Re: Avionic Proximity Warning

[eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)]

In article <9412311351.AA10354@eurocontrol.de> Bob Wells #402 <wel@EUROCONTROL.DE> writes:

 > What is the name of this piece of equipment that tells a pilot the
 > evasive action he should take to avoid a possible collision with
 > another detected plane? Such advice is given locally, and is totally
 > independent of any ATC instruction (making it a bit dangerous IMHO).

   TCAS, and yes, the air traffic controllers don't like it one bit,
but the pilots love it.  Since the pilot has "total responsibility for
the safety of the aircraft," he can (and many would say automatically
should) choose to follow a TCAS directive instead of ATC instruction.
But this can mess up all the ATCs nice pretty plans for lots of
airplanes. 

   Fortunately, this seems to be an administrative issue so far.  I
don't think there are any cases where TCAS is alleged to have made the
safety situation worse, just that "false" TCAS alerts cause extra
workloads for the ATC system and for the controllers.

 > Anyone know what language it was written in?

   Bsst! Wrong question.  TCAS is really an implementation independent
protocol, you would have to ask the manufacturers of avionics
equipment what they used for their TCAS boxes.  I wouldn't be
surprised if you find Ada implementations, as well as others.


--

					Robert I. Eachus

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