A Single Fire Can Cripple America’s Aging Air-Traffic System. Here’s Why

Passengers wait in line to reschedule flights at O’Hare International Airport on September 26, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. All flights in and out of Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports had been halted because of a suspected arson fire at a suburban Chicago air traffic control facility. Scott Olson / Getty Images

Air traffic nationwide has been snarled since a fire erupted in the basement telecommunications room of an air traffic control center outside Chicago early Friday. Things won’t get better anytime soon, and you can blame an air traffic control system that hasn’t changed in any meaningful way since the 1950s.

The problem started with a fire that authorities said was part of a suicide plot by an FAA contractor. Beyond canceling thousands of flights over the weekend and raising troubling questions about the security of these facilities, the incident calls into question the efficacy of an air traffic system that manages 87,000 flights daily and won’t fully recover for another two weeks.

First, a quick lesson on air traffic control. In the course of a flight, an aircraft is guided by a series of air traffic controllers, each handling a specific portion of the flight. Take-off is run by the airport control tower. Once a plane reaches 3,000 feet or so, it’s passed off to one of 160 terminal radar control facilities (TRACON) nationwide that monitor airspace up to about 10,000 feet. Beyond that, aircraft are managed by one of 22 air route traffic control centers (ARTCC). These centers ensure aircraft are properly spaced and following their flight plans, tracking them using a national network of more than 400 ground-based radars.

Friday’s fire occurred at an air route traffic control center in the Chicago suburb of Aurora. After evacuating the facility, the FAA issued a ground stop—allowing any aircraft already en route to Chicago to complete the flight, but halting any Chicago-bound flights that had not taken off. It went through its contingency plan, transferring air traffic control to neighboring centers and establishing direct communication between all of the centers called upon to help out. By all accounts, the FAA did a top-notch job, and at no point was anyone in danger. That’s how the system is supposed to work, says retired air traffic controller Jim Swenberger: Efficiency is readily sacrificed for safety.

And make no mistake: Efficiency was sacrificed. The disruption to air traffic was serious, and immediate. The Aurora ARTCC is responsible for 91,000 square miles, an area that covers five states and hundreds of airports. On Friday, 66 percent of flights to and from O’Hare and Midway airports were canceled, according to FlightAware.com. That number dropped to 40 percent on Saturday and was still at 38 percent on Monday. All told, thousands of flights have been cancelled, creating headaches nationwide because O’Hare is a major hub and among the world’s busiest airports.

Our air traffic control system takes a lot of criticism because of its age, but it generally works—until it doesn’t. And when it goes down at a major hub like Chicago, or New York, or Atlanta, it creates a cascade of problems that underscore just how fragile things truly are. Technicians are busy replacing damaged equipment at the Aurora center, but despite what FAA Director Michael Huerta calls an “extraordinarily accelerated timeline,” the center won’t be operational until October 13. Huerta has called for a review of security procedures and the FAA’s contingency plans, but the slow pace of the resolution reveals the bigger problem: This is an old system, based on old technology.

An Aging System

The ground radar network dates back to the 1950s, when air traffic finally got busy enough that officials needed a new way to track aircraft on the move. Since then, the network has greatly expanded, and the radars have been upgraded, though small air traffic facilities didn’t upgrade from vacuum tube to solid state radar systems until the 2000s. But the basic technology is the same.

The FAA is quick to use this situation as an argument in favor of NextGen, its $37 billion project to modernize management of US airspace by 2030. A key component of the program is replacing ground based radars with satellite-based surveillance and navigation using automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) technology. Under the new system, planes will figure out their position using satellite and periodically broadcast it to stations on the ground. The change would allow planes to broadcast and receive more information.

