The Federal Aviation Administration is hoping to use a new technology that relies on an aircraft tracking system based on GPS rather than radar. The new system, known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), will also have a high-speed data network that allows aircraft to transmit information to one another and the ground as if they were on the Internet.
This technology will hopefully allow jets to fly much closer to each other with less risk of collision, and therefore “save the aviation system from the stranglehold of flight delays.”
Currently, air traffic control relies on radar, which sometimes spins as slowly as once every 12 seconds. But jets at high altitude can travel more than one mile in 12 seconds, so the FAA has to keep planes 5 miles apart. With ADS-B, planes will be able to fly within 3 miles of each other, hopefully making your wait at the airport that much shorter.
Read the full article at USA Today