Aviation: Raising the Safety Margin

From Oklahoma City's Will Rogers Field one day last week, a giant Boeing roared into the air with 18 stubby antennae jutting from its fuselage. The jet that looks like a porcupine is the newest tool of the Federal Aviation Agency in its effort to check on the efficiency of the navigational aids on the nation's airways. Loaded with electronic equipment, the plane was off for its first check run at its home base, FAA's Aeronautical Center at Will Rogers Field. It will fly back and forth across the U.S., following a carefully plotted grid course, to check the strength and direction of ground-based signals, cover the entire network every 90 days.

The porcupine is not the only new plane joining the center's fleet. Soon it will have a Lockheed Electra, a Convair 880 and a Boeing 720. They will serve as flying classrooms to teach the FAA flight inspectors proper flying procedures in an effort to improve safety in the crowded air, where 11,000 planes are aloft at all times.

The new planes are all a part of a speeded-up program to put U.S. air-traffic control on a modern basis. After years of congressional neglect and feeble leadership in the Civil Aeronautics Board, the U.S. lagged so badly in airway control that the jet age has caught the nation dangerously unprepared. Until electronic devices are perfected to control the airways, the FAA must depend on humans to close the gap and to try to eliminate such tragedies as the collision over New York a fortnight ago (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS).

The Freezing Point. To the Aeronautical Center, FAA's chief training installation, come about 1,000 men each year for introductory training or refresher courses in installing and maintaining air navigational aids. The center is the only training school for air-traffic-control operators, currently runs 2,000 men a year through an eight-week cram course. After a brief introduction to basic operating procedures, the students are put to work controlling traffic on a scale model of Will Rogers airport laid out on a classroom floor. The instructors set up traffic problems with model airplanes, make them more complex as the students catch on, occasionally throw in a real crisis.

The atmosphere is startlingly real. Says Instructor Frank E. Tuckett, a veteran of 14 years of traffic-control experience: "We build up the pressure to such a point that the beginner freezes. You feel the presence of hundreds of people in the air and aircraft worth millions of dollars. You know it all depends on you. If you can't take the responsibility, you're out." About 20% of all beginners quit. Controllers never stop learning, must continually practice to be able to meet every emergency.

Air-traffic controllers are taught to use simple language; all use the same terms so pilots are not confused. Above all, they are never to get excited. "If a crash or emergency occurs," says the FAA manual, "you should not appear to be emotionally disturbed by it. The very act of continuing to use an efficient, competent and apparently unmoved voice will actually help you feel that way, too. It will instill confidence in others."