Programs are underway to modernize the ARTCCs, allowing them to work with aircraft well beyond their geographical purview. Combined with the ADS-B network, Huerta says, “we will have the ability to configure any single facility to view any part of our nation’s airspace.” With that capability, after the Aurora ARTCC was shut down, “we would be able to have each of the neighboring en route centers reach into Chicago’s airspace and take control of all of the radios used to control aircraft there,” Huerta says. “We would have been able to rapidly establish ground-to-ground connections between these en route centers and the TRACONS that normally connect to Chicago center.” In other words, the NextGen systems promise more flexibility to work around a problem like this one, so safety could be maintained without giving up so much efficiency.

“Do we need to upgrade the equipment? Absolutely.”

That change has been a long time coming, and it’s been a troubled implementation. For the satellite-based system, the FAA has laid the necessary new ground infrastructure, but it hasn’t yet updated its systems to incorporate that data. Part of the problem is that for this to work, airlines need to cooperate and spend the money to equip their planes with the technology that allows them to be tracked. The shift from radar to satellite will be as significant as the move to the radar system in the 1950s, Swenberger says.

Cost overruns and delays aren’t helping: The program is now expected to cost $4.5 billion through 2035, $400 million more than originally anticipated, according to a recent report from the Office of the Inspector General. Fiscal fights in Congress haven’t helped: The FAA’s budget is pretty set through 2015, Huerta says, but it “remain[s] in a difficult situation when it comes to long term planning and budgeting.”

If the FAA ever fully implements these changes, says former air traffic controller Paul Fagras, it would have a more secure and efficient system. “NextGen will be a great thing if they can pull it off.” But the program is hugely expensive, has been imperfectly implemented so far, and is perennially subject to budget cuts handed down by Congress. And in the meantime, “everything still works,” Fagras says. Arson aside, the system still functions as it’s meant to.

“Do we need to upgrade the equipment? Absolutely,” Swenberger says. “Striving for more technology will only enhance safety.” The move from radars to satellite-based tracking will improve flight planning efficiency in normal circumstances and make emergencies easier to handle. But the need isn’t dire just yet. If a fire hit a different en route center tomorrow, we’d be able to handle it. “There are so many different ways that we can communicate and work airports on a temporary basis to get out of a crisis and ensure safety,” says Swenberger. Air traffic controllers can always fall back to the ways things were done in the 1950s, assigning each aircraft a zone and an altitude and not letting them move into a new area until another plane had reported it had cleared out. “It’s agonizingly slow.” But everyone’s safe.

7 Simple Ways to Make Every City Friendlier to Pedestrians

San Jose, California. The Tahoe Guy | CC BY­ND

San Jose is expected to grow faster than any city in the Bay Area in the next few decades. The local government is working to meet that demand with mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. To help it out, the non-profit San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) wrote a 67-page report looking at building and design techniques the city should encourage developers to use to better promote walkability—a fancy term that basically translates to pedestrian friendliness—and better use of mixed-use spaces.

For those who don’t have the time and inclination to read through dozens of pages of case studies and design advice aimed at policymakers and architects, SPUR has drilled the piece down to seven principles that make for better urban design.

It’s difficult to retrofit existing cities and suburbs if redevelopment projects don’t present an opportunity to change up the infrastructure, but small-scale interventions can make a difference. “There are ways to get better. You don’t have to go right from suburbia to Manhattan in one fell swoop,” says Benjamin Grant, an urban design program manager at SPUR who helped write the guidelines. “There are steps you can take to improve the walkability of the environment in modest ways that have a real impact on the ground.”

So here’s what cities should be doing to make public spaces healthier and more navigable for their two-legged residents.

1. Create fine-grained pedestrian circulation

A quarter mile walk across a gigantic big-box store parking lot may seem daunting, but if that walk is instead down a sidewalk lined with shops and cafes, it becomes a much nicer idea. It’s all about perception of distance. Cities should avoid taking up entire blocks with massive, impenetrable edifices, and partition streets into smaller chunks that feel easier to walk.

