Are some of the Radar installations still equipped with vacuum tube equipment, or did they finally get those all updated?

__________________
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so. Robert A. Heinlein


09 Jetta TDI
1985 300D

It's time for the "Let's Say..." Game !!

Let’s say airport “A”, and the ATC at airport “A” can handle 30 incoming flights an hour. That’s one flight every two minutes. Not a problem.
Now let’s say that the FAA states there has to be a minimum time spacing of at least one minute between arriving flights. OK - Not a problem.
And we have enough gates at airport “A” to have one gate being vacated every two minutes. That’s good. No problem.

So now let’s say we have flights coming from airports “B”, “C” and “D” and they all are lined up and spaced so that they are two minutes apart heading into airport “A”. Again – Not a problem.

This is all real easy in a perfect world. And this is also how many of the airport/flight loads and ATC requirements are calculated in the real world today.

So now we have everything at airport “A” running just peachy-keen.

Here’s just a few of the contributing factors:
In an effort to make money - The airlines will attempt fill every two minute slot with a full load going into airport “A”. (Sounds like a good business plan.)
In an effort to operate safely – The ATC at airport “A” will try to keep everyone two minutes apart. (Shouldn’t be a problem.)
In an effort to operate smoothly – The airlines using airport “A” will try to vacate a gate every two minutes. (Ok – sounds good.)
In an effort to keep you safe in the sky – TSA will try to get everything checked so that a gate is vacated with a full load every two minutes. (Of course ! After all. The only thing more important than your safety to those folks is keeping you on time.)
Let’s add the Dobbs trucks and the fuel crews doing their best to keep things moving smoothly. (Never been a problem with food or fuel deliveries in the history of catering or OPEC. Thus - Should be fine.)
And, God forbid we leave out the most important cog in the machine. All the passengers and all the folks related to getting said passengers to airport “A,” are doing everything they can to keep things running smoothly, and on time.

Sounds fool proof to me !!

But actually - Airport “A” is a great big open gear box just waiting for a loose wrench to fall into it.

I’m sure that every member of this forum can come up with all kinds of “wrenches” that they’ve either experienced or know of, that can (and do) cause airport “A” to come to a screeching halt.

The way I see it. If we posted them on this thread, by next week we would have enough reasons (or wrenches in the gears) as to why the airport/airline/faa/atc/airplane/taxi/baggage/tsa/istayedataholidayinnexpresslastnight system doesn’t work the way we always want it to. Or think that it should.

From such a list/thread, maybe then we could come up with someone to blame for it all.

__________________
1980 300D - Veggie Burner !

For me, its been starters on A320's.

__________________
It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so. Robert A. Heinlein


09 Jetta TDI
1985 300D

Thank you, WVO we were waiting....

You saw "Pushing Tin," didn't you? I'll be by around 2:00p.m. for my ride with the Mrs. and Svetlana.....sorry for the detour folks.

__________________
"It's normal for these things to empty your wallet and break your heart in the process."
2012 SLK 350
1987 420 SEL

Saw the flick a few years back. Good one, for sure.

I PM'd you on the other line.

__________________
1980 300D - Veggie Burner !

Oh, man, Sid, that must be fun, to get to be able to toss out throwaway lines, like that one......

"I've decided to take flying lessons. I've had it with the ground"

"And then we heard "Newsweek" was looking for us in Paris"...

__________________
1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)

Now didn't Martha teach you not to tease the ADIZ commanders?

__________________
1980 300D - Veggie Burner !

Are landings and take-offs evenly distributed over a 24 hr period at all airports?

If not, I can offer a solution.

B

Botnst reminds me of something else.
Newark (EWR) airport used to be a 24/7 airport. You used to be able to get red-eyes in and out at all times, obviously fewer in the hours between 11pm and 6AM, but flights nonetheless.
Now, EWR is all but completely shut down for passenger flights after 10PM and before 6AM. That's a solid 1/3 of the day where people used to be able to get cheaper flights and did.

That would alleviate a lot of congestion. There are a lot of people who would appreciate early and late flights if it meant getting to sleep in their own beds instead of spending yet another night away from home.


Technically, yes the airport is open, and a small number of flights still happen, but that number is ridiculously small and goes back to poor utilization of facilities.

__________________
85' 300D No inspection, No registration fees, Cheap insurance
"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious %$&^."

Building more airports and paying more for your ticket would probably go a long way to improving things.

If we would build one of those 300mph maglev trains and run a couple up and down the east coast, from say DC, to NY, to Boston, that would help a lot. Both on I95 and in the airports.

But God forbid we put any money into a 21st century mass transit system.

__________________
2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Good input.

__________________
'06 E320 CDI
'17 Corvette Stingray Vert

There's a rather good reason why there are few flights between 10 p.m and 6 a.m.

If you will recall the days of the red eyes, the number of people on the aircraft was typically not more than 50-60.

That's a losing proposition in today's economics. If you can find 150 people who want to leave SFO for EWR at 6:00 p.m. the airline would be happy to accommodate you.

Yes, that's right.

If the number of runways is limited and the number of minutes in a day is limited then ....

I just read what Bush had said and what this was all being done for.

The delays and cancellations during the holidays have nothing to do with ‘congestion’. As someone pointed out, we have the same flights every day of the. The problem is the people who work for the airline (or not as the case may be).

I work in an operational department. Being an airline, we have planes in the air 24/7/365. Non-pencil-pushing management is needed 24/7/365. When I was hired I was specifically asked if I was willing to work nights, weekends, birthdays, holidays and any day ending with the letter “y”. Like a wide eyed kid in a candy store I said yes. I have 8 years with American and I still am not even close to holding the holidays off for vacation. I was raised by my mom and dad to do what is right (the bastards had to give me a conscience) so as a result I have not been home for the holidays in 18 years. We have our holiday when I am off.

The point this is leading too is that during the holidays, the ‘sick list’ for all operational departments will go through the roof. My department can make due since we can split up the work among those who showed up and make it work. The FAA requires that there be at least 3 flight attendants on a Super 80. If I do not have 3 on board, that plane is not going any where.

Our sick list as well as other carriers will sky rocket. The service will be worse than normal since the larger planes (757, 767, 777,747 …) will be staffed at minimum and the remaining crew will have to work that much harder. We will be moving what ever crews do show up around to other flights and those flights will be delayed until I or one of my co-workers find a crew. In the event that we do not find a crew (which during the holidays will happen) we will cancel the flight and do our best to re accommodate the passengers on other flights that are packed to the gills already.

Not sure who told W his idea had a chance in hell of helping (probably the same dub ass who planed Iraq) but the cancellations and delays, if not weather related, have nothing to do with what he is changing.

__________________
Sent from an agnostic abacus

2014 C250 21,XXX my new DD ** 2013 GLK 350 18,000 Wife's new DD**

- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

People in the airlines business should be paid more. They go through a hell of an insult wagon during the holidays. My hat to you all!
If the job was better paying there will be more people to cover and more pride in doing the job. But going back to the issue here, I think the limited number of runways is really a problem. "Freeing" up more air space is not going to alleviate the landing or takeoff bottlenecks.
Someone else mentioned the maglev/ mass transit: we needed that like yesterday...