[QUOTE=rickair7777;782695]The problem with radar is it is larger, heavy, has large moving parts, and uses a lot of power. This means it's expensive to buy, maintain, repair, upgrade, and replace.

For national security reasons, they probably won't get rid of it entirely but it might spend a lot of time turned off (saving wear, tear, and energy).

The advantages of new system includes direct routing for most flights, with associated time and fuel savings.

We can go direct now with RNAV/GPS but are not usually allowed to because that does not always provide ATC with adequate traffic de-confliction, which is done manually by controllers making decisions. The new system would automate de-confliction, with the onboard aircraft avionics making some decisions.

This will save a ton of money. Can the FAA implement it within a reasonable timeframe and budget? Will congress fund it adequately? I dunno.[/QUOTE

NEXTGEN will auto de-conflict traffic , how will it do that? when i retired i didnt see any WW2 equiptment at chicago tracon nor at chicago center in 2004 before i transfered. back in the 1980s and 1990s we use to radar vector aircraft on direct courses 500 to 1000 miles away and we didnt seem to need any fancy computers to de-conflict the traffic, when more and more A/C were equiped with RNAV many many A/C were offered thousand mile direct routings by us in chicago with out the need of a de-conflicting computer, then the FAA with the airlines approval put in NRP routings and TOLD CONTROLLER NOT TO GIVE THESE FLIGHTS DIRECT ROUTEINGS even though 95% of the NRP routes were the same routes for the city pairs as before.

NEXTGEN is nothing more than FAA BS, just ask what this system well do in detail and the will give you the same canned answer, this is becaue they dont know what NEXTGEN will be able to do,oh but it sounds good.

in 1984 when i was hired at chicago center i was told that before i finished my training we would have the new ISSS enroute system, 14 years later all we got was an up grade in the computer and a square radar display.thats what we got after over 15 years and 3.5 billion dollars and not one upgrade allowed me to work more traffic than the old system.when i transfered to chicago tracon in 2004 i was told that by 2005 2006 we would have the STARS system, in 2007 we got new radar displays running the same ARTS 3E that we had for years because the STARS system couldnt keep up with the heavy traffic loads funny thing this is the same type of displays that new york tracon has had for over 10 years. so a system that was over 10 years and billions of dollars to up grade the systems at the busyest airports didnt work and were given to the less busy airports and the older ARTS system was kept.

where am i going with this? well after working for the FAA for over 25 years ive learned that what they say and what they produce are two diffrent things.NEXTGEN will be another multi billion mulit year FAA cluster ####. OH but the contractors will make a pretty penny on it, just remember where MARION is.so if you airline types think this system is gonne save you folks billions in operation costs i have a bridge in BROOKLYN i can give you a good price on.

OG
ZAU/C90 retired