flight path on a map and pipe it directly into the pilots EFIS or HUD. It's not fool-proof, but in high density airspace, it seems more efficient to be able to draw a curve and press a button than try to verbally describe it. Of course one major pitfall is you cannot draw in 3D.

They already have something better than that. It's called a published departure procedure that pilots are supposed to follow. In this case, one of the pilots failed to follow the published departure procedure and came close to being on the next season of Mayday: Air Disaster.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#42
post #7

Kind of blows my mind how primitive this whole system still is. Audio quality is really bad. They're sending instructions by voice. The way they know who is speaking is by just saying their callsign with every message. There's got to be a better solution surely?

What's the most reliable situation you can think of that will never fail and drive better audio quality? This is a field where they need more .9999s than Amazon.

Amazon is up to, what, one and half nines right now?

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#43
post #7

Kind of blows my mind how primitive this whole system still is. Audio quality is really bad. They're sending instructions by voice. The way they know who is speaking is by just saying their callsign with every message. There's got to be a better solution surely?

I think that the audio we are listening too is from some ground recording station that isn't necessarily near the airport. We aren't listening to a recording of what the pilots heard or what air traffic control hears.

https://www.liveatc.net/

If you want to listen in yourself.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#44
post #7

Kind of blows my mind how primitive this whole system still is. Audio quality is really bad. They're sending instructions by voice. The way they know who is speaking is by just saying their callsign with every message. There's got to be a better solution surely?

Other than voice how would you send instructions that don't really on changing your focus? I can listen while doing other things. What else would you do?

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#48
post #7

Kind of blows my mind how primitive this whole system still is. Audio quality is really bad. They're sending instructions by voice. The way they know who is speaking is by just saying their callsign with every message. There's got to be a better solution surely?

Right? Just in a car, we know that talking to someone in the car itself has adverse effects on situational awareness, and talking to someone on a phone is much worse than that. But even after all the research and training that goes into human factors in aviation ... we can't do better than confusing, poor quality, AM band party lines during critical phases of flight?

Talking to someone on the phone who has a birds eye view of the road, other drivers, and the map, and only addresses you to help you drive? in no way possible reduces your situational awareness. I refuse to believe that.

Now idle chatting with coworker Wendy about dinner will take you out of that situation and make you more dangerous.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#49
post #7

Kind of blows my mind how primitive this whole system still is. Audio quality is really bad. They're sending instructions by voice. The way they know who is speaking is by just saying their callsign with every message. There's got to be a better solution surely?

What do you propose that is better? VC-backed smartphone apps?

Aircraft have much better quality electronics than a $20 tabletop radio located some distance away by whoever is ripping the stream.

Re: Near mid-air collision at LAX between American Airlines and ITA [video]

#50

Government shutdown. ATC are not being paid. Sort your country out!

Most Americans have zero agency in the matter. We vote once a year or two, most of our states or districts aren’t competitive, and the candidates we do elect can ignore their constituents easily.
Post reply on HN