Technical Architecture

• At the technical level, architecture provides the rules and standards needed to ensure that interrelated systems are built to be interoperable, portable, and maintainable (Hite 1). ATC does not uphold these standards for an efficient system, it cannot share information with alternate ATC stations, it is not portable, and above all it is not maintainable. The effective construction of a building consists of elaborate planning of levels and sublevels, making sure that every level is compatible with the next and that each has its needed resources such as water and electricity. The same idea stands for the construction of the ATC system's architecture and interoperability. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must make sure that every computer system in each ATC center is compatible with the next and that they have the ability to interchange their knowledge. This system is necessary for modernization and maintenance of ATC.
• During earlier reconstruction efforts for ATC a GAO review board found that the Federal Aviation Administration did not have a controlled modernization effort for air traffic control (Hite 3). The GAO review board found that the FAA lacks a complete systems architecture, or blueprint for modernization. The system architecture is supposed to guide the development and maintenance of all ATC systems throughout the United States. Without the system architecture there is no possible infrastructure for the information to pass from one air traffic controller to another. There is no set standard for programming languages in ATC, therefore the ATC systems are written in many varying computer dialects, which often excludes the idea of sharing Software among systems. The loss of information may seem a small issue but it is very important when concerning the position of a 225-passenger airliner and its propinquity to a heavily traveled airport such as LaGuardia, Los Angeles, or O'Hare.
  
  On February 1, 1991, a USAir 737 and a Skywest Metroliner crashed in midair in a reported turn-over zone, an area in which the control of one ATC controller is passed on to another. During the turnover the locations of the two airliners were lost and resulted in the death of 35 passengers.
  
  The absence of interoperable systems has permitted incompatibilities among the present ATC systems and will continue to do so in the future with new systems unless mandatory programs and systems are set forth to lead the technical growth of ATC.
  
  
• From the beginning the FAA doomed the ATC system when it did not assign and enforce a technological architecture. ATC has built its entire operation upon an unstable foundation. They began the system with unstable computers, an undefined computer language, and the incompatible ATC centers. ATC has continued to grow on top of this weak foundation despite its strongest efforts to upgrade its system. Because of system inconsistency and incompatibilities, future ATC system development and maintenance will be plagued with higher costs. Because of system incompatibilities the longer these ATC systems are left alone the higher their expense will be to repair because they will have to repair the operation completely from the beginning. This will definitely have a scarring effect on the purse of the FAA and the American people since it is a government operation. Because the FAA created its ATC systems without a technical architecture it relies upon vendor-unique environments, which is an a system created by the manufacturer based solely on the user (the certain ATC center) of the system, regardless if the equipment is interoperable with other stations, ATC will continue to spend time and money to overcome system incompatibilities (Hite 6). Despite ATC instabilities in system architecture, problems have also surfaced in the area of personnel.