Sidewalk cafes help encourage pedestrian exploration. La Citta Vita | CC BY­ND

2. Orient buildings to streets

Rather than building a grocery store back from the sidewalk with a huge parking lot in front of it, the report suggests locating the main entrance right on the sidewalk, encouraging pedestrians to step in. Putting buildings on the street “creates a kind of coziness and sense of enclosure,” Grant says. “It’s a classic attribute of traditional, walkable cities where the streets are all lined with buildings.”

We humans tend not to feel comfortable in environments where we’re exposed on all sides, Grant says, a residual instinct to watch for predators. Enclosed spaces, like a traditional European town square, make for more comfortable environments.

Parking is located behind many businesses in Chattanooga, Tennessee, making storefronts inviting to pedestrians. Larry Miller | CC BY­ND

3. Organize uses to support public activity

The best cities have bustling centers where people want to spend time. Grant says it’s important to find a good balance between active spaces and retail outlets like an outdoor cafe or a grocery store, without setting aside too much square footage for selling stuff. “The world is full of empty ground-floor retail space,” he says. A gym, outdoor climbing wall, or community meeting space can do a lot more to bring an area to life.

Mission playground provides adults and children a place to meet in one of San Francisco’s densely populated neighborhoods. Jarret M | CC BY­ND

4. Place parking behind or below buildings

If you put a building behind a parking lot, the pedestrian feels like a second-class citizen. So the report strongly recommends putting parking lots underground or behind a building. “There is no bigger driver of form in a suburban environment than parking,” Grant says. How a developer treats where vehicles are stored (remember all those drivers become pedestrians when they step out of their cars) can do more for walkability than anything else.

A large underground parking lot can deliver a more vibrant and functional walking community—if it’s done right. Finding the right balance for parking across multiple use cases (commercial, office, residential) is tough to perfect. It also requires more money to build, and careful planning to ensure that entrances and exits for cars and pedestrians are logical and convenient.

A Lamborghini Gallardo parked below Hanwei Plaza in Beijing. Tim Wang | CC BY­ND

5. Address the human scale with building and landscape details

Buildings may loom over pedestrians, but effective signage and entrances can brings things back to the human scale. Grant says the Empire State Building is a good example of a massive structure that’s well designed for ground level pedestrians. No matter how high a building is, frontage with street trees and small-scale signage and entrances can make a huge difference.

The front of the Empire State Building in New York is scaled to be welcoming to pedestrians. Ben Sutherland | CC BY­ND

6. Provide clear, continuous pedestrian access

Pedestrians should have easy ways to move through plazas, parks, restricted-access delivery streets, and other places cars can’t go. Clear signage explaining how to navigate around a complex is important, especially for tourist-heavy areas.

Grand Place in Brussels Belgium maintains popularity with both tourists and locals by maintaining its self as a pedestrian friendly environment with plenty of cafes and shops. DT Design Photography | CC BY­ND

7. Build complete streets

“In the last 80 years,” Grant says, “we have stripped our streets of every function except the movement of vehicles.” Now, cities are looking to accommodate and encourage other uses. The premise is called complete streets: Urban development that focuses on all the functions a street can serve as a social and commercial space, as well as a way to get around for bikes, public transit, and personal vehicles. Including places for people to get a cup of coffee, read the newspaper, or have an outdoor meeting next to a fountain can go a long way toward enriching a neighborhood.

Many traditional Latin American cities demonstrate the idea of ‘complete streets’. Alameda de Leon in Oaxaca Mexico is an example of a place where cars are smoothly routed around a central shopping, meeting and eating zone. Oaxaca Profundo | CC BY­ND

More information on SPUR’s Design for Walkability project is available on their website and in the much longer Getting to Great Places urban design report released last year.

Home Page Photo: Angie Harms | CC BY­ND

FedEx’s New Electric Trucks Get a Boost From Diesel Turbines

Wrightspeed

FedEx runs such a massive operation—it uses more than 47,000 vehicles and nearly 700 aircraft to deliver about 4 million packages every day—that any systemic change it makes to cut down its carbon footprint can have major consequences. That’s why news that it’s using technology developed by a founder of Tesla Motors to make its trucks way more fuel efficient is so exciting, both for its investors and those who want the planet to breathe easy.

