What if.... we employed enough ATC and support personnel instead of treating it like a business where the goal is to run on minimum necessary headcount?
this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026
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Yeah but you see they dared to think about unionizing 45 years ago so GET FUCKED!!!!
God, it's like you don't even care about maximizing profit at any cost at all.
They're just a bunch of money crackheads running the show. Their minds are beyond addled.
thats blatant socialism, gtfo.
That's not why there's a shortage of ATC
Its a huge reason.
I wonder if we could do some sort of virtual ADSB on the ground where it tracks anything on the field and squawks its location?
This would alert about incursions even if the object didn’t have a transponder.
Another factor in the crash was the fact that emergency vehicles at LaGuardia were not outfitted with a transponder as part of the airport's surface surveillance system, known as ASDE-X. The system is designed to prevent runway collisions by creating a display air traffic controllers can use to track the movement of every plane and vehicle in real time.
Right, but I’m saying if there was a computer vision system monitoring the runway cameras and transmitting ADSB signals the truck wouldn’t need a transponder. Another system would be broadcasting its position.
Cameras won’t work in bad weather when visibility is poor. The answer is to force every ground vehicle that shares any space with aircraft should have a transponder and the airfield should have a working ASDE system. Surely it’s a necessity at an airport of that size?
I love how adding safety with a passive system built on old technology gets interpreted as “we should replace ADSB and transponders are unnecessary”
But there is a system and it sounds like it works. It just wasn't in place. The problem is not a technical one.
What's the rate of failure on your CV system? How often is it going to decide a bird flying around is a car on the runway? How much will it cost to develop and implement when adsb already exists and works and is cheap? How much effort will it take to implement that could instead be spent making sure transponders are installed on ground vehicles?
I’m sure people had the same arguments against ADSB
That's not an argument in favour of your plan, nor an answer to any of the questions.
I conclude the plan is dumb.
Seems like a great idea, and also would be fairly easy to implement
Hell, a fairly rudimentary system could be built pretty quickly with the airports’ existing surveillance cameras, though I’d want LiDAR and some higher res cameras or even IR as well for low visibility conditions
That's... not free either. And even lidar will never be as accurate as a radio antenna letting the moving pieces tell you exactly their location and motion.
Again: Complimentjng not replacing.
Say a plane loses a landing gear on takeoff and it’s on the runway. Who’s gonna go strap a transponder to it?
Planes already have transponders.