ATC Old Fart

Looks like the FAA may join in the JPALS fun!

An ADS-B question- Due to the supposed increased accuracy and rapid update available with ADS-B should the separation standards be reduced below 3nm?

Former president of ALPA? Good thing or not? Airline pilots have never been great friends of the air traffic controllers (at least when it comes to labor disputes).

I just got back from a working trip to Germany and I visited one of their ACC's. I was amazed at the fact that they do hand-offs by exception. That is they assume the receiving controller accepts the handoff unless he says to hold the aircraft. No flashing data block, no position correlation or anything. When the aircraft reaches the boundary they just have the aircraft switch frequencies. I had never heard that before.

All of the talk in the plenary sessions was about the need to fund and accelerate the NextGen program. Europe is doing it (ADS-B Out required by 2015). But the big question is will it be funded here in the states. I guess we will see.