FedEx is working with Wrightspeed, the Silicon Valley-based company founded and run by Ian Wright, who helped create Tesla in 2003. Wright is still all about electric mobility, but his new company doesn’t make cars. It makes electric powertrains to be dropped into existing vehicles. And it’s sold 25 of them to FedEx for a pilot program.

The Wrightspeed conversion takes an existing conventional truck and replaces all the gas-powered parts that make it move. The engine, differential, and transmission are junked. An electric motor is matched to each drive wheel and a battery pack is thrown in to hold the electricity that powers them. The truck—now an electric vehicle—can be plugged in to charge the 39 kilowatt-hour battery, which holds enough juice to take the truck about 30 miles. Regenerative braking helps capture some extra power, but that’s still totally lousy for a vehicle that spends all day driving. So Wrightspeed added an extra ingredient: a diesel-powered turbine to generate electricity while on the road.

Wrightspeed converts trucks into EVs with onboard diesel generators. Wrightspeed

The turbine is an internal combustion engine, burning diesel fuel. But instead of using the power it creates to pump pistons, it generates electricity. As long as there’s diesel in the tank to power the turbine and create electricity, the truck can keep driving. When the tank is dry, it can be filled at a standard gas station (as long as it has a diesel pump). For the driver, very little changes except for a new instrument panel that shares data about battery charge and generation levels.

The system doesn’t eliminate the use of fossil fuels, but Wrightspeed says it can double the energy efficiency of FedEx’s fleet. That’s because the turbine system is especially well suited to delivery trucks. “If you think about a long-haul truck, cruising at 62 mph, that’s the sweet spot for the engine” in terms of efficiency, says Wright. FedEx trucks rarely cruise on the highway. They spend their days in stop-and-go traffic, where conventional engines are not at their best, constantly and inefficiently moving through gears. Wrightspeed’s turbine generator doesn’t change rev speeds, the way an engine does. It uses a consistent speed (or revolutions per minute, RPM) so it’s always operating at its peak efficiency point.

A more traditional plug-in electric hybrid like the Chevy Volt or new Mercedes S-Class can run solely on battery power for some distance before switching the combustion engine on, but the engine in those cars works harder when more horsepower is needed. In the Wrightspeed drivetrain, the gas-turbine engine generates a constant amount of energy with the engine running at a single speed. That enhances efficiency and reliability.

A year ago, FedEx purchased two Wrightspeed units as a trial. They were delivered in December last year. FedEx “just loaded it up, assigned a driver, and sent it out,” Wright says. On Christmas Eve in San Jose, CA one truck delivered packages for 14 hours straight. “Their expectations were very low,” Wright says, but they started “using it like a regular trucks straightaway.” The shipping company didn’t reply to a request for comment, but it’s clearly impressed by the new powertrains, since it’s placed an order for 25 more.

Wrightspeed is keeping mum on exactly what their retrofit kits cost, saying only the price is below $100,000. That’s about triple the cost of replacing an engine and transmission when those give out, but, Wright says, between the fuel savings and lower maintenance costs, its hybrid system pays for itself in just a few years.

The retrofitted trucks should be delivering packages by early next year, though Wright says that if FedEx or UPS decides to use its electric system on a big chunk of their fleet, “it’s going to be stressful for our little company.” There are worse problems to have.

Ferrari Cuts the Top Off of One of the Best Cars It’s Ever Made

The 458 Speciale A is the open-top sibling of the 458 Speciale coupe, a track-oriented version of the 458. Ferrari

The 458 Speciale A is the open-top sibling to the 458 Speciale coupe, a track-oriented version of the 458.

Ferrari

Production will be limited to 499 units, and we expect sales to be offered by invitation only. Ferrari

Production will be limited to 499, and we expect sales to be offered by invitation only.

