Potential Disaster, 5G and Aircraft 6

[TugboatEng]

Interesting, it looks like the FAA is concerned about 5g interfering with altimeters on many commerical aircraft.

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-statement-5g

The current restrictions would prevent the use of auto-land as well as landing in low visibility conditions.

 

[Lou Scannon]

Sounds expensive

"Schiefgehen wird, was schiefgehen kann" - das Murphygesetz

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

Extremely and it will be the consumers that will pay.

 

[Eufalconimorph]

Good. Even if it's expensive. A wide-open front-end on an RF receiver is incompetent corner-cutting design. I don't want safety-critical parts of aircraft I might fly on to be incompetently designed.

 

[debodine]

Eufa, may I suggest that airborne radio altimeters are not "incompetently" designed, they were designed to a decades-old standard that made good sense operationally, technically and economically when first implemented. The FAA does a number of things right, but getting out ahead of new technology and providing appropriate standards to implement the new technology is not something they typically do well.

What you are seeing, and it is a valid concern, is that the latest technology now in use by other systems is incompatible with the radio altimeter equipment designed to old, formerly reasonable standards.

It is also a fair point to question if the FAA shoulda, coulda, woulda done something at the "right" time to minimize this impact. Though I am not much of a fan of the US Congress, ultimately the ball would need to start rolling there with legislation, funding and schedule for the FAA to have minimized the impact.

You are also correct in your bottom line that no one wants to travel on any public conveyance that, regardless of who is at fault, is operating in a manner that could turn out to be dangerous.

My two cents, and you can have my opinion of both the FAA and Congress thrown in for free. Like this little animation, this issue has been a ticking time bomb for a while.

 

[SnTMan]

Add in the telecoms seem able to do whatever they dam well please. The govt again...

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[Alistair_Heaton]

they should use the money from the 5G bandwidth sales to pay for the modifications.

 

[Roga50]

they should use the money from the 5G bandwidth sales to pay for the modifications.

But they reserved that money for their own little pet projects