3 ms·
I was in the control tower of an international airport as recently as 4 years ago, and can confirm that at least some of the systems were still built on 1960's
by TrevorJj 11y ago
I was in the control tower of an international airport as recently as 4 years ago, and can confirm that at least some of the systems were still built on 1960's technology - the radar scopes were basically pre-CRT technology. On the other hand, for something as fault-intolerant as air traffic control there's a huge amount of value in reliable, well understood systems.
- twic 11y agoPre-CRT? You mean like John Logie-Baird type stuff? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_television
- omegaham 11y agoI worked in an ATC tower with the Marines, and we used the AN/FPN-63 as our precision approach radar. It came into existence around 1958, I believe. The scopes looked something like this, but even more primitive: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/PAR_Scope.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/PAR_Scop... It was maintained with duct tape, gummi bears, and black magic, as the suppliers for said parts had long, long since gone out of business.
- jweather 11y agoVector tube displays, most likely.