Ferrari

The car is only available in yellow with blue and white racing stripes. Ferrari

The car is only available in yellow with blue and white racing stripes.

Ferrari

The interior is lined with Alcantara seats with yellow and blue accent stitching. Ferrari

The interior is lined with Alcantara seats with yellow and blue accent stitching.

Ferrari

The naturally-aspirated V8 produces 597 bhp and 398 pound-feet of torque. Ferrari

The naturally-aspirated V-8 produces 597 bhp and 398 lb.-ft of torque.

Ferrari

The aluminum top raises and lowers in 14 seconds and adds 110 pounds to the overall weight. Ferrari

The convertible top raises and lowers in 14 seconds and adds 110 pounds to the overall weight.

Ferrari

The interior carbon fiber is tinted blue to match the exterior racing stripe. Ferrari

The interior carbon fiber is tinted blue to match the exterior racing stripe.

Ferrari

With the 458 Speciale coupe priced at just under $300,000, we expect the Speciale A to sell for just a bit more, if you can find one. Ferrari

With the 458 Speciale coupe priced at just under $300,000, we expect the Speciale A to sell for just a bit more, if you can find one.

Ferrari

What do you do four years after setting the world on fire with one of the best mid-engine cars ever made? If you’re Ferrari, you crank up the power, cut off the top, and jack up the price.

Thus is born the 458 Speciale A. Ferrari says the “A” stands for “aperta,” Italian for “open.” We interpret it as short for “Aaaahhhhhhh!”, since that’s all you’ll be thinking as the sonic wonder of the 597-horsepower V8 engine floods directly into your ear canals without a pesky roof to get in the way.

Since Ferrari unveiled the original 458 in 2009, the car world has come to understand it as an exponential leap forward for the prancing horse. The 360 and 430 models that preceded it were logical advancements of the two-seat, mid-engine, high-performance template. The 458 took weight distribution, suspension, horsepower, and aerodynamics to a conclusion beyond our expectations. Racing wins at Le Mans and Daytona confirmed what we already knew: This is one of the greatest cars in the history of a company known for terrific machines. Ferrari even made a lust-worthy hybrid version for the environmentally conscious millionaires among us.

The Speciale A is a twist on the 458 Speciale, the spartan track-oriented coupe that Ferrari engineers tuned to shift more quickly and make 35 more horsepower than its civilian variant, while weighing 200 pounds less. The Speciale A’s aluminum drop-top roof, which raises and lowers in 14 seconds, adds 110 pounds, but it posts the same blazing zero-to-62 mph time of three seconds flat.

The 4.5-liter V8 produces 398 pound-feet of torque and is controlled by a twin-clutch, paddle-shift, seven-speed transmission. It’s the most powerful naturally aspirated engine Ferrari has ever put in a road car. With the 458’s replacement on the horizon and rumors of turbocharging swirling, it may also be the last.

Like the coupe version, the topless Speciale comes with embedded software called Side Slip Angle Control (SSC), which fiddles with traction control and the rear differential to help overly-enthusiastic amateurs finesse the car through hairy turns. Without a top, track day crowds will have a good shot at catching a very expensive toupee. That is, if they’re not distracted by the yellow race livery with blue and white racing stripes, or the blue-tinted carbon fiber dashboard.

Sadly, the age of the 458 is coming to a close, and Ferrari is preparing a successor that will likely use a turbocharged V6 engine instead of the naturally aspirated V8. That makes the Speciale A both a victory lap and a teary farewell (though those tears may be generated by joy). The official price hasn’t been revealed, but it’ll likely cost at least a bit more than $300,000 Speciale coupe.

Ferrari is only making 499 units of the Speciale A, few enough so that not every millionaire mopping up drool with wads of cash will be able to put one in his garage. As usual with this level vehicle, expect the offer of ownership to go out to established Ferrari